Letter dated March 17, 1918

Dear Mother-:

Your two letters telling about Papa’s being sick came yesterday and the day before and upset me more than I can tell you. It doesn’t seem right at all in the order of things that he, always so strong, active and healthy should for no obvious reason be suddenly made temporarily an invalid. Here it is rather different and a day does not pass but that some strong man out of a perfectly clear sky is struck down and becomes suddenly simply someone that has been this or that and may be this or that when once again in the future he is on his feet. However, to have anyone in a place of peace and quiet ill seems somehow not at all fair and I can’t reconcile myself to it at all.

I am still just where I landed at the front up in my airy perch plotting out and trying to figure just what the Bosche is doing. By now tho as you can well imagine I am quite fed up with it and not a little bored. Spring seems to have fairly arrived and the weather the last week has been beautiful, quite warm and with wonderfully clear sunshiny days. Therefore I am getting less keen about staying in one place from which I only get away for two hours every other day. My leave which is due now for over a month seems to have been put off indefinitely so perhaps I may instead of going to Cannes as I had planned in the spring, it will be summer at least before I get there which is a time not so pleasant from everything I can gather.

My French is steadily getting better, I think, for I am still eating and living with a crowd of French and enjoying it as much as anything. I have dreams in French now very nearly as much as I do in English which seems to be quite an advance.

You wrote me that the coin of the realm is rather scarce at home. If you need it I can manage to send you fifty or seventy-five dollars a month for I am in the situation as long as I am at the front of not being able to spend, try as I may, the amount I get. It is the first time in my life that such a thing has happened and is certainly a unique sensation. I also the other day or rather quite a while ago spent the money I was going to send Carroll for Xmas on insuring my life in his favor for $10,000 which should anything happen I figured would help out not a little, especially since he will probably be in college then if the war doesn’t last for twenty more years.

You weren’t right in your guess about my being at (Ed: place name illegible) but tell Mr. Fougerey that I already have had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with the wine of that country.

A perfectly great package of sox came from Nannoo the other day and they were certainly welcome as I had just about run out here, having been separated from my heavy baggage for over a month. Well, this all now
Good bye. With love, Paul