A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL

Some months ago the Journal contained this editorial squib: “If baseball is really necessary, there are lots of men above draft age who could give us a pretty fair imitation of the real thing. We’d like to hear George Hope yell ‘Play Ball’ once more.

”This is a small world. Harry Carlson, once a baseball player well known in this city, now with the American expeditionary forces, picked up a copy of the Journal in No Man’s Land and read this paragraph. He enclosed the clipping to Mr. Hope together with a letter dated Aug. 22, “Somewhere on the sod in France.” He writes:

“Friend Hope,

“Just a few lines to you to find out if you are just as much alive as ever. I am so far and hope to be hereafter, but the way the big ones are sailing by, we can’t tell much about life. The boys have got Heinie on the run so things are coming our way. War is hell just the same. There will be a good time in the old town when it’s over with.

“I am with the boys on a big front. There were a lot of them for a few days, but the Yankee boys are a bunch of fighters when they start something. There is going to be something doing. Heinie can’t bluff them.

“I found the Jamestown paper in No Man’s Land and this was in it. Here is the clipping. I ran across Charles Detine and he said the old timers were back again.

“We’re having some nice weather here, but the nights are cold. What do you think of wearing overcoats in the month of July? We did. Sunny France, well I guess not. I’ve got enough of this country and I will go back to the U. S. A. just as soon as they know enough to quit fighting.

“So long; write.

“Harry G. Carlson
“Co., A 306th M. G. B.
“American Expeditionary Forces
“Via New York”