A ceaseless round of drill and work and lessons, and
work and lessons and drill - no recreation, no excitement,no
change.
Far away from family and all home companionship, a man longs for
some pleasant place to go, after the day's work is done. Perhaps
these women think (if, in their blind enthusiasm, they think at
all) that a young soldier or an old soldier needs no recreation.
At all events, they have taken from him the only one he had, the
good old canteen, and given him nothing in return.
Now Fort Niobrara was a large post. There were ten companies,
cavalry and infantry, General August V. Kautz, the Colonel of the
Eighth Infantry, in command.
And here, amidst the sand-hills of Nebraska, we first began to
really know our Colonel. A man of strong convictions and abiding
honesty, a soldier who knew his profession thoroughly, having not
only achieved distinction in the Civil War, but having served
when little more than a boy, in the Mexican War of 1846. Genial
in his manners, brave and kind, he was beloved by all.
The three Kautz children, Frankie, Austin, and Navarra, were the
inseparable companions of our own children. There was a small
school for the children of the post, and a soldier by the name of
Delany was schoolmaster. He tried hard to make our children
learn, but they did not wish to study, and spent all their spare
time in planning tricks to be played upon poor Delany.
