The Real Dope

s in Fran

t 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

you say it its Lucy like a gal or something but when y

e 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 sle

xperience 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

onday 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 t

n setting here writeing so

pal,

s in Fran

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 gues

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

d 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 s

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

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 lin

t 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

tick 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

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 y

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 da

pal,

s in Fran

by reporters and the way they do it is they find out something and then write it up and send

y 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 th

't stand for mentioning no names until you get killed because if they mentioned your name the Germans

he White Sox and he says everybody would know who it was he was talking about because they wasn't such a

o and he says all right he would tell the paper that he had ran across a soldier that not only u

time I use to write some poultry once in a wile just for different occasions like where the boys was called on for a spee

and they would print them and maybe if some of them was good enough somebody would set down and write a song to th

hat 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

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 th

e 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 pul

e and its good night and some times I wished I w

pal,

s in Fran

and I happened to think about that reporter and how he wou

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

year ag

son of th

ething

you bette

no time

come t

a was

good by to the

them has b

last

home when th

o the

worry lit

are going

we the Ka

war we

Kaiser jump o

that stay

be to the l

ay we will

les that's

Bill is u

re doing

says the star

fight for

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 gue

ee that Florrie gets some jack out of it and I haven't wrote nothing to her about it because she is like all other wife

ose 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 fe

ve 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

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. beca

ding 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 w

ers but feathers comes off a chicken or something and I guess these m

pal,

in France

ver 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

nd 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 an

ell 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

e 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

e a shame that men like I should be held back just because they's a few bir

pal,

in France

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 a

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

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 valent

ite 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 t

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 hard

pal,

in France

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

ss Mo

iva

don't have

and write up

ase bea

k about you

d I could c

they will

ill have

verything

will be m

nd show you

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

e 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" an

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 t

pal,

in France

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

d 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

e most of it by heart and here is what I give them only I

men 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 cal

rs 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 go

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 wh

ve 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 pitche

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

prised 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'

wished I could go to Paris and find her and tell her to not worry though of cou

pal,

in France

er get from me because I am waiting now to find out what t

ris." 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 y

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

s 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 ca

pal,