March 26, 1944

Dear Margaret,

Today being Sunday with plenty of spare time we tried out something novel, and it worked. We bought three live chickens. Shell killed them and cleaned them. He's an old hand at that. Dague fired them at the quarters, and Junior made German fried potatoes with onions. After about seven hours of intensive work we all sat down and ate and washed it down with beer. The stuff was surprisingly good and made for a pleasant day what with all the suggestions, debates and arguments about the proper methods to use. We had a wonderful sunset tonight. The sky was a Maxfield Parrish blue with heavy purple-black rain clouds and light cumulus clouds, shaded pink, directly above. The moon was a thin silver sliver in the West.

Much love,

Herb