Virden
Nov 20 1914

My darling little wife

Your letter of 17th to hand O.K., I always like to get your letters, and you can be sure will always look forward to them, things are running along smoothly here, Major Palmer has been out at his farm a good deal of the time so have been running the show myself, we had a march out of 4 miles on Wednesday, the wind was pretty cold & Sinclair got one of his ears frozen, yesterday we drilled for a short time on the fair grounds, three more men got their ears frozen, the ladies of the Patriotic Society have sent Woolen caps for the men which will in future save their ears, today is nice & warm so this morning I took the men out for a short march & after that drilled on the fair grounds, this afternoon I sent Lieut Waller out in charge of them, as I have to give the men a lecture tonight on Discipline & the Military Spirit, last night I gave them a talk on Signals, Organization of a Battalion & effect of rifle fire, Waller & I take physical drill with the men every morning I want to take down some of my superfulous [sic] flesh. We take in the Picture show once in a while, tonight am going to a concert in aid of the Belgians.

We have not yet had orders about going to Winnipeg so [you] can still address letters to me here, when we get orders to move I will phone you, would like you to send me the revolver case also the Medical certificate, also send me a photo of Frank & Gwladys, I have a snapshot of you & Eric taken at Jack's place, but if you have a good photograph of yourself send it me I dont care how old it is.

Well sweetheart when I get to Winnipeg we no doubt shall find out more about when we sail etc, so that I can then arrange for a few days leave before we go, if possible will try & arrange for Christmas week. Love to the girls, Jack & Llew, with fondest love to you & the kiddies.

Your loving hubby,

Jim

P.S. Get Frank to write to me.