INDOOR SPORTS

SATURDAY NIGHT.

First you take a basin, Place it on the stove, Wait about an hour or so, Shoo away the drove Of your jeering billet mates Betting you won't dare; Then you spread a slicker On the floor with care.

Next you doff your O. D., And your undershirt. Wrap a towel 'round your waist, Wrestle with the dirt; Do not get the sponge too wet— Little drops will trickle Down a soldier's trouser legs— Golly! How they tickle!

Then you clothe yourself again— That is, to the belt; Strip off boots and putts and trou, Socks—right to the pelt; Send the gooseflesh quivering Up and down your limbs— Gosh! You aren't in quite the mood For singing gospel hymns.

Then you wash, and wash and wash, Dry yourself once more, Put on all your clothes again, Go to bed and snore, Wake up at the bugle's call With a cold, and sore Truly, baths in France are—well, What Sherman said of war!

FOOLING THE FLEA.

You'll march in the flea parade and be glad of the chance after you've lived a week in an old French sheep shed.

"Say, I'll be glad to get back to the mosquitoes," said a young hand-grenadier from Dallas, Tex., as he dumped his "other clothes" in the flea-soup cauldron. "These babies chew you to death day and night. A mosquito's a night-rider only."

The line forms on the right of the cook-shack. The cooks build big fires out in the open and set out great kettles of water. When the water begins to boil the parade begins, each man dumping in his flea-infested clothing—uniform, socks, underwear, wristlets and blankets. The cooks keep the fires stoked up with wood and the garments boil for a solid hour.

Then the men form another line and collect their stuff. They wring out the clothes the best they can and then sit down to "pick 'em off."

"They're fast little devils most usually," said the Dallas man, "but the sudden shock from warm water to cold air makes them stiff, and you can catch 'em easy."

The A. E. F.'s living in sheep barns simply can't keep clear of the things. They're in the rafters, in the hay, and in the planks. Weekly boiling of clothing only gives a short relief.

Really they aren't fleas at all, but a form of sheep tick. But they don't distinguish between sheep and American soldiers.

"BUTTON, BUTTON."

The Army gets some of its best ideas about equipment from the soldiers who have to use it.

Here's an idea, making for efficiency and convenience, which comes from an Omaha boy in the ranks. He says:

"Why don't they put bachelor buttons on our uniforms and overcoats? I've got a 'housewife' in my kit, but I'm working from 6.15 in the morning until 5 o'clock at night, and what little leisure I get I'd like to spend in the Y.M.C.A. playing the phonograph or shooting pool.

"And anyway, if I've got to do my sewing in the barn I live in, I might as well not try at all. My fingers are so numb the minute I take off my mitts that I couldn't thread a needle."

Not only that, said the Omaha soldier, but you usually find you haven't any thread in your "housewife."

There seems to be something in favor of bachelor buttons, especially since the people who sew the buttons on new uniforms and coats always do a poor job.