Camp Grant

   , Sept. 26.

    FRIEND AL:

   Well Al don't be surprised if you pick up the paper some

    a.m.

   and see where I'm gone and you may think I am just jokeing Al but I am telling you the truth and I am glad Florrie is fixed so she can make a liveing for herself and little Al because I wouldn't bet a nickle I will be alive by the time this gets to you.

   I guess I all ready told you the kind of birds we got in our Co. Well the worst one in the bunch is a guy named Sebastian and of course he would have to be the one that got the bunk next to mine. Well Al you remember me writeing to you about the little runt that throwed that guy's trombone away, well his name is Lahey but we call him Shorty on acct. of him being so short. Well I hadn't payed much attention to this here Sebastian because he has always got a grouch and don't say nothing only to mumble at the officers when they ask him some question but Shorty knows him and last night he told me all about him and he has been pinched 50 times for stabbing people but he has got some pull or something and they can't never do nothing to him except once he served a turn at Joliet for cutting off a guy's ears because he wouldn't get up and give him a seat on a st. car. He has always got a knife hid on him somewheres and his first name is Nick so they call him Nick the Blade on acct. of always haveing a knife on him.

   I don't know if I told you or not but we got a shed outside of the barracks with shower baths and etc. and everybody is supposed to take baths and keep themself clean and of course its a pleasure for a man like I because I got use to takeing them every day after the game and I don't feel right unless I am clean but some of the birds hollered like a Indian the first time the officers made them get under the shower and you would think they never seen water before and I guess some of them hadn't because when they come out afterwards the officers had to ask them their name.

   Well Al I was takeing a bath yesterday and this big Nick bird was standing there striped 

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