April 4th, 18

Dear Mother,

Just a few lines tonight. After walking several miles I found a writing pad. Today has been wet and tonight I am a rather muddy specimen of a soldier altho' over here one feels just as good in rainy weather as in fine. It's the same routine day after day. Today I had a fatigue job around the lines and this afternoon had a bath. Here we are paraded to the bath houses at regular intervals where we have an opportunity to wash up and get a clean outfit.

Yesterday we received our first pay in France - twenty five francs and since then there has been a great run on the canteen where chocolate bars and Players are general favorites. I am, for once, tonight sick of chocolate.

I am getting the Sat. Evening Post. Are you sending it? The first copy came yesterday and it was just the thing for here one misses reading. I was getting real hungry for a read and the Post just filled the bill exactly. If you are sending it you might have my address changed. I am going to look up Fred C. some of these days as I think he must be around here.

How is it I never get any letters from you.[?] I haven't had a letter from home since early in February. They must be going astray in some manner.

I started this letter last night and will continue now that I have finished my mid-day meal. Today is another wet day, drizzly rain all forenoon. We have all been sitting around the hut reading and playing cards. Good reading is worth something here. Some of the fellows went out on a working party about ten o'clock. They will have a muddy job trench digging today.

I have been trying to develop enough energy this forenoon to do some washing but in this life one gets eternally lazy and I think it'll end by my continuing to wear the same old stuff. I got a clean shirt yesterday.

Things are quiet around here today. The wet weather, I suppose, is the reason. One misses the daily War News, and there are so many rumors continually going around that if a person believed them all his head would be in a whirl in no time.

Well, I'll close for this time. Hope you are all well. With love from - Frank