Treat em Rough | Page 7

Ring Lardner
this it is Al. Next Saturday they are going to let some of the boys go home on leave and I asked Corporal Daly to fix it up for me to go and he says he didn't know if he could or not because most of the ones that's going is men that has been here a mo. or more but on acct. of me haveing been with the White Sox they fixed it so as I could go and the world serious opens up in Chi Saturday and I won't get away from here till Saturday noon so I can't get there for the first game but I will see the Sunday game and won't Gleason and them pop their eyes out when I go down to the bench with my cocky suit on and shake hands with them and I bet Rowland will wish I was wearing the White Sox uniform instead of Uncle Sam's uniform.
Well Al I can't hardly wait to get home and see Florrie and little Al and of course I will see them Saturday night and I will take them to the game Sunday and leave for back here after the game because a man has got to be back in camp at 11 Sunday night and the funny part is that Florrie was going to bring little Al and come and see me next Sunday but now I am going to see her and I have wrote her to not come.
Well I am feeling to good to go to bed but that is where I ought to be Al because I wasn't never so tired in my life because they hung a new one on us this P.M. Instead of giveing us upseting exercises from a quarter to 4 till a quarter after they made us all run 20 minutes without stopping and they says it was to improve our wind. Well before we was half through I didn't have no wind to improve and I suppose some day they will pull all our teeth so as we can chew better. At that I would of been O.K. only my feet got to hurting and now I can't hardly walk and all because the shoes they give you are about 6 sizes to small and they keep lectureing us about feet hygeine but how is a man going to keep your feet O.K. when they make you wear shoes that Houdini couldn't get in or out of them.
But listen Al the news about going to Chi isn't the only peace of good news I got today because I also found out that this bird that Shorty called Tom the Trigger isn't no gun man at all and this here Nick the Blade won't do nothing to me because he is scared of the officers so I won't have to lay awake no more nights worring but I didn't find it out till today and here is how it come off.
This A.M. I went to sleep right at breakfast and couldn't keep my eyes open so Corporal Daly come up to me afterwards and asked me what was the matter so I told him I was to nervous to sleep nights on acct. of a crazy man bunking next to me and any minute he might take a notion and shoot me full of holes. I didn't say nothing about Nick the Blade on the other side of me because he was standing where he could hear us. So Corporal Daly asked me who I was talking about and I told him and he laughed and says that if I waited for Castle which is this other bird's name to start shooting I would probably die of old age or something because he is one of these objecters that don't beleive in war and he told them about it the first day we got here and says he objected to being a soldier. So Capt. Nash asked him if he would object to unloading a few cars of coal and that is what he has been doing up and till last Friday and then he begun objecting to a shovel and he says he would like to join the rest of us and see what it was like and maybe he would loose his objections. So now they are giveing him a week to make up his mind what he is going to do and he is talking it over all the while with the Lord and if the Lord tells him its O.K. to kill people why well and good but he won't practice on us because in the first place he hasn't no gun and if he had one he wouldn't know if it was to shoot with or stir your coffee.
So
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 36
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.