master stables). Two iron cots from the hospital were brought
over, and two bed-sacks filled with fresh, sweet straw, were laid upon
them; over these were laid our mattresses. Woven-wire springs were then
unheard of in that country.

We untied our folding chairs, built a fire on the hearth, captured an
old broken-legged wash-stand and a round table from somewhere, and that
was our living-room. A pine table was found for the small hall, which
was to be our dinning-room, and some chairs with raw-hide seats were
brought from the barracks, some shelves knocked up against one wall, to
serve as sideboard. Now for the kitchen!

A cooking-stove and various things were sent over from the Q. M.
store-house, and Bowen (the wonder of it!) drove in nails, and hung up
my Fort Russell tin-ware, and put up shelves and stood my pans in rows,
and polished the stove, and went out and stole a table somewhere (Bowen
was invaluable in that way), polished the zinc under the stove, and lo!
and behold, my army kitchen! Bowen was indeed a treasure; he said he
would like to cook for us, for ten dollars a month. We readily accepted
this offer. There were no persons to be obtained, in these distant
places, who could do the cooking in the families of officers, so it
was customary to employ a soldier; and the soldier often displayed
remarkable ability in the way of cooking, in some cases, in fact, more
than in the way of soldiering. They liked the little addition to their
pay, if they were of frugal mind; they had also their own quiet room
to sleep in, and I often thought the family life, offering as it did a
contrast to the bareness and desolation of the noisy barracks, appealed
to the domestic instinct, so strong in some men's natures. At all
events, it was always easy in those days to get a man from the company,
and they sometimes remained for years with an officer's family; in some
cases attending drills and roll-calls besides.

Now came the unpacking of the chests and trunks. In our one diminutive
room, and small hall, was no closet, there were no hooks on the bare
walls, no place to hang things or lay things, and what to do I did not
know. I was in despair; Jack came in, to find me sitting on the edge of
a chest, which was half unpacked, the contents on the floor. I was very
mournful, and he did not see why.

"Oh! Jack! I've nowhere to put things!"

"What things?" said this impossible man.

"Why, all our things," said I, losing my temper;