Esquire (February 1935)

I tell you I didn’t have any notion¹ what I was getting into or I wouldn’t of gone down there. They can have their army — it seems to me they were all a bunch of yella-bellies. But my friend Nell said to me: “Nora, Philly, is as dead as Baltimore and we’ve got to eat this summer.” She just got a letter from a girl that said they were living fine down there in “Ole Virginia.” The soldiers were getting big pay-offs and figuring maybe they’d stay there all summer, at least till the Johnny Rebs gave up. They got their pay regular too, and a good clean-looking girl could ask — well, I forget now, because, after what happened to us, I guess you can’t expect me to remember anything.

I’ve always been used to decent² treatment — somehow when I meet a man, no matter how fresh he is in the beginning, he comes to respect me in the end, and I’ve never had things done to me like some girls — getting left in a strange town or had my purse stolen.

Well, I started to tell you how I went down to the army in “Ole Virginia.” Never again! Wait’ll you hear.

I was used to traveling nice — once when I was a little girl my daddy took me on the cars to Baltimore — we lived in York, Pa. And we couldn’t have been more comfortable; we had pillows and the men came through with baskets of oranges and apples. You know, singing out: “Want to buy some oranges or apples — or beer?”

You know what they sell — but I never took any beer because —

Oh I know, I’ll go on — You only want to talk about the war, like all you men. But if this is your idea what a war is —

Well, they stuck us all in one car and a fresh fella took our tickets, and winked³ and said:

“Oh you’re going down to Hooker’s army.”

The lights were terrible in the car, smoky and full of bugs⁴, so everything looked sort of yella. And say, that car was so old it was falling to pieces.

There must of been forty gay girls in it, a lot of them from Baltimore and Philly. Only there were three or four that weren’t gay — I mean they were more, oh, you know, rich people, and sat up front. Every once an awhile an officer would pop in from the next car and ask them if they wanted anything. I was in the seat behind with Nell and we heard him whisper: “You’re in terrible company, but we’ll be there in a few hours. And we’ll go right to headquarters, and I guarantee you some solid comfort.”

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