France (Arleix)
June 3, 1917

Dear old Keith:

I should have written before old sport but here goes anyway: At this village you can actually buy lettuce, radishes, onion and young turnips. Therefore Doug and I - or at least mostly Dug. brought a couple of heads of lettuce, four bundles of onions and two bunches of radishes and ate and ate until our bally safety valves almost burst. Oh yes, we found a fat french woman shaped like Mrs. Albrighton and by calling her "mademoselle" which you call unmarried ladies, we got a couple of boiled eggs also.

I saw Paul Harmon from Kamloops a couple of days ago as his regiment marched by.

Thanks for the Johnny - jump-ups they made me feel pretty homesick but cuss that I'll try to be home in time to see the next crop. I don't believe I could chin myself five times now. - ahem - you see old top it is the weight of my bally moustache, the wretched bit of fungus actually boasts of at least twenty hairs. Dug. send you a couple of blows to the plexus but says he is glad you aren't in a position to return them. He has just looked at the photo where Mom, Helen, you and I all put on bonnets and were taken in the back yard, 'member?

By gum it gives me a pain to think of the number of stray cartridges lying around here and to know there is no way of sending them home. Just fancy, 7 cents a cartridge in Kamloops when there are countless thousands lying around which might never be collected to-gether. I'll bet it is jake around the hills now, eh? Did Helen show you the snow drops I sent her a long time ago?

Well, you rotating, efferescing, globule of adipose tissue I must close with best love to all,

Your loving brother,
Sid

[Editor’s note: Transcription provided by collection donor.]