Knowledge is Food

Now, I knew that before I started the march I was a sad looking case, but we had been on the road for thirty-six days and had been eating. We had soap from our Red Cross boxes that we traded for bread, potatoes, onions, and other food stuff. We had really gained back most of our weight, and I wondered why I looked so strange. Some of the fellows didn't trade for the food they got—it was called "liberation."

I remember one old boy from Arkansas, who knew the habits of the hens perfectly. The city men would look the barns over when we first went in, but they missed. When this Arkansawyer went in, he knew where the old contrary hen had gone and he always came out with a good supply of eggs.

One night about 8:00 p.m. after he had gone in our barn, one officer from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, came to me and said, "Chaplain, I got into the hen house but someone had been there and got every egg. But you know what I am going to do? I am going to get up in the morning about five o'clock and get every egg that the hens lay during the night." I said, "Do you think you will?" He said he would.

Another fellow said, "That old hen squawked, pecked at me, and ruffled up her feathers; but I got all fourteen eggs she had laid!"

Well the German lady squawked so much that our colonel made him put the setting eggs back lest we be thrown out of the barns and have to sleep in the cold.

We had a great time on the road. We much preferred it to prison life. We had eaten well and I wondered why J. E. thought me strange. I guess it was because he couldn't believe his eyes.