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.
