field at the camp distinctly has its drawbacks. Across part of
it are open drainage ditches; and another part, where no ditches are, is
a slippery bog after any rain. Drilling on such a field distracts you
between the natural desire to pick your footing, and the officers'
constant command to keep your eyes up. We are told that the city of
Plattsburg is very generous in providing this ground, and doubtless it
was to begin with; yet I wonder if after two very prosperous seasons, due
to our presence and our visitors', the city couldn't afford to put a few
hundred dollars (it would cost no more) into finishing draining the field
with tile, and filling the ditches in. That would give us good dry ground
and firm footing.

At any rate, it was a relief to be marched this morning to the military
post, to practice our new formations on its great smooth field. The
parade-ground is a wide level space by the edge of the lake, and on the
inner side is a long row of the married officers' houses, all exactly
alike, yet with shrubs and vines not unhomelike. I saw three children at
one place, two at another, plus two nursemaids; but as a whole the houses
look deserted, as they are. For all our regiments of this department are
on the Mexican border, and while papa is away it is natural for mamma to
take the babies to visit grandpa, if indeed she doesn't go to the border
too. As a consequence of this absence of the infantry regiments, we are
ministered to here by some companies of coast artillery, which are
useless to the government in this crisis, and so are unwillingly serving
here as cooks, waiters, and equipment orderlies. Our officers are scraped
up from everywhere, the captain of my company even coming from Panama.
Unless they can persuade themselves that there is to be no more fighting
in Mexico, they must hate to settle down here as mere missionaries of the
preparedness movement.

Well, we were taken onto the field, and were given our first dose of
skirmish drill. The captain explained how the squad should do the
expanding movement on which the whole is based. "Being at a halt," as the
regulations are fond of saying, the corporal takes position three paces
in front of his Number Two man, extends his arms as a signal or gives his
order, and the men at a run take given positions on a line with him. A
corporal and his squad being ordered to illustrate this for the benefit
of the rest of us, the corporal forgot to stand fast, and so a