Sunday afternoon about 3:30

Dearest Mother and all:

Will drop you a letter this afternoon to let you know that I am well and enjoying myself over here in France. This forenoon Wood and I went down to the canal and washed our clothes. We took a bath yesterday afternoon. This afternoon Ralph Thomas and I have been our on a little hike. We walked about five miles. It is no snap wash over here in that cold water. The women here go down to the canals and do their washing. They have no wash boards here, they wash with a paddle. The women in the United States have snap washing besides the women of France. They sure can make the water fly with them old paddles. I was washing beside one the other day and she pretty near drowned me with her paddle.

It has been real warm here today. The last three days sure has been fine, but we did have about a week of rain. Had to wear raincoats all the time. Well I have got a new name now, all I hear is Mc. I never hear my first name at all. But I like that name all right. We have been playing cards quite a bit to pass away the time. We play 500 once in a while and a few other games. There are ten of us together now. I don’t have any of the same old tent pals that I had at Kearney. I have a fine bunch with me now.

Well I will tell you some of the prices over here. Coffee is worth 80cents a pound, cheese $1.00 a lb., butter $1.00 a lb., eggs $1 a doz. and sugar $21 a hundred, so you can see things are pretty high. I got the picture of the kids, they sure look fine, I look at them about a dozen times a day. The boys say they look like me. They thought they must be mine. I got seven letters Friday night, three of them were from home. I also got one from Rev. Nobbs.

No, I did not see Niagara Falls Dick must of went a different way than I did. I never saw him. You asked me in your letter how long we would be over here. It is pretty hard to say, and you can’t tell everything you know over here but we are in hopes the war will end before Christmas, but it is hard to tell. We have a good place where are. All that bothers me I don’t get any candy. They take all the candy to the front, but they are the boys that need it instead of us. You asked me if we had good food on our trip from Kearney to Camp Mills yes we had it fine, and had real good food on the boat, I ate more bread on that boat than I ever did in my life. I guess I ate about a loaf every meal. The bread was fresh all the time.

You can tell pa I think he is doing pretty good and I hope he keeps it up.

Pri. Willis McBroom