Saturday 10.30 AM [February 1916]
Dear Cath:
It is just about 1 hour since we had our second installment of germs shot into us and judging from the way I feel a present I guess I will pull through this time without seeking my little cot.
They say that a person only gets sick once as a rule and I certainly had my picnic last week. I didn't feel any "evil effects" until about an hour & a half afterwards, the first time and then all of a sudden I began to feel mighty queer so I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and went to bed. And say! talk about being sick! � I was never so sick in my life. I had a splitting headache, cold chills, fever & everything else and it lasted �till about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Then all of a sudden I realized that I felt better & got up and went for a walk and after that I felt just as good as ever. It's funny but the cure was just as sudden as the attack. I noticed by the paper that none of the men fainted when the inoculation took place but I know for a fact that there were a whole lot. From what I hear Lawrence was one of them. He says he didn't faint although he couldn't see and didn't know what was going on around him, but one of the boys told me he helped carry him out into the air. I didn't see Lawrence but I saw a bunch of others lying around and a sicker looking group you never set eyes on. I think there were fewer casualties today however.
My cousins invited the two of us to a sleighload party last night - you know we have dandy sleighing here - and we certainly had a high old time. There were about twenty in all and we were singing and yelling & blowing tin horns all the time, even when passing along some of the main streets of the city. But just the same a load like that here can't compare with a load got up in the old town.
Say Cath I wish you could have been here this week to see Henry Lauder's famous play "The Nicht Before." It is being put on at the Grand and as Lawrence was invited out to some skating party or something of that nature Tuesday night, I went down to see this play. The players are all Scotch and they talk quite Scotchy but I managed to understand what was said all right. I never heard anything that could touch it I'm sure. One of the characters, Mrs. Twaddles, was perfectly killing; she kept the whole house in hysterics all evening. And then they had a sword dance and two or three reels. It was certainly great.
And so you have got them at last. Well I am surprised after they way you were talking when I was home on leave. You seemed quite confident then. But I hope by the time you get this scrawl you will be completely recovered and have free use of your powers of speech. I wish I had a snap of you with your face "all swelled up". But just the same I'm mighty glad I didn't postpone my trip for another week.
Say, that snap you sent me wasn't too bad was it? I wish to goodness Ine would hurry up and get that film of mine developed for I want to see what the exposures on it are like. Our whole battn. had its picture tooken by platoons this week and the pictures are to be printed in the Sunday World I understand so if anyone in the old [burg?] takes the Sunday World they will likely see my ugly visage along with 50 others of no. 13 platoon D Company 134th Bt'n.
The 124th had their pictures in last month. Say, what do you think - it is rumored throught the regiment that we are to go away up to Valcartier to train this summer. Of course I was delighted! to hear but I hardly believe it. I don't believe the C.O. himself knows where we will go yet but it seems to be taken for granted that we are not to go to Niagara as the other battalions have done. Well anyway that's all the more reason why I should ask for leave at Easter.
Have you seen Violet lately. I suppose she will be mad now but do you know I really forgot all about her and the card I was supposed to send her as soon as I got back. It just struck me the other day and I didn't have a card handy at the moment and as a result it slipped my mind again & I haven't got it since. I don't know what I'll put on the card when I do get one because anything I say will only make things worse. I guess I'll just have to put down "126 Robert St., Toronto" and let it go at that.
Well, really, I'll have to cut this thing short! for its nearly 12 o'clock. Just think - I've been sitting here scribbling away for an hour & one quarter (wasted energy, eh what ! considering all I've put down) but there it's over two hours since I underwent that wonderful operation and I guess if I was going to get sick I'd be sick before this, so I may rest at ease from this time forth until next Saturday.
Best regards to all the folks,
Leslie.
