Humor Streeter, Edward: Thats Me All Over, Mable (illustrated). v1. 09 August 2012

[GrannyGrump]

First published 1919.
By Edward Streeter (1891-1976), author of “Father of the Bride,” “Dere Mable,” “Same Old Bill, eh Mable!” “As You Were, Bill!” etc.

Twenty more letters from Army rookie Bill to his sweetheart, with 26 full-page cartoon illustrations. Bill has left the infantry and joined the artillery, and we are in for a whole new set of adventures. Bill may seem quasi-illiterate, with his highly imaginative spelling and punctuation, and naive about the ways of the world, but the understated humor lets you know he can also be a “pretty shrood fello.”

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An excerpt:

I take my pen in hand to tell you what do you think I done now? I left the infantry an gone back into the artillery.
...
It almost seemed like they was waitin for me cause the day after I came over they hitched up the horses and drove the cannons out to the range. Its kind of hard to explain to a girl like you what a range is. The only way I can explain it is that it aint nothin like a range. There aint nothin here but mountins and we can fire all we want without hittin nothin but the mountins and once in a while maybe one of the mountin ears. But they say there so tough they dont mind it a bit. Thats a funny thing about artillery, Mable. The object seems to be not to hit nothin. The day we got out here I heard the Captin say “Well Im glad were way out in a place like this where we don’t run no danger of hittin nothin.” All I said was “I like to see a fello careful Captin, but if thats all your worryin about you needent have taken so much trouble.” The longer I know Captins the less I understand them.