You can imagine how trying and unseasonable the weather is when I
tell you that I not only had a fire yesterday, but that I went to bed with
a hotwater bottle. Imagine it! I have only been able to eat out-of-doors
once so far.
This is not a letter--just a line, lest you worry if you do not hear that I
am well. I am too anxiously watching that see-saw at Verdun, with the
German army only four miles from the city, at the end of the fourth
month, to talk about myself, and in no position to write about things
which you know. One gets dumb, though not hopeless. To add to our
anxieties the crops are not going to be good. It was continually wet at
planting time, and so cold, and there has been so little sun that
potatoes are rotting in the fields already, and the harvest will be
meagre. The grain, especially that planted last fall, is fairly good, but,
as I told you, after the tempest we had, there is to be no fruit. When I
say none, I absolutely mean none. I have not one cherry. Louise
counted six prunes on my eight trees, and I have just four pears and
not a single apple. Père's big orchard is in the same condition. In
addition, owing to the terrible dampness,--the ground is wet all the
time,--the slugs eat up all the salad, spoil all the strawberries, and
chew off every young green thing that puts its head above the
ground, and that in spite of very hard work on my part. Every morning
early, and every afternoon, at sundown, I put in an hour's hard work,--
hard, disgusting work,--picking them up with the tongs and dropping
them into boiling water. So you see every kind of war is going on at
the same time. Where is the good of wishing a bad harvest on
Germany, when we get it ourselves at the same time? However, I
suppose that you in the States can help us out, and England has jolly
well fixed it so that no one can easily help Germany out.