Original Letter

France. 5th Jany 1918

My Dearest:

Unless I develop a burst of speed somewhere about here I am not going to get a letter away to-day. Its been awfully busy somehow or other hereabouts to-day. But I’m wasting time. I didn’t get any letter last night but old Miller came up this morning with my parcel. You Sweetheart! I just love my beautiful cigarette case its the nicest one I have seen the grand little initial its just perfect Dear. And the book! just exactly what I’ve been honing for ever since I had the other Belloc book. You are the best ever and I could hug you to pieces where you stand this very minute

I am in the seventh Heaven all day about it. We moved last night and now I am so far below the surface of the earth that it would take two bits to send a whizz bang down to me. Its very stuffy but warm and the only thing that could get in would be a gopher, so that it is to be desired.

I’m sorry that this is such a wart of a short note, Dear, but it is getting awfully near time for the bag to go out and I dare not take a chance on missing the mail. I’m superstitious any more, I think –

I love you, Sweetheart of mine with all the love in the world. You are the best baby in captivity and I adore you. Thanks just ever so for the beautiful presents. Your own Ross

honing

Note
The Oxford English Dictionary gives hone as a dialect word from the U.S.: “To whine or pine for; to hanker after.” Ross uses this word quite frequently in the letters.

Source: The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., prepared by J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

Contribute to the Project
Do you have more information about this topic? Please let us know »

(Close this note)

gopher

Note
“A name used in North America for many animals which burrow (e.g., pocket gophers, some sousliks, a burrowing tortoise, a burrowing snake, and some salamanders); said to be from the French gaufre, ‘honeycomb’ — a reference to the burrows.”

Ross and Turkey clearly feel that underground living is more suitable for burrowing animals than for people.

Source: Penguin Encyclopedia, rev. 3rd ed., ed. David Crystal (London: Penguin Books, 2006).

Contribute to the Project
Do you have more information about this topic? Please let us know »

(Close this note)

Miller

About Miller
Ross mentions Miller frequently and it sounds as though he is one of the NCOs working with Ross and Turkey in the Orderly Room.

There are, unfortunately, five Millers listed in the Calgary Herald as returning with the 50th Bn. It is hard to know which one he is.

In his letter of Nov. 8, 1917, Ross says that Miller is "not twenty yet" and spent nine months in the line and was wounded twice before being assigned to the Orderly Room.

Does anyone have any information that would help us to identify Miller?
Contribute to the Project
Do you have more information about this topic? Please let us know »

(Close this note)