Page:Diary of a Prisoner in World War I by Josef Šrámek.pdf/110

 we always had an appetite. At first we ate separately as directed—and we ate all that was brought to us. If a farmer's wife was careless and left a whole butter lump on the table, she would not find it again. We cut it with spoons or hid it in empty cans. Later they were more careful and separated portions for everyone.

This went on the whole week. On Sundays we had a day off and cooked for ourselves. The mayor brought us bread, meat, grease, beans, and salt, and we took turns being Sunday cooks. Everyone tried hard to earn praise for their lunches. We often greased the lunches with what we kept for the whole week—a bit of grease here, some beans there, or a piece of meat there. Sometimes the farmer's wife would give the cook something secretly so our Sunday lunches could be even more substantial.

One cooked, and others washed clothes. We wet them on Saturdays in the nearby pond, using stones as weights so the clothes would not float away. Sunday was the washing day—with brush and soap we ground our miserable shirts and underwear, then rinsed them in the pond and dried them on the fence.

The first 4 who were done with washing sat down to play cards. The others shaved, twisted their mustaches under bands, and wrote home.