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The ambulance was at the door, to take us to Valentine, where I
bade Jack good bye, and took the train for the East. His last
promise was to visit us once a year, or whenever he could get a
leave of absence.

My husband had now worn the single bar on his shoulder-strap for
eleven years or more; before that, the straps of the second
lieutenant had adorned his broad shoulders for a period quite as
long. Twenty-two years a lieutenant in the regular army, after
fighting, in a volunteer regiment of his own state, through the
four years of the Civil War! The "gallant and meritorious
service" for which he had received brevets, seemed, indeed, to
have been forgotten. He had grown grey in Indian campaigns, and
it looked as if the frontier might always be the home of the
senior lieutenant of the old Eighth. Promotion in that regiment
had been at a standstill for years.

Being in Washington for a short time towards mid-winter enjoying
the social side of military life at the Capital, an opportunity
came to me to meet President Cleveland, and although his
administration was nearing its close, and the stress of official
cares was very great, he seemed to have leisure and interest to
ask me about my life on the frontier; and as the conversation
became quite personal, the impulse seized me, to tell him just
how I felt about the education of our children, and then to tell
him what I thought and what others thought about the unjust way
in which the promotions and retirements in our regiment had been
managed.

He listened with the greatest interest and seemed pleased with my
frankness. He asked me what the soldiers and officers out there
thought of "So and So." "They hate him," I said.

Whereupon he laughed outright and I knew I had committed an
indiscretion, but life on the frontier does not teach one
diplomacy of speech, and by that time I was nerved up to say just
what I felt, regardless of results.

"Well," he said, smiling, "I am afraid I cannot interfere much
with those military matters;" then, pointing with his left hand
and thumb towards the War Department, "they fix them all up over
there in the Adjutant General's office," he added.

Then he asked me many more questions; if I had always stayed out
there with my husband, and why I did not live in the East, as so
many army women did; and all the time I could hear the dull thud
of the carpenters' hammers, for they were building even then the
board seats for the public who would witness the inaugural
ceremonies of his successor, and with each stroke of the hammer,
his face seemed to grow more sad.

I felt the greatness of the man; his desire to be just and good:
his marvellous personal power, his ability to understand and to
sympathize, and when I parted from him he said again laughingly,
"Well, I shall not forget your husband's regiment, and if
anything turns up for those fine men you have told me about, they
will hear from me." And I knew they were the words of a man, who
meant what he said.

In the course of our conversation he had asked, "Who are these
men? Do they ever come to Washington? I rarely have these things
explained to me and I have little time to interfere with the
decisions of the Adjutant General's office."

I replied: "No, Mr. President, they are not the men you see
around Washington. Our regiment stays on the frontier, and these
men are the ones who do the fighting, and you people here in
Washington are apt to forget all about them."

"What have they ever done? Were they in the Civil War?" he asked.

"Their records stand in black and white in the War Department," I
replied, "if you have the interest to learn more about them."

"Women's opinions are influenced by their feelings," he said.

"Mine are based upon what I know, and I am prepared to stand by
my convictions," I replied.

Soon after this interview, I returned to New York and I did not
give the matter very much further thought, but my impression of
the greatness of Mr. Cleveland and of his powerful personality
has remained with me to this day.

A vacancy occurred about this time in the Quartermaster's
Department, and the appointment was eagerly sought for by many
Lieutenants of the army. President Cleveland saw fit to give the
appointment to Lieutenant Summerhayes, making him a Captain and
Quartermaster, and then, another vacancy occurring shortly after,
he appointed Lieutenant John McEwen Hyde to be also a Captain and
Quartermaster.

Lieutenant Hyde stood next in rank to my husband and had grown
grey in the old Eighth Infantry. So the regiment came in for its
honor at last, and General Kautz, when the news of the second
appointment reached him, exclaimed, "Well! well! does the
President think my regiment a nursery for the Staff?"

The Eighth Foot and the Ninth Horse at Niobrara gave the new
Captain and Quartermaster a rousing farewell, for now my husband
was leaving his old regiment forever; and, while he appreciated
fully the honor of his new staff position, he felt a sadness at
breaking off the associations of so many years--a sadness which
can scarcely be understood by the young officers of the present
day, who are promoted from one regiment to another, and rarely
remain long enough with one organization to know even the men of
their own Company.

There were many champagne suppers, dinners and card-parties given
for him, to make the good-bye something to be remembered, and at
the end of a week's festivities, he departed by a night train
from Valentine, thus eluding the hospitality of those generous
but wild frontiersmen, who were waiting to give him what they
call out there a "send-off."

For Valentine was like all frontier towns; a row of stores and
saloons. The men who kept them were generous, if somewhat rough.
One of the officers of the post, having occasion to go to the
railroad station one day at Valentine, saw the body of a man
hanging to a telegraph pole a short distance up the track. He
said to the station man: "What does that mean?" (nodding his head
in the direction of the telegraph pole).

"Why, it means just this," said the station man, "the people who
hung that man last night had the nerve to put him right in front
of this place, by G--. What would the passengers think of this
town, sir, as they went by? Why, the reputation of Valentine
would be ruined! Yes, sir, we cut him down and moved him up a
pole or two. He was a hard case, though," he added.




CHAPTER XXXI

SANTA FE

I made haste to present Captain Summerhayes with the
shoulder-straps of his new rank, when he joined me in New York.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * *

The orders for Santa Fe reached us in mid-summer at Nantucket. I
knew about as much of Santa Fe as the average American knows, and
that was nothing; but I did know that the Staff appointment
solved the problem of education for us (for Staff officers are
usually stationed in cities), and I knew that our frontier life
was over. I welcomed the change, for our children were getting
older, and we were ourselves approaching the age when comfort
means more to one than it heretofore has.

Jack obeyed his sudden orders, and I followed him as soon as
possible.

Arriving at Santa Fe in the mellow sunlight of an October day, we
were met by my husband and an officer of the Tenth Infantry, and
as we drove into the town, its appearance of placid content, its
ancient buildings, its great trees, its clear air, its friendly,
indolent-looking inhabitants, gave me a delightful feeling of
home. A mysterious charm seemed to possess me. It was the spell
which that old town loves to throw over the strangers who venture
off the beaten track to come within her walls.

Lying only eighteen miles away, over a small branch road from
Llamy (a station on the Atchison and Topeka Railroad), few people
take the trouble to stop over to visit it. "Dead old town," says
the commercial traveller, "nothing doing there."

And it is true.

But no spot that I have visited in this country has thrown around
me the spell of enchantment which held me fast in that sleepy and
historic town.

The Governor's Palace, the old plaza, the ancient churches, the
antiquated customs, the Sisters' Hospital, the old Convent of Our
Lady of Loretto, the soft music of the Spanish tongue, I loved
them all.

There were no factories; no noise was ever heard; the sun shone
peacefully on, through winter and summer alike. There was no
cold, no heat, but a delightful year-around climate. Why the
place was not crowded with health seekers, was a puzzle to me. I
had thought that the bay of San Francisco offered the most
agreeable climate in America, but, in the Territory of New Mexico,
Santa Fe was the perfection of all climates combined.

The old city lies in the broad valley of the Santa Fe Creek, but
the valley of the Santa Fe Creek lies seven thousand feet above
the sea level. I should never have known that we were living at a
great altitude, if I had not been told, for the equable climate
made us forget to inquire about height or depth or distance.

I listened to old Father de Fourri preach his short sermons in
English to the few Americans who sat on one side of the aisle, in
the church of Our Lady of Guadaloupe; then, turning with an easy
gesture towards his Mexican congregation, who sat or knelt near
the sanctuary, and saying, "Hermanos mios," he gave the same
discourse in good Spanish. I felt comfortable in the thought that
I was improving my Spanish as well as profiting by Father de
Fourri's sound logic. This good priest had grown old at Santa Fe
in the service of his church.

The Mexican women, with their black ribosos wound around their
heads and concealing their faces, knelt during the entire mass,
and made many long responses in Latin.

After years spent in a heathenish manner, as regards all church
observations, this devout and unique service, following the
customs of ancient Spain, was interesting to me in the extreme.

Sometimes on a Sunday afternoon I attended Vespers in the chapel
of the Sisters' Hospital (as it was called). A fine Sanitarium,
managed entirely by the Roman Catholic Sisters of Charity.

Sister Victoria, who was at the head of the management, was not
only a very beautiful woman, but she had an agreeable voice and
always led in the singing.

It seemed like Heaven.

I wrote to my friends in the East to come to the Sisters'
Hospital if they wanted health, peace and happiness, for it was
surely to be found there. I visited the convent of Our Lady of
Loretto: I stood before a high wall in an embrasure of which
there was a low wooden gate; I pulled on a small knotted string
which hung out of a little hole, and a queer old bell rang. Then
one of the nuns came and let me in, across a beautiful garden to
the convent school. I placed my little daughter as a day pupil
there, as she was now eleven years old. The nuns spoke very
little English and the children none at all.

The entire city was ancient, Spanish, Catholic, steeped in a
religious atmosphere and in what the average American Protestant
would call the superstitions of the dark ages. There were endless
fiestas, and processions and religious services, I saw them all
and became much interested in reading the history of the Catholic
missions, established so early out through what was then a wild
and unexplored country. After that, I listened with renewed
interest to old Father de Fouri, who had tended and led his flock
of simple people so long and so lovingly.

There was a large painting of Our Lady of Guadaloupe over the
altar--these people firmly believed that she had appeared to
them, on the earth, and so strong was the influence around me
that I began almost to believe it too. I never missed the Sunday
morning mass, and I fell in easily with the religious
observances.

I read and studied about the old explorers, and I seemed to live
in the time of Cortez and his brave band. I became acquainted
with Adolf Bandelier, who had lived for years in that country,
engaged in research for the American Archaeological Society. I
visited the Indian pueblos, those marvellous structures of adobe,
where live entire tribes, and saw natives who have not changed
their manner of speech or dress since the days when the Spaniards
first penetrated to their curious dwellings, three hundred or
more years ago. I climbed the rickety ladders, by which one
enters these strange dwellings, and bought the great bowls which
these Indians shape in some manner without the assistance of a
potter's wheel, and then bake in their mud ovens.

The pueblo of Tesuque is only nine miles from Santa Fe, and a
pleasant drive, at that; it seemed strange to me that the road
was not lined with tourists. But no, they pass all these wonders
by, in their disinclination to go off the beaten track.

Visiting the pueblos gets to be a craze. Governor and Mrs. Prince
knew them all--the pueblo of Taos, of Santa Clara, San Juan, and
others; and the Governor's collection of great stone idols was a
marvel indeed. He kept them laid out on shelves, which resembled
the bunks on a great vessel, and in an apartment especially
reserved for them, in his residence at Santa Fe, and it was
always with considerable awe that I entered that apartment. The
Governor occupied at that time a low, rambling adobe house, on
Palace Avenue, and this, with its thick walls and low
window-seats, made a fit setting for the treasures they had
gathered.

Later on, the Governor's family occupied the palace (as it is
always called) of the old Spanish Viceroy, a most ancient,
picturesque, yet dignified building, facing the plaza.

The various apartments in this old palace were used for
Government offices when we were stationed there in 1889, and in
one of these rooms, General Lew Wallace, a few years before, had
written his famous book, "Ben Hur."

On the walls were hanging old portraits painted by the Spaniards
in the sixteenth century. They were done on rawhide, and whether
these interesting and historic pictures have been preserved by
our Government I do not know.

The distinguished Anglican clergyman living there taught a small
class of boys, and the "Academy," an excellent school
established by the Presbyterian Board of Missions, afforded good
advantages for the young girls of the garrison. And as we had
found that the Convent of Loretto was not just adapted to the
education of an American child, we withdrew Katharine from that
school and placed her at the Presbyterian Academy.

To be sure, the young woman teacher gave a rousing lecture on
total abstinence once a week; going even so far as to say, that
to partake of apple sauce which had begun to ferment was yielding
to the temptations of Satan. The young woman's arguments made a
disastrous impression upon our children's minds; so much so, that
the rich German Jews whose daughters attended the school
complained greatly; for, as they told us, these girls would
hasten to snatch the decanters from the sideboard, at the
approach of visitors, and hide them, and they began to sit in
judgment upon their elders. Now these men were among the leading
citizens of the town; they were self-respecting and wealthy. They
could not stand these extreme doctrines, so opposed to their life
and their traditions. We informed Miss X. one day that she could
excuse our children from the total abstinence lecture, or we
should be compelled to withdraw them from the school. She said
she could not compel them to listen, but preach she must. She
remained obedient to her orders from the Board, and we could but
respect her for that. Our young daughters were, however, excused
from the lecture.

But our time was not entirely given up to the study of ancient
pottery, for the social life there was delightful. The garrison
was in the centre of the town, the houses were comfortable, and
the streets shaded by old trees. The Tenth Infantry had its
headquarters and two companies there. Every afternoon, the
military band played in the Plaza, where everybody went and sat
on benches in the shade of the old trees, or, if cool, in the
delightful sunshine. The pretty and well-dressed senoritas cast
shy glances at the young officers of the Tenth; but, alas! the
handsome and attractive Lieutenants Van Vliet and Seyburn, and
the more sedate Lieutenant Plummer, could not return these
bewitching glances, as they were all settled in life.

The two former officers had married in Detroit, and both Mrs. Van
Vliet and Mrs. Seyburn did honor to the beautiful city of
Michigan, for they were most agreeable and clever women, and
presided over their army homes with distinguished grace and
hospitality.

The Americans who lived there were all professional people;
mostly lawyers, and a few bankers. I could not understand why so
many Eastern lawyers lived there. I afterwards learned that the
old Spanish land grants had given rise to illimitable and
never-ending litigation.

Every morning we rode across country. There were no fences, but
the wide irrigation ditches gave us a plenty of excitement, and
the riding was glorious. I had no occasion yet to realize that we
had left the line of the army.

A camping trip to the head-waters of the Pecos, where we caught
speckled trout in great abundance in the foaming riffles and
shallow pools of this rushing mountain stream, remaining in camp
a week under the spreading boughs of the mighty pines, added to
the variety and delights of our life there.

With such an existence as this, good health and diversion, the
time passed rapidly by.

It was against the law now for soldiers to marry; the old days of
"laundresses" had passed away. But the trombone player of the
Tenth Infantry band (a young Boston boy) had married a wife, and
now a baby had come to them. They could get no quarters, so we
took the family in, and, as the wife was an excellent cook, we
were able to give many small dinners. The walls of the house
being three feet thick, we were never troubled by the trombone
practice or the infant's cries. And many a delightful evening we
had around the board, with Father de Fourri, Rev. Mr. Meany (the
Anglican clergyman), the officers and ladies of the Tenth,
Governor and Mrs. Prince, and the brilliant lawyer folk of Santa
Fe.

Such an ideal life cannot last long; this existence of ours does
not seem to be contrived on those lines. At the end of a year,
orders came for Texas, and perhaps it was well that orders came,
or we might be in Santa Fe to-day, wrapt in a dream of past ages;
for the city of the Holy Faith had bound us with invisible
chains.

With our departure from Santa Fe, all picturesqueness came to an
end in our army life. Ever after that, we had really good houses
to live in, which had all modern arrangements; we had beautiful,
well-kept lawns and gardens, the same sort of domestic service
that civilians have, and lived almost the same life.




CHAPTER XXXII

TEXAS

Whenever I think of San Antonio and Fort Sam Houston, the perfume
of the wood violet which blossomed in mid-winter along the
borders of our lawn, and the delicate odor of the Cape jessamine,
seem to be wafted about me.

Fort Sam Houston is the Headquarters of the Department of Texas,
and all the Staff officers live there, in comfortable stone
houses, with broad lawns shaded by chinaberry trees. Then at the
top of the hill is a great quadrangle, with a clock tower and all
the department offices. On the other side of this quadrangle is
the post, where the line officers live.

General Stanley commanded the Department. A fine, dignified and
able man, with a great record as an Indian fighter. Jack knew him
well, as he had been with him in the first preliminary survey for
the northern Pacific Railroad, when he drove old Sitting Bull
back to the Powder River.

He was now about to reach the age of retirement; and as the day
approached, that day when a man has reached the limit of his
usefulness (in the opinion of an ever-wise Government), that day
which sounds the knell of active service, that day so dreaded and
yet so longed for, that day when an army officer is sixty-four
years old and Uncle Sam lays him upon the shelf, as that day
approached, the city of San Antonio, in fact the entire State of
Texas poured forth to bid him Godspeed; for if ever an army man
was beloved, it was General Stanley by the State of Texas.

Now on the other side of the great quadrangle lay the post, where
were the soldiers' barracks and quarters of the line officers.
This was commanded by Colonel Coppinger, a gallant officer, who
had fought in many wars in many countries.

He had his famous regiment, the Twenty-third Infantry, and many
were the pleasant dances and theatricals we had, with the music
furnished by their band; for, as it was a time of peace, the
troops were all in garrison.

Major Burbank was there also, with his well-drilled Light Battery
of the 3rd Artillery.

My husband, being a Captain and Quartermaster, served directly
under General George H. Weeks, who was Chief Quartermaster of the
Department, and I can never forget his kindness to us both. He
was one of the best men I ever knew, in the army or out of it,
and came to be one of my dearest friends. He possessed the sturdy
qualities of his Puritan ancestry, united with the charming
manners of an aristocrat.

We belonged, of course, now, with the Staff, and something, an
intangible something, seemed to have gone out of the life. The
officers were all older, and the Staff uniforms were more sombre.
I missed the white stripe of the infantry, and the yellow of the
cavalry. The shoulder-straps all had gold eagles or leaves on
them, instead of the Captains' or Lieutenants' bars. Many of the
Staff officers wore civilians' clothes, which distressed me much,
and I used to tell them that if I were Secretary of War they
would not be permitted to go about in black alpaca coats and
cinnamon-brown trousers.

"What would you have us do?" said General Weeks.

"Wear white duck and brass buttons," I replied.

"Fol-de-rol!" said the fine-looking and erect Chief
Quartermaster; "you would have us be as vain as we were when we
were Lieutenants?"

"You can afford to be," I answered; for, even with his threescore
years, he had retained the lines of youth, and was, in my
opinion, the finest looking man in the Staff of the Army.

But all my reproaches and all my diplomacy were of no avail in
reforming the Staff. Evidently comfort and not looks was their
motto.

One day, I accidentally caught a side view of myself in a long
mirror (long mirrors had not been very plentiful on the
frontier), and was appalled by the fact that my own lines
corresponded but too well, alas! with those of the Staff. Ah, me!
were the days, then, of Lieutenants forever past and gone? The
days of suppleness and youth, the careless gay days, when there
was no thought for the future, no anxiety about education, when
the day began with a wild dash across country and ended with a
dinner and dance---were they over, then, for us all?

Major Burbank's battery of light artillery came over and
enlivened the quiet of our post occasionally with their brilliant
red color. At those times, we all went out and stood in the music
pavilion to watch the drill; and when his horses and guns and
caissons thundered down the hill and swept by us at a terrific
gallop, our hearts stood still. Even the dignified Staff
permitted themselves a thrill, and as for us women, our
excitement knew no bounds.

The brilliant red of the artillery brought color to the rather
grey aspect of the quiet Headquarters post, and the magnificent
drill supplied the martial element so dear to a woman's heart.

In San Antonio, the New has almost obliterated the Old, and
little remains except its pretty green river, its picturesque
bridges, and the historic Alamo, to mark it from other cities in
the Southwest.

In the late afternoon, everybody drove to the Plaza, where all
the country people were selling their garden-stuff and poultry in
the open square. This was charming, and we all bought live fowl
and drove home again. One heard cackling and gobbling from the
smart traps and victorias, and it seemed to be a survival of an
old custom. The whole town took a drive after that, and supped at
eight o'clock.

The San Antonio people believe there is no climate to equal
theirs, and talk much about the cool breezes from the Gulf of
Mexico, which is some miles away. But I found seven months of the
twelve too hot for comfort, and I could never detect much
coolness in the summer breezes.

After I settled down to the sedateness which is supposed to
belong to the Staff, I began to enjoy life very much. There is
compensation for every loss, and I found, with the new friends,
many of whom had lived their lives, and had known sorrow and joy,
a true companionship which enriched my life, and filled the days
with gladness.

My son had completed the High School course in San Antonio, under
an able German master, and had been sent East to prepare for the
Stevens Institute of Technology, and in the following spring I
took my daughter Katharine and fled from the dreaded heat of a
Texas summer. Never can I forget the child's grief on parting
from her Texas pony. She extorted a solemn promise from her
father, who was obliged to stay in Texas, that he would never
part with him.

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