115.884
H Fielder

France
20/5/18

My Dearest Agda

Thanks awfully Kid for your nice letter of Apr 20^th That’s just a month ago. Quite a time coming. Isn’t it? I hope this will not take quite so long for I want you to know I am feeling fine, and I want to hear again from you and to know that you are quite fit. I never felt better in my life. and just now we are having the best time yet in this country. For several days consecutively we have had the most glorious sunshine, and it is quite warm. The boys all walk around in shirt sleeves and are getting all sun burnt. We are not in the line of course, but are supposed to be resting in a quite beautiful camp. The place is pretty enough to please any artist, so I’m sure it would please you. There are beautiful old trees of beech, oak, elm, sycamore and others whose names I do not know. They are all out in lovely young leaf and the ground is covered with nice new grass, and there are blue bells. lily-of-the-valley and other small wild flowers all over. Oh Kid its swell I wish I could take you around here one of these days, or better still one of these evenings when the old moon is up and shining all through the trees, and we would lie on the grass and I would tell you some of the old old stories that I did not whisper to you in Winnipeg

We are generally all through drill at 1 pm, and play ball, and have running and boxing and all kinds of sport in the afternoon and evenings. When your letter arrived I was just going out to ball and I stuck it down inside my shirt when I had read it, and I’m sure it must have acted as a charm, for we cleaned up on the other fellows and they were considered a much better line up. So I shall continue to carry it there till it is all worn out, and I bet we shall be able to beat any ball players that come along.

After a while I am going to take my blanket under the shade of some tree and lie down and read for a while and have a little sleep.

It’s great, and in the evening after a game, to have a put down it makes a fellow feel like a ten year old

It is just 3 am now. I wonder what you are doing. Wish I could pay you a flying visit. Gee, the time sure has slipped away. I think I shall be soon an old war worn veteran and entitled to a three months leave in Canada, and then Pet, we shall have to have that trip over again. I stayed at moose Jaw for about five months in 1913, but I like the hills and bush better than that flat country. I would have liked to be with you when you was writing that letter Kid. Would you have like me to have been there?

Oh! la! la! isn’t it all too bad. and Wild Fire, pet, guess the only way I can do, is to give you a course in riding by correspondence, as you must know how to ride. First, get an even feeling on the lines, hold them between the first and second fingers of the left hand and the horse’s neck six inches in front of the saddle, put your left foot in the stirrup, grasp the cantle of the saddle with the right hand, and on the command of ‘mount’, you vault lightly into the saddle throwing your right leg over the rear of the saddle, and the same time moving your right hand from the rear to the front and taking the weight, you ease gently into the saddle, putting your right foot into without looking down and dropping your right hand between the seam of the tressess. There you are Lesson I. If you havn’t a horse to practice on, Get lots of cushions, but no I guess you had better wait a while. Well, Pet I think I had better quit or perhaps you will think I have gone bugs or something writing this way. So bye-bye Girlie. Do write again soon. Lots of Love

Yours
Harry