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Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Kirby D. Little Writes From and Of France, 1918

From the Hickory Daily Record, Nov. 13, 1918

Kirby Little Writes Letter From Front

The Arizona Record reproduced a letter written by Kirby D. Little to a friend at Globe, Arizona, telling of French customs and more particularly what Americans serving in that country note. Mr. Little was formerly assistant attorney of a city in Arizona and is the son of the late Judge Peter C. Little, a native of Catawba County, who has many relatives and friends in this county. Mr. Little volunteered for service at the outbreak of the war. His letter, in parts, is as follows:

We Americans are greeted at every turn almost with outstretched hands full of gratitude for the friendship and aid we are giving. But it is merely a debt that we have long owed and one which we are proud to repay. Still, that debt is a small part of the story of why we are here. Our toes were roughly stepped on and we shall be repaid a million times by the eternal peace democracy and eternal freedom which the world must have when our work is done, and when that work is finished we shall be more than proud to have helped those conditions to come to pass! The hand of friendship is forever sealed between France and America!

Now for just a few words of the odd things—this is really a land of wonder one sees, and which can be seen nowhere else. You would wonder at the trains; they are small, indeed, each coach having room for 32 passengers, it being divided into four compartments and room for eight people in each. There are three classes of coaches—first, second and third; tickets for those classes of travel are sold at as many different ticket windows. You ought to hear the sound made by the dainty little whistles on those engines; go down by the post office and hear the whistle on that peanut wagon and imagine a French train is coming! The wagons and carts have huge wheels and I more than one horse is used they are hitched one in front of the other. The streets are narrow and usually irregular. In the cities the buildings are the same height; I have seen a row of telephone poles placed along the front of these buildings. There are no frame structures in France, and every building is made with the idea of it lasting until eternity. Every structure, whether a place of business or a place of residence, has huge doors and locks, and always the windows are provided with wooden shutters. In the large cities there are street cars much like those we have in the states, and in the largest cities we find subways even better than those of New York. About the easiest place to be lost is in a large French city; the buildings and streets all look alike! 

The French do not drink water; it is the hardest place to find a drink of water when you are away from home. The French soldier always has his canteen filled with wine, while our canteen is filled with water, everyone to his taste, though!

In the barber shop one must wash his own face after a shave and if you happen to drop into a drug store you will notice a lot of little stools for the use of customers, and you must sit up and wait your turn, and usually there are a dozen ahead of you—one becomes very impatient.

Weight is figured in kilos, and if you happen to give up a little money, which happens frequently, it is always francs and not dollars. A kilo is 2.2 pounds and 5.65 francs is the same as our dollar. So if 10 kilos of cheese is worth 2.26 per kilo, how many pounds would you get for 40 cents? The 2.26 above is francs not dollars.

I have been through the Temple of Diana, walked under a Roman Arch and taken a bath in a Roman bath house patronized by Julius Caesar.

But why not talk for a while about the ladies of France? I am sure you will be interested! In the first place, there are lots of them. In the second place, they are very petite and pretty to say the least. Many of them are husbandless or sweetheartless, usually one or the other, and they all have a kindly feeling for the poor Americans so far away from home, hence they rather take it upon themselves to be our guardians, to give us comfort, cheer and friendly advice. And the nice part about it is that we usually know one is approaching, because we begin to look for the perfumery store where there is none and see a French girl coming around the corner instead. And most of them are wonderful artists, too—you can notice that the minute you look into their faces. To camouflage is both an art and science with them. But really they are very charming and captivating. Some of us have almost become French—I mean as far as speech is concerned. But personally I would rather talk French to an American girl than talk American to a French girl. Now have you been introduced to Miss France?

At a certain place where I have recently been I became acquainted with a number of British girls and French girls; in fact, I met an American girl who is an artist directly from New York. I stayed at the same hotel and ate at the same table with the highest class of French and discovered that most of them could speak English. However, I met just one French girl who spoke American; she had learned from an American girl friend. The others had learned from English people.

Our camp is rather a nice place, along one side runs a little stream with green trees and grass by it. And we are just about a 10-minute walk from a French town bearing the same name as our camp. It is needless to say our camp bears a French name. We can run down town and have a meal of eggs, steak, pork chops, salads, cheese, wine, and always comes the ‘small black’ coffee. To get breakfast away from the camp is impossible, as the French do not have breakfast, or rather they simply serve coffee, bread and jam.

Well, Charles, we are ready to come home, but we shall be back before so very long. But before we come our mission shall have been accomplished, and we hope the world will be better for our having come to France. But we will all come back singing: Goodbye France, we must leave you although it tickles us to go.

I did not start out to write a book, emphatically no! But I supposed you might like to know a few things about this land, and when one starts to talk about France it is a big job!

My address is as follows. I f you can’t get it all on one envelope, use two:
Kirby D. Little, Q.M.C., Railway Artillery Supply Depot, American Expeditionary Forces, U.S. Army P.O. No. 707, France

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