Just got your letter and I am hastening to reply to it at once.
I got your letter which you wrote while I packed - you are sweet Bennie. You see, to get our mail we have to go to the post-office - a short walk but the one I am apt to forget - not from now on tho'! Well, here goes a short diary of what's happened since I start working. My job is in the "Rock-House". No danger getting any strenuous work there! It consists of sorting out high grade, low-grade ores from a continuous line of rock debris that are moving on a rubber-belt four feet wide past you at a speed of 6"-8" per second. The hard work consists of the fact that out of 8 hours we have a chance to sit down only during a twenty minutes interval at lunch time at 12. Work is from 7AM to 3PM. I felt tired the first two days but now it has no longer any effect on me.
So Monday and Tuesday were off easily. On Wednesday, I went for a nice refreshing plunge in the river after work. The same on Thursday. By the way, on Wednesday we went to the Finn Hall. There was dancing but only four couples participated at the the accompanyment of a harmonium and we soon went home disappointment. There was no Jazzy orchestra with a "coon" rythmn, no "Wedding of the (illegible) Hall and without there - if you don't know people - you can't dance much.
Excuse please the rotten writing but I must write fast to be able to concentrate! You know me, Bennie!
.........
Yesterday (Thursday) we were loading a truck with heavy wooden beams, 10" by 10" and with cast iron weights and jaws of steel rock crushers. I did some honest sweating then all right and welcomed a change from the monotonous work in the "rock house". I'll have to do it for a week or two weeks more tho'!
To-day I have worked one hour over-time, if you please, and of course get pained for it. They don't pay us much in the rock house - only 41c per hour! Down the mine we get 59c and that's a lot better.
When I remember it, I am careful - very careful about: (1) Moderation (2) Restraint (3) Direction
and I am damned if I remember the fourth!
By the way, Bennie, it will be perfectly O.K. if you leave Mr. A.F. Sharpe's core out of my address. That way, I shall not have as wander over to his house and bother him with my correspondence.
I told you, you could beat Owen if you get brutal and slam the d-d pill from the shoulder! I bet you placed them in a mean style too! All I hope is that you won't bust Owen's morale. Go easy Ben.
To our doctor's progress is a zig-zag on the graph! I wish I was over there to put some rough stuff over! Well I'll do it when I come back and after a year's work in the mine, I ought to be quite efficient at at! But anyway, in a years time, she will be all-right!
You talk about a "couple of letters". I got only one- the one you wrote while I was packing. It's a queer climate they got here. There may be no snow till December, yet the worst snow storms are in March. The winter is "shifted" about three months later than in Siberia. I am looking forward to ski-ing and snow-shoeing; that will be some experience!
My biggest trouble is eating together with miners; some of them come down with filthy hands and faces and positively sweat dirt as they eat. It turns my insides upside down. the French Canadians and Slavs are the worst offenders, while the Finns, of whom there are a great number, are scrupulously clean. During the lunch, which I get at twelve, which consists of sandwiches, cake, fruit and tea in a thermos - and of which I partake by myself - is my best meal!
Gee, Ben, there is no piano here that I can play! Isn't it awful! I haven't had any letters from my friends but uncle has written me a letter through which I thought I detected an atmosphere of cheerfulness which gives me a vague idea that all goes well with him! That's fine!
Well Bennie, dear pal, I better close now. I have written this letter almost solely to tell you what I was doing, how I am (I am feeling fine) and all about "meself-rah"! I shall write again soon again. I shall certainly "break this life-long silence" of mine - for you.
Please give my best love to your dear mother and equally dear Auntie Lyddie and just take a hefty hug from your loving friend.
Guigui
P.S. It took No Effort to write this letter - Hurrah!!! Remember me to Freda, Owen and all the rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment