We all scurried to the tents; some of them had blown down. There
was not much shelter, but the storm was soon over, and we stood
collecting our scattered senses. I saw Mrs. Wilkins at the door
of her tent. She beckoned to me; I went over there, and she said:
"Now, my dear, I am going to give you some advice. You must not
take it unkindly. I am an old army woman and I have made many
campaigns with the Colonel; you have but just joined the army.
You must never try to do any cooking at the camp-fire. The
soldiers are there for that work, and they know lots more about
it than any of us do."
"But, Jack," I began -
"Never mind Jack," said she; "he does not know as much as I do
about it; and when you reach your post," she added, "you can show
him what you can do in that line."
Bowen cleared away the sandy remains of the doubtful dough, and
prepared for us a very fair supper. Soldiers' bacon, and coffee,
and biscuits baked in a Dutch oven.
While waiting for the sun to set, we took a short stroll over to
the adobe ruins. Inside the enclosure lay an enormous
rattlesnake, coiled. It was the first one I had ever seen except
in a cage, and I was fascinated by the horror of the round,
grayish-looking heap, so near the color of the sand on which it
lay. Some soldiers came and killed it. But I noticed that Bowen
took extra pains that night, to spread buffalo robes under our
mattresses, and to place around them a hair lariat. "Snakes won't
cross over that," he said, with a grin.
Bowen was a character. Originally from some farm in Vermont, he
had served some years with the Eighth Infantry, and for a long
time in the same company under Major Worth, and had cooked for
the bachelors' mess. He was very tall, and had a good-natured
face, but he did not have much opinion of what is known as
etiquette, either military or civil; he seemed to consider
himself a sort of protector to the officers of Company K, and
now, as well, to the woman who had joined the company. He took us
all under his wing, as it were, and although he had to be sharply
reprimanded sometimes, in a kind of language which he seemed to
expect, he was allowed more latitude than most soldiers.
This was my first night under canvas in the army. I did not like
those desert places, and they grew to have a horror for me.
At four o'clock in the morning the cook's call sounded, the mules
were fed, and the crunching and the braying were something to
awaken the heaviest sleepers. Bowen called us. I was much upset
by the dreadful dust, which was thick upon everything I touched.
We had to hasten our toilet, as they were striking tents and
breaking camp early, in order to reach before noon the next place
where there was water. Sitting on camp-stools, around the
mess-tables, in the open, before the break of day, we swallowed
some black coffee and ate some rather thick slices of bacon and
dry bread. The Wilkins' tent was near ours, and I said to them,
rather peevishly: "Isn't this dust something awful?"
Miss Wilkins looked up with her sweet smile and gentle manner and
replied: "Why, yes, Mrs. Summerhayes, it is pretty bad, but you
must not worry about such a little thing as dust."
"How can I help it?" I said; "my hair, my clothes, everything
full of it, and no chance for a bath or a change: a miserable
little basin of water and - "
I suppose I was running on with all my grievances, but she
stopped me and said again: "Soon, now, you will not mind it at
all. Ella and I are army girls, you know, and we do not mind
anything. There's no use in fretting about little things."
Miss Wilkins' remarks made a tremendous impression upon my mind
and I began to study her philosophy.
At break of day the command marched out, their rifles on their
shoulders, swaying along ahead of us, in the sunlight and the
heat, which continued still to be almost unendurable. The dry
white dust of this desert country boiled and surged up and around
us in suffocating clouds.
I had my own canteen hung up in the ambulance, but the water in
it got very warm and I learned to take but a swallow at a time,
as it could not be refilled until we reached the next spring - and
there is always some uncertainty in Arizona as to whether the
spring or basin has gone dry. So water was precious, and we could
not afford to waste a drop.
At about noon we reached a forlorn mud hut, known as Packwood's
ranch. But the place had a bar, which was cheerful for some of
the poor men, as the two days' marches had been rather hard upon
them, being so "soft" from the long voyage. I could never
begrudge a soldier a bit of cheer after the hard marches in
Arizona, through miles of dust and burning heat, their canteens
long emptied and their lips parched and dry. I watched them often
as they marched along with their blanket-rolls, their haversacks,
and their rifles, and I used to wonder that they did not
complain.
