Long Distance [1919]

Chet Ball, a former lineman from Chicago’s West Side, found himself in an unexpected setting: painting a wooden chicken in an English country estate transformed into Reconstruction Hospital No. 9. This man, who had once dangled from telegraph poles for the Gas, Light & Power Company, now lay among soft pillows, dabbing paint on a toy, a drastic change from his previous life of hazards and high altitudes. The contrast between Chet’s burly physique and his delicate task highlighted a man ill-suited by nature to his current, peaceful pastime but forced into it by circumstances.

His current occupation was part of a therapeutic regimen to soothe his shattered nerves, a consequence of his service in France during the war where he, camouflaged as part of a tree, helped the American artillery before being brought down by enemy fire. This experience left him physically and mentally scarred, with a leg that, though healed by modern war surgery, would never again bear the weight of his former labors, and a mind that the doctors described as suffering from “shock”. Chet’s memory and mental state, described as affected by this shock, were yet to recover to the point where he could resume a normal life.

While painting, a letter arrived from Chicago, likely from a loved one given the affectionate address. Miss Kate, a helper at the hospital, offered to read it to him, revealing in her voice an attempt to bridge the vast distance the war had put between Chet and his old life. The letter, brimming with the mundane yet intimate details of life back home, starkly contrasted Chet’s serene but disconnected present.

Before the war, Chet was known for his bravado, part of his identity as a lineman where flirting with danger (and women) was part of the job. However, it was his encounter with Anastasia Rourke that truly marked his pre-war life, culminating in a brief but passionate love story cut short by the war. His current state, focused on the simple task of painting a wooden chicken, symbolizes a life paused, a vivid past waiting to be reconnected with the present through recovery and perhaps, through the words of a letter from home.