Hartford Public High School - Classbook Yearbook (Hartford, CT)

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278 THE CHRONICLE for the welcome literature, and saying that usually they receive noth- ing but some old Ford jokes and a few Turkish cigarettes. Parts of his letters interested us greatly and we present them to you with the hope of their entertaining you. Modesty forbids our commenting on these letters: There is little enough to do for amusement in a held-hospital within the war zone, I mean to say that it is terribly boresome in the camp-that one becomes decidedly tired, don't you know, of sitting in the same chair, with'one's hands clasped, looking out of the same window at the same beastly bit of landscape. I shudder when I say the word 'landscape' and think of this desert waste compared with that Eden which is landscape with us at home. I shudder again as I look around this tent, at the loosely' hanging canvas, at the dust' and con- fusion on the floor-and when I sit and listen and strive to compre- hend the hopeless jargon of my tent-mates, once my enemieg in battle, but now, of a necessity, my companions in disability. Your American Red Cross holds no distinction among the wounded, but cares for all nationalities alikeg consequently in this little chamber I have as comrades three men, all of whom I should call foreigners, and who would probably term me the same. Such a con- dition would never do with us at home, you understand, but here in the field it is interesting and exciting to get into an argument with these men, even though you can't understand a word they say, nor they you. I have often wondered what the nations of Europe can see in their clumsy dialects, when compared with the beauties and ad- vantages of English. It is strange that they have not realized and adopted the convenience of our tongue. I think something should be done about it. VVell, anyway, we have had some intensely interesting discus- sions, in spite of our difficulty occasionally in ascertaining just what each one of us has been driving at. It does not come natural to a fight- ing man to sit and twiddle his thumbs in the very eyes of his enemy, even though both men are wounded 5 consequently one looks for an out- let of one's pristine enmities in the form of friendly word-battles. My companions enter into the spirit of the thing with the greatest fervor, we sit in opposite corners of the tent and attack each other with 'winged words' with as much vigor as I have seen used in some of the college debating societies at home. Each comes back in the rebuttal to tear down whatever points his opponent seems to have made-and

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