at home. They can't think of any reason unless he has just got mad at some body. We thought {illegible} was coming home to enlist and Huby hopes that is the reason, he hinted at it in one of his cards. To-days war news is a little better. The French have checked the German advance in places and and made an advance themselves in one place but I think it is just about nip & tuck yet. Every one seems to think that this battle is going to be the turning point of the war for the victors. Nice day.

Saturday March 11th

Dad. and Frank shovelled out the lane this morning and I went over to Jack Martin's and got them to put my incubator thermometer in one of their machines to test it. Then I went down to the Quanbury's and got a bag of white carrots as Dad. wants to see if he can tempt Jim into eating one, but she just took a few bites and then wouldn't look at it. This after noon we hooked Queen and Harry up and went down town and got some oil and turpentine for Jim and also the mail. To-night I was out in the chicken house putting crude oil on the old hens legs for scaly leg when Colin Ryerse came past and called my attintion to a big fire in the west, we thought it looked about at Tom Myers or Wess Baughner's so started up to it, when we got to the mill it looked as if it was at Colin McNellige's so we started up the track, we soon could see it was still farther on but as it looked straight ahead on the track and we knew it wasn't over the top of the big hill we thought it must be some where in Douins Hollow, but when we got there it looked just as far away as ever but we thought since we had tramped that far we would find out where the fire was if we had to go to Simcoe, so we did and reached our journey's end at Lynn Valley where we found Edmond's old mill burned to the ground, the walls had all fallen but there was a big blaze yet and quite a crowd around it. It seems they think it caught from overheated machinery as they had been working late chopping alfalfa meal, they had a carload of bluegrass all ready to ship so it was a big loss for Edmonds and they say the fellow that ran it, Graham, lost every thing he had. They say it wasnt discovered till the flames burst through the roof and when Graham pushed open the door down stairs the flames shot out in his face so it must have gone up like tinder. It made an awful blaze and could be