Letter XIX

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October 14th, 1916.

DEAREST MOTHER:

I'm still all right and well. To-day I had the funniest experience of my life--got caught in a Hun curtain of fire and had to lie on my tummy for two hours in a trench with the shells bursting five yards from me--and never a scratch. You know how I used to wonder what I'd do under such circumstances. Well, I laughed. All I could think of was the sleek people walking down Fifth Avenue, and the equally sleek crowds taking tea at the Waldorf. It struck me as ludicrous that I, who had been one of them, should be lying there lunchless. For a little while I was slightly deaf with the concussions.

That poem keeps on going through my head,

    Oh, to come home once more, when the dusk is falling,
    To see the nursery lighted and the children's table spread;
    "Mother, mother, mother!" the eager voices calling,
    "The baby was so sleepy that he had to go to bed!"

Wouldn't it be good, instead of sitting in a Hun dug-out?

Yours lovingly,
CON.