in the infinite care with which the small French peasant has 
built up rock walls to guard his two-by-four plot in the 
steep hillside from erosion---another proof of the land-
hunger of the peasantry. 

I really hope, over and over again, that some day we will 
have the time, money, and opportunity to loaf a while in 
this country. In several towns I have made real friends who 
have begged us to visit them and who would turn their 
places inside out to make us welcome.

The nights are terribly long. They lock us in at 6 P.M. 
and we stay there until 6:30 A.M. But Steve and I are in 
together and we generally talk until about 10, then try to 
sleep. But you don't have any exercise to amount to any-
thing during the day, so sleeping the whole night through 
is almost always impossible. French jail bugs are much less 
numerous than American ones, but still they're enough to 
give you something to scratch at. Incidentally most of the 
boys, including myself, broke out quite a bit from the lousy 
food of the first week, and that's something to scratch. It's 
not half as bad this time, though, as it was the time you 
took care of me, and although it still itches like hell it 
seems to be going away. Much much love to you, my dearest. 
Joe

* * *

April 13

Dearest,

There is a proposal (against which I'm fighting hard) 
that I remain in France to do some work. That'd be a 
heluva place to be at a time like this. The one redeeming 
feature about it would be that we could be together. But 
in spite of that---and you know how much that would 
mean to me---I'm obviously against it.

23