Somewheres in France, Feb. 2.

FRIEND AL: Well Al here I am only I can't tell you where its at because the censor rubs it out when you put down the name of a town and besides that even if I was to write out where we are at you wouldn't have no idear where its at because how you spell them hasn't nothing to do with their name if you tried to say it.

For inst. they's a town a little ways from us that when you say it its Lucy like a gal or something but when you come to spell it out its Loucey like something else.

Well Al any way this is where they have got us staying till we get called up to the front and I can't hardly wait till that comes off and some say it may be tomorrow and others say we are libel to be here a yr. Well I hope they are wrong because I would rather live in the trenches then one of these billets where they got us and between you and I Al its nothing more then a barn. Just think of a man like I Al thats been use to nothing only the best hotels in the big league and now they got me staying in a barn like I was a horse or something and I use to think I was cold when they had us sleeping with imaginery blankets out to Camp Grant but I would prespire if I was there now after this and when we get through here they can send us up to the north pole in our undershirt and we would half to keep moping the sweat off of our forehead and set under a electric fan to keep from sweltering.

Well they have got us pegged as horses all right not only because they give us a barn to live in but also from the way they sent us here from where we landed at in France and we made the trip in cattle cars and 1 of the boys says they must of got us mixed up with the calvary or something. It certainly was some experience to be rideing on one of these French trains for a man that went back and fourth to the different towns in the big league and back in a special Pullman and sometimes 2 of them so as we could all have lower births. Well we didn't have no births on the French R. R. and it wouldn't of done us no good to of had them because you wouldn't no sooner dose off when the engine would let off a screem that sounded like a woman that seen a snake and 1 of the boys says that on acct. of all the men being in the army they had women doing the men's work and judgeing by the noise they even had them whistleing for the crossings.

Well we finely got here any way and they signed us to our different billets and they's 20 of us in this one not counting a couple of pigs and god knows how many rats and a cow that mews all night. We haven't done nothing yet only look around but Monday we go to work out to the training grounds and they say we won't only half to march 12 miles through the mud and snow to get there. Mean time we set and look out the cracks onto Main St. and every little wile they's a Co. of pollutes marchs through or a train of motor Lauras takeing stuff up to the front or bringing guys back that didn't duck quick enough and to see these Frenchmens march you would think it was fun but when they have been at it a wile they will loose some of their pep.

Well its warmer in bed then setting here writeing so I will close for this time.

Your pal, JACK.

Somewheres in France, Feb. 4.

FRIEND AL: Well Al I am writeing this in the Y. M. C. A. hut where they try and keep it warm and all the boys that can crowd in spends most of their spare time here but we don't have much spare time at that because its always one thing another and I guess its just as well they keep us busy because every time they find out you are not doing nothing they begin vaxinating everybody.

They's enough noise in here so as a man can't hear yourself think let alone writeing a letter so if I make mistakes in spelling and etc. in this letter you will know why it is. They are singing the song now about the baby's prayer at twilight where the little girl is supposed to be praying for her daddy that's a soldier to take care of himself but if she was here now she would be praying for him to shut up his noise.

Well we was in the trenchs all day not the regular ones but the ones they got for us to train in them and they was a bunch of French officers trying to learn us how to do this in that and etc. and some of the time you could all most understand what they was trying to tell you and then it was stuff we learnt the first wk. out to Camp Grant and I suppose when they get so as they can speak a few words of English they will tell us we ought to stand up when we hear the Star spangle Banner. Well we was a pretty sight when we got back with the mud and slush and everything and by the time they get ready to call us into action they will half to page us in the morgue.

About every 2 or 3 miles today we would pass through a town where some of the rest of the boys has got their billets only they don't call it miles in France because that's to easy to say but instead of miles they call them kilometts. But any way from the number of jerk water burgs we went through you would think we was on the Monon and the towns all looks so much like the other that when one of the French soldiers gets a few days leave off they half to spend most of it looking for land marks so as they will know if they are where they live. And they couldn't even be sure if it was warm weather and their folks was standing out in front of the house because all the familys is just alike with the old Mr. and the Mrs. and pigs and a cow and a dog.

Well Al they say its pretty quite these days up to the front and the boys that's been around here a wile says you can hear the guns when they's something doing and the wind blows this way but we haven't heard no guns yet only our own out to where we have riffle practice but everybody says as soon as spring comes and the weather warms up the Germans is sure to start something. Well I don't care if they start anything or not just so the weather warms up and besides they won't never finish what they start unless they start going back home and they won't even finish that unless they show a whole lot more speed then they did comeing. They are just trying to throw a scare into somebody with a lot of junk about a big drive they are going to make but I have seen birds come up to hit in baseball Al that was going to drive it out of the park but their drive turned out to be a hump back liner to the pitcher. I remember once when Speaker come up with a couple men on and we was 2 runs ahead in the 9th. inning and he says to me "Well busher here is where I hit one a mile." Well Al he hit one a mile all right but it was 1/2 a mile up and the other 1/2 a mile down and that's the way it goes with them gabby guys and its the same way with the Germans and they talk all the time so as they will get thirsty and that's how they like to be.

Speaking about thirsty Al its different over here then at home because when a man in uniform wants a drink over here you don't half to hire no room in a hotel and put on your nightgown but you can get it here in your uniform only what they call beer here we would pore it on our wheat cakes at home and they got 2 kinds of wine red and white that you could climb outside of a bbl. of it without asking the head waiter to have them play the Rosery. But they say the champagne is O. K. and I am going to tackle it when I get a chance and you may think from that that I have got jack to throw away but over here Al is where they make the champagne and you can get a qt. of it for about a buck or 1/2 what you would pay for it in the U. S. and besides that the money they got here is a frank instead of a dollar and a frank isn't only worth about $.19 cents so a man can have a whole lot better time here and not cost him near as much.

And another place where the people in France has got it on the Americans and that is that when they write a letter here they don't half to pay nothing to mail it but when you write to me you have got to stick a 5 cent stamp on it but judgeing by the way you answer my letters the war will be all over before you half to break a dime. Of course I am just jokeing Al and I know why you don't write much because you haven't got nothing to write staying there in Bedford and you could take a post card and tell me all the news that happened in 10 yrs. and still have room enough yet to say Bertha sends kind regards.

But of course its different with a man like I because I am always where they is something big going on and first it was baseball and now its a bigger game yet you might say but whatever is going on big you can always count on me being in the mist of it and not buried alive in no Indiana X roads where they still think the first bounce is out. But of course I know it is not your fault that you haven't been around and seen more and it ain't every man that can get away from a small town and make a name for themself and I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky.

Well Al enough for this time and I will write soon again and I would like to hear from you even if you haven't nothing to say and don't forget to send me a Chi paper when you get a hold of one and I asked Florrie to send me one every day but asking her for favors is like rolling off a duck's back you might say and its first in one ear and then the other.

Your pal, JACK.

Somewheres in France, Feb. 7.

FRIEND AL: I suppose you have read articles in the papers about the war that's wrote over here by reporters and the way they do it is they find out something and then write it up and send it by cablegrams to their papers and then they print it and that's what you read in the papers.

Well Al they's a whole flock of these here reporters over here and I guess they's one for every big paper in the U. S. and they all wear bands around their sleeves with a C on them for civilian or something so as you can spot them comeing and keep your mouth shut. Well they have got their head quarters in one of the towns along the line but they ride all over the camp in automobiles and this evening I was outside of our billet and one of them come along and seen me and got out of his car and come up to me and asked if I wasn't Jack Keefe the White Sox pitcher. Well Al he writes for one of the Chi papers and of course he knows all about me and has seen me work. Well he asked me a lot of questions about this in that and I didn't give him no military secrets but he asked me how did I like the army game and etc.

I asked him if he was going to mention about me being here in the paper and he says the censors wouldn't stand for mentioning no names until you get killed because if they mentioned your name the Germans would know who all was here but after you are dead the Germans don't care if you had been here or not.

But he says he would put it in the paper that he was talking to a man that use to be a star pitcher on the White Sox and he says everybody would know who it was he was talking about because they wasn't such a slue of star pitchers in the army that it would take a civil service detective to find out who he meant.

So we talked along and finely he asked me was I going to write a book about the war and I said no and he says all right he would tell the paper that he had ran across a soldier that not only use to be a ball player but wasn't going to write a book and they would make a big story out of it.

So I said I wouldn't know how to go about it to write a book but when I went around the world with the 2 ball clubs that time I use to write some poultry once in a wile just for different occasions like where the boys was called on for a speech or something and they didn't know what to say so I would make up one of my poems and the people would go nuts over them.

So he said why didn't I tear off a few patriotic poems now and slip them to him and he would send them to his paper and they would print them and maybe if some of them was good enough somebody would set down and write a song to them and probably everybody would want to buy it and sing it like Over There and I would clean up a good peace of jack.

Well Al I told him I would see if I could think up something to write and of course I was just stalling him because a soldier has got something better to do than write songs and I will leave that to the birds that was gun shy and stayed home. But if you see in the Chi papers where one of the reporters was talking to a soldier that use to be a star pitcher in the American League or something you will know who they mean. He said he would drop by in a few days again and see if I had something wrote up for him but I will half to tell him I have been to busy to monkey with it.

As far as I can see they's enough songs all ready wrote up about the war so as everybody in the army and navy could have 1 a peace and still have a few left over for the boshs and that's a name we got up for the Germans Al and instead of calling them Germans we call them boshs on acct. of them being so full of bunk.

Well Al one of the burgs along the line is where Jonah Vark was born when she was alive. It seems like France was mixed up in another war along about a 100 yrs. ago and they was getting licked and Jonah was just a young gal but she dressed up in men's coat and pants and went up to the front and led the charges with a horse and she carried a white flag and the Dutchmens or whoever they was fighting against must of thought it was a flag of truants and any way they didn't fire at them and the French captured New Orleans and win the war. The Germans is trying to pull the same stuff on our boys now and lots of times they run up and holler Conrad like they was going to give up and when your back is turned they whang away at you but they won't pull none of that stuff on me and when one of them trys to Conrad me I will perculate them with a bayonet.

Well Al the boys is starting their choir practice and its good night and some times I wished I was a deef and dumb mute and couldn't hear nothing.

Your pal, JACK.

Somewheres in France, Feb. 9.

FRIEND AL: Well Al I didn't have nothing to do last night and I happened to think about that reporter and how he would be comeing along in a few days asking for that poultry.

I figured I might as well set down and write him up a couple verses because them fellows is hard up for articles to send their paper because in the first place we don't tell them nothing so they could write it up and when they write it the censors smeers out everything but the question marks and dots but of course they would leave them send poems because the Germans couldn't make head or tale out of them. So any way I set down and tore off 3 verses and he says they ought to be something about a gal in it so here is what I wrote:

Near a year ago today
Pres. Wilson of the U. S. A.
had something to say,
"Germany you better keep away
This is no time for play."
When it come time to go
America was not slow
Each one said good by to their girl so dear
And some of them has been over here
since last year.

I will come home when the war is over
Back to the U. S. A.
So don't worry little girlie
And now we are going to Berlin
And when we the Kaiser skin
and the war we will win
And make the Kaiser jump out of his skin.

The ones that stays at home
Can subscribe to the liberty loan
And some day we will come home
to the girles that's left alone
Old Kaiser Bill is up against it
For all are doing their bit.
Pres. Wilson says the stars and stripes
Will always fight for their rights.

That's what I tore off and when he comes around again I will have it for him and if you see it in the Chi papers you will know who wrote it up and maybe somebody will write a song to it but of course they can't sign my name to it unless I get killed or something but I guess at that they ain't so many soldiers over here that can turn out stuff like that but what my friends won't be pretty sure who wrote it.

But if something does happen to me I wished you would kind of keep your eyes pealed and if the song comes out try and see that Florrie gets some jack out of it and I haven't wrote nothing to her about it because she is like all other wifes and when somebodys else husband pulls something its O. K. but if their own husband does it he must of had a snoot full.

Well today was so rotten that they didn't make us go nowheres and I'll say its got to be pretty rotten when they do that and the meal they give us tonight wouldn't of bulged out a grandaddy long legs and I and my buddy Frank Carson was both hungry after we eat and I suppose you will wonder what do I mean by buddy. Well Al that's a name I got up for who ever you pal around with or bunk next to them and now everybody calls their pal their buddy. Well any way he says why didn't we go over to the Red X canteen resturent and buy ourself a feed so we went over and its a little shack where the Red X serves you a pretty good meal for 1 frank and that's about $.19 cents and they don't try and make no profits on it but just run them so as a man don't half to go along all the wile on what the army hands out to you.

Well they was 3 janes on the job over there and 2 of them would be safe anywheres you put them but the other one is Class A and her old woman must of been pie eyed when she left her come over here. Well Carson said she belonged to him because he had seen her before and besides I was a married man so I says all right go ahead and get her. Well Al it would be like Terre Haute going after George Sisler or somebody and the minute we blowed in she didn't have eyes for only me but I wasn't going to give her no encouragement because we were here to kill Germans and not ladys but I wished you could of seen the smile she give me. Well she's just as much a American as I or you but of course Carson had to be cute and try to pull some of his French on her so he says Bon soir Madam Moselle and that is the same like we would say good evening but when Carson pulled it I spoke up and said "If your bones is soir why don't you go and take the baths somewhere?" Pretending like I thought he meant his bones were sore. Well the little lady got it O. K. and pretty near laughed outright. You see Al when a person has got rhuematism they go and take the baths like down to Mudlavia so I meant if his bones was sore he better go somewheres like that. So the little lady tried to not laugh on acct. of me being a stranger but she couldn't hardly help from busting out and then I smiled at her back and after that Carson might as well of been mowing the lawn out in Nobody's Land. I felt kind of sorry the way things broke because here he is a man without no home ties and of course I have all ready got a wife but Miss Moselle didn't have no eyes for him and that's the way it goes but what can a man do and Carson seen how it was going and says to me right in front of her "Have you heard from your Mrs. since we been over?" And I didn't dast look up and see how she took it.

Well they set us up a pretty good feed and the little lady kept asking us questions like how long had we been here and what part of the U. S. we come from and etc. and finely Carson told her who I was and she popped her eyes out and says she use to go to the ball games once in a wile in N. Y. city with her old man and she didn't never think she would meet a big league pitcher and talk to them and she says she wondered if she ever seen me pitch. Well I guess if she had she would remember it specially in N. Y. because there was one club I always made them look like a fool and they wasn't the only club at that and I guess they's about 6 other clubs in the American League that if they had seen my name in the dead they wouldn't shed off enough tears to gum up the infield.

Well when we come out she asked us would we come again and we said yes but I guess its best for both she and I if I stay away but I said we would come again to be polite so she said au revoir and that's like you would say so long so I said au reservoir pretending like I didn't know the right way to say it but she seen I was just kidding and laughed and she is the kind of a gal that gets everything you pull and bright as a whip and her and I Would make a good team but of course they's no use talking about it the way I am tied up so even when I'm sick in tired of the regular rations I won't dast go over there for a feed because it couldn't do nothing only harm to the both of us and the best way to do with those kind of affairs is to cut it out before somebody gets hurt.

Well its time to hop into the feathers and I only wished it was feathers but feathers comes off a chicken or something and I guess these matteresses we got is made out to Gary or Indiana Harbor or somewheres.

Your pal, JACK.

Somewheres in France, Feb. 11.

FRIEND AL: Well Al they's several of the boys that won't need no motor Laura to carry their pay for the next couple mos. and if you was to mention champagne to them they would ask for a barrage. I was over to the Y. M. C. A. hut last night and when I come back I wished you could of seen my buddys and they was 2 of them that was still able to talk yet and they was haveing a argument because one of them wanted to pore some champagne in a dish so as the rats would get stewed and the other bird was trying to not let him because he said it always made them mean and they would go home and beat up their Mrs.

It seems like one of the boys had a birthday and his folks is well off and they had sent him some jack from the states to buy blankets and etc. with it and he thought it would be a sucker play to load up with bed close when spring was comeing so he loaded up with something else and some of the boys with him and for 50 or 60 franks over here you can get enough champagne to keep the dust layed all summer and of course some of the boys hadn't never tasted it before and they thought you could bathe in it like beer. They didn't pay no more tension to revelry this A. M. then if they was a corps and most of them was at that and out of the whole bunch of us they was only 7 that didn't get reported and the others got soaked 2 thirds of their pay and confined to their quarters and Capt. Seeley says if they was any more birthdays in his Co. we wouldn't wind the celebration up till sunrise and then it would be in front of a fireing squad. Well Al if the boys can't handle it no better then that they better leave it alone and just because its cheap that's no reason to try and get it all at once because the grapes will still be growing over here yet when all us birds takes our teeth off at night with our other close.

Well Al the reporter that asked me to write up the verses ain't been around since and probably he has went up to the front or somewheres and I am glad of it and I hope he forgets all about it because in the first place I am not one of the kind that is crazy to get in the papers and besides I am to busy to be monking with stuff like that. Yes they keep us on the jump all the wile and we are pretty well wore out when night comes around but a man wouldn't mind it if we was learning something but the way it is now its like as if we had graduated from college and then they sent us to kindegarden and outside of maybe a few skulls the whole regt. is ready right now to get up there in the trenches and show them something and I only wished we was going tomorrow but I guess some of the boys would like it to never go up there but would rather stay here in this burg and think they was haveing a good time kidding with the French gals and etc. but that's no business for a married man and even if I didn't have no family the French gals I seen so far wouldn't half to shew me away and I been hearing all my life what swell dressers they was but a scout for the Follys wouldn't waist no time in this burg.

But I'm sick in tired of the same thing day in and day out and here we been in France 2 wks. and all we done is a little riffle practice and stuff we had back home and get soping wet every day and no mail and I wouldn't wonder if Florrie and little Al had forgot all about me and if Secty. Daniels wired them that Jack Keefe had been killed they would say who and the hell is he.

So all and all they can't send us up to the front to quick and it seems like a shame that men like I should be held back just because they's a few birds in the regt. that can't put on a gas mask yet without triping themself up.

Your pal, JACK.

Somewheres in France, Feb. 13.

FRIEND AL: Well Al wait till you hear this and I bet you will pop your eyes out. I guess I all ready told you about Miss Moselle the little lady over to the Red X canteen. Well I was over there the day before yesterday and she wasn't around nowheres and I was glad of it because I didn't want to see her and just dropped in there to get something to eat and today I was in there again and this time she was there and she smiled when she seen me and come up and begin talking and she asked me how I liked it and I said I would like it a whole lot better if we was in the fighting and she asked me if I didn't like this town and I said well no I wasn't nuts about it and she said she didn't think I was very complementary so then I seen she wanted to get personal.

Well Al she knows I am a married man because Carson just as good as told her so I didn't see no harm in kidding her along a wile so I give her a smile and said well you know the whole town ain't like you and she blushed up and says "Well I didn't expect nothing like that from a great baseball pitcher" so you see Al she had been makeing inquirys about me. So I said "Well they was only one pitcher I ever heard of that couldn't talk and that was Dummy Taylor but at that they's a whole lot of them that if they couldn't say my arm's sore they might as well be tongue tied." But I told her I wasn't one of those kind and I guest when it came to talking I could give as good as I sent and she asked me was I a college man and I kidded her along and said yes I went to Harvard and she said what year so I told her I was there 2 different yrs. and we talked along about this in that and I happened to have them verses in my pocket that I wrote up and they dropped out when I was after my pocket book and she acted like she wanted to know what the writeing was so I showed them to her.

Well Al I wished you could of seen how supprised she was when she read them and she says "So you are a poet." So I said "Yes I am a poet and don't know it" so that made her laugh and I told her about the reporter asking me to write some poems and then she asked me if she could keep a hold of those ones till she made out a copy of them to keep for herself and I said "You can keep that copy and pretend like I was thinking of you when I wrote them." Well Al I wished you could of seen her then and she couldn't say nothing at first but finely she says tomorrow was valentine day and the verses would do for a valentine so just jokeing I asked her if she wouldn't rather have a comical valentine and she says those ones would do O. K. so then I told her I would write her a real valentine for herself but I might maybe not get it ready in time to give her tomorrow and she says she realized it took time and any time would do.

Well of course I am not going to write up nothing for her and after this I will keep away from the canteen because it isn't right to leave her see to much of me even if she does know I am married but if I do write her something I will make it comical and no mushy stuff in it. But it does seem like fate or something that the harder I try and not get mixed up in a flirtation I can't turn around you might say but what they's some gal poping up on my trail and if it was anybody else only Miss Moselle I wouldn't mind but she is a darb and I wouldn't do nothing to hurt her for the world but they can't nobody say this is my fault.

Well Al I pretty near forgot to tell you that the boys is putting on a entertainment over to the Y. M. C. A. Saturday night and they will be singing and gags and etc. and they asked me would I give them a little talk on baseball and I said no at first but they begged me and finely I give my consent but you know how I hate makeing speeches and etc. but a man don't hardly feel like refuseing when they want me so bad so I am going to give them a little talk on my experiences and make it comical and I will tell you about the entertainment when its over.

Your pal, JACK.

Somewheres in France, Feb. 15.

FRIEND AL: Well Al I just been over to the canteen and I give the little lady the valentine I promised to write up for her and I wasn't going to write it up only I happened to remember that I promised so I wrote something up and I was going to make it comical but I figured that would disappoint her on acct. of the way she feels towards me so here is what I wrote up.

To Miss Moselle

(Private)

A soldier don't have much time
To set down and write up a valentine
but please bear in mind
That I think about you many a time
And I wished I could call you mine
And I hope they will come a time
When I will have more time
And then everything will be fine
And if you will be my valentine
I will try and show you a good time.

Well after I had wrote it I thought I better have it fixed up like a valentine and they's one of the boys in our Co. named Stoops that use to be a artist so I had him draw me a couple of hearts with a bow and arrow sticking through them and a few flowers on a peace of card board and I coppied off the valentine on the card in printing and stuck it in a envelope and took it over to her and I didn't wait for her to open it up and look at it and I just says here is that valentine I promised you and its 1 day late and she blushed up and couldn't say nothing and I come away. Well Al she has read it by this time and I hope she don't take nothing I said serious but of course she knows I am a married man and she can read between the lines and see where I am trying to let her down easy and telling her to not expect no more tensions from me and its just like saying good by to her in a way only not as rough as comeing right out and saying it. But I won't see her no more and its all over before it begun you might say.

Well we passed some German prisoners today and believe me we give them a ride. Everybody called them Heinie and Fritz and I seen one of them giveing me a look like he was wondring if all the U. S. soldiers was big stroppers like I but I stuck out my tongue at him and said "What do you think you are looking at you big pretzel" and he didn't dast say nothing back. Well they was a fine looking gang and they's been a lot of storys going the rounds about no soap in Germany. Well Al its all true.

Well I finely got a letter from Florrie that is if you could call it a letter and to read it you wouldn't never guess that she had a husband over here in France and maybe never see him again but you would think I had went across the st. to get a bottle of ketchup and all as she said about little Al was that he needed a new pair of shoes and they's about as much news in that as if she said he woke up in the night. And the rest of the letter was about how good she was doing in the beauty parlor and for me not to worry about her because she was O. K. only for a callous on her heel and I suppose she will go to the hospital with it and here I am with so many of them that if they was worth a frank a peace I could pay the Kaiser's gas bill. And she never asked me did I need anything or how was I getting along. And she enclosed a snapshot of herself in one of these here war bride outfits and she looks so good in it that I bet she goes to church every Sunday and asks god to prolongate the war.

Your pal, JACK.

Somewheres in France, Feb. 16.

FRIEND AL: Well Al they's a certain bird in this camp that if I ever find out who he is they won't need no tonnages to carry him back when the war's over. Let me tell you what come off tonight and what was pulled off on the little lady and I and if you read about me getting in front of the court marshall for murder you will know how it come off.

I guess I all ready told you about the show that was comeing off tonight and they asked me to make a little talk on baseball. Well they was as many there as could crowd in and the band played and they was singing and gags and storys and etc. and they didn't call on me till pretty near the last. Well Al you ought to of heard the crowd when I got up there and it sounded like old times to have them all cheering and clapping and I stepped to the front of the platform and give them a bow and it was the first time I was ever on the stage but I wasn't scared only at first.

Well I had wrote out what I was going to say and learnt the most of it by heart and here is what I give them only I won't give you only part of it because it run pretty long.

"Gentlemen and friends. I am no speech maker and I guess if I had to make speeches for a liveing I am afraid I couldn't do it but the boys is anxious I should say a few words about baseball and I didn't want to disappoint them. They may be some of you boys that has not followed the great American game very close and maybe don't know who Jack Keefe is. Well gentlemen I was boughten from Terre Haute in the Central League by that grand old Roman Charley Comiskey owner of the Chicago White Sox in 1913 and I been in the big league ever since except one year I was with Frisco and I stood that league on their head and Mr. Comiskey called me back and I was still starring with the Chicago White Sox when Uncle Sam sent out the call for men and I quit the great American game to enlist in the greatest game of all the game we are playing against the Kaiser and we will win this game like I have win many a game of baseball because I was to fast for them and used my brains and it will be the same with the Kaiser and America will fight to the drop of the hat and make the world safe for democracy."

Well Al I had to stop 2 or 3 minutes while they give me a hand and they clapped and hollered at pretty near everything I said. So I said "This war reminds me a good deal like a incident that happened once when I was pitching against the Detroit club. No doubt you gentlemen and officers has heard of the famous Hughey Jennings and his eeyah and on the Detroit club is also the famous Tyrus Cobb the Georgia Peach as he is called and I want to pay him a tribute right here and say he is one of the best ball players in the American League and a great hitter if you don't pitch just right to him. One time we was in Detroit for a serious of games and we had loose the first two games do to bad pitching and the first game Eddie Cicotte didn't have nothing and the second game Faber was in the same boat so on this morning I refer to Manager Rowland come up to me in the lobby of the Tuller hotel and said how do you feel Jack and I said O. K. Clarence why do you ask? And he said well we have loose 2 games here and we have got to grab this one this P. M. and if you feel O. K. I will work you because I know you have got them licked as soon as you walk out there. So I said all right Clarence you can rely on me. And that P. M. I give them 3 hits and shut them out and Cobb come up in the ninth innings with two men on bases and two men out and Ray Schalk our catcher signed me for a curve ball but I shook my head and give him my floater and the mighty Cobb hit that ball on a line to our right fielder Eddie Murphy and the game was over.

"This war is a good deal like baseball gentlemen because it is stratejy that wins and no matter how many soldiers a gen. has got he won't get nowheres without he uses his brains and its the same in baseball and the boys that stays in the big league is the boys that can think and when this war is over I hope to go back and begin where I left off and win a pennant for Charley Comiskey the old Roman in the American League."

Well Al they was a regular storm when I got through and I bowed and give them a smile and started off of the platform but a sargent named Avery from our Co. stopped me and set me down in a chair and says I was to wait a minute and I thought of course they was going to give me a cup or something though I didn't expect nothing of the kind but I hadn't no sooner set down when Sargent Avery stepped up to the front of the platform and says "Gentlemen I want to say to you that Private Jack Keefe the great stratejest is not only a great pitcher and a great speech maker but he is also a great poet and if you don't believe me I will read you this beautiful valentine that he wrote to a certain lady that we all admire and who was in the Red X canteen up till today when she went back to Paris to resume other dutys."

Well before I could make a move he read that crazy valentine and of course they wasn't a word in it that I was serious when I wrote it and it was all a joke with me only not exactly a joke neither because I was really trying to let the little lady down easy and tell her good by between the lines without being rough with it. But of course these boobs pretended like they thought I meant it all and was love sick or something and they hollered like a bunch of Indians and clapped and razed he--ll.

Well Al I didn't get a chance to see Sargent Avery after it was over because he blowed right out but I will see him tomorrow and I will find out from him who stole that poem from Miss Moselle and I wouldn't be supprised if the reason she blowed to Paris was on acct. of missing the poem and figureing some big bum had stole it off her and they would find out her secret and make things misable for her and the chances is that's why she blowed. Well wait till I find out who done it and they will be one less snake in this regt. and the sooner you weed those kind of birds out of the army you will get somewheres and if you don't you won't.

But the poor little lady Al I can't help from feeling sorry for her and I only wished I could go to Paris and find her and tell her to not worry though of course its best if she don't see me again but I'm sorry it had to come off this way.

Your pal, JACK.

Somewheres in France, Feb. 18.

FRIEND AL: Well Al this may be the last letter you will ever get from me because I am waiting now to find out what they are going to do with me and I will explain what I mean.

Yesterday A. M. I seen Sargent Avery and I asked him if I could talk to him a minute and he says yes and I said I wanted to find out from him who stole that valentine from Miss Moselle. So he says "Who is Miss Moselle?" So I said "Why that little lady in the canteen that's blowed to Paris." So he says "Well that little lady's name isn't Miss Moselle but her name is Ruth Palmer and she is the daughter of one of the richest birds in N. Y. city and they wasn't nobody stole no valentine from her because she give the valentine to me before she left." So I said "What do you mean she give it to you?" So he says "I mean she give it to me and when she give it to me she said us birds was in the same Co. with a poet and didn't know it and she thought it was about time we was finding it out. So she laughed and give me the valentine and that's the whole story."

Well Al I had a 20 frank note on me and I asked Sargent Avery if he wouldn't like some champagne and he said no he wouldn't. But that didn't stop me Al and I got all I could hold onto and then some and I snuck in last night after lights out and I don't know if anybody was wise or not but if they are its libel to go hard with me and Capt. Seeley said something about the fireing squad for the next bird that cut loose.

Well I reported sick this A. M. and they could tell to look at me that it wasn't no stall so I'm here and the rest of the boys is gone and I am waiting for them to summons me before the court marshall. But listen Al if they do like Capt. Seeley said you can bet that before they get me I will get some of these birds that's been calling me Private Valentine ever since Saturday night.

Your pal, JACK.