Scarce three months after that some of the same band of Indians
fired into the garrison and fled to the mountains. I remarked to
Jack, that I thought we were very imprudent to go to see that
dance, and he said he supposed we were. But I had never regarded
life in such a light way as he seemed to.
Women usually like to talk over their trials and their wonderful
adventures, and that is why I am writing this, I suppose. Men
simply will not talk about such things.
The cavalry beauty seemed to look at this frontier life
philosophically - what she really thought about it, I never knew.
Mrs. Bailey was so much occupied by the care of her young child
and various out-door amusements, that she did not, apparently,
think much about things that happened around us. At all events,
she never seemed inclined to talk about them. There was no one
else to talk to; the soil was strange, and the atmosphere a
foreign one to me; life did not seem to be taken seriously out
there, as it was back in New England, where they always loved to
sit down and talk things over. I was downright lonesome for my
mother and sisters.
I could not go out very much at that time, so I occupied myself a
good deal with needle-work.
One evening we heard firing across the canon. Jack caught up his
sword, buckling on his belt as he went out. "Injuns fighting on
the other side of the river," some soldier reported. Finding that
it did not concern us, Jack said, "Come out into the back yard,
Martha, and look over the stockade, and I think you can see
across the river." So I hurried out to the stockade, but Jack,
seeing that I was not tall enough, picked up an empty box that
stood under the window of the room belonging to the Doctor, when,
thud! fell something out onto the ground, and rolled away. I
started involuntarily. It was dark in the yard. I stood stock
still. "What was that?" I whispered.
"Nothing but an old Edam cheese," said this true-hearted soldier
of mine. I knew it was not a cheese, but said no more. I stood up
on the box, watched the firing like a man, and went quietly back
into the quarters. After retiring, I said, "You might just a
swell tell me now, you will have to sooner or later, what was in
the box - it had a dreadful sound, as it rolled away on the
ground."
"Well," said he, "if you must know, it was an Injun's head that
the Doctor had saved, to take to Washington with him. It had a
sort of a malformed skull or jaw-bone or something. But he left
it behind - I guess it got a leetle to old for him to carry," he
laughed.
