inger in comic
opera, and now as an actor and author, also lived in New Rochelle,
and we came to have the honor of being numbered amongst his friends. A
devoted husband and kind father, a man of letters and a book lover, such
is the man as we knew him in his home and with his family.

And now came the delicious warm summer days. We persuaded the
Quartermaster to prop up the little row of old bathing houses which had
toppled over with the heavy winter gales. There were several bathing
enthusiasts amongst us; we had a pretty fair little stretch of beach
which was set apart for the officers' families, and now what bathing
parties we had! Kemble, the illustrator, joined our ranks--and on a warm
summer morning the little old Tug Hamilton was gay with the artists and
their families, the players and writers of plays, and soon you could see
the little garrison hastening to the beach and the swimmers running down
the long pier, down the run-way and off head first into the clear waters
of the Sound. What a company was that! The younger and the older ones
all together, children and their fathers and mothers, all happy, all
well, all so gay, and we of the frontier so enamored of civilization
and what it brought us! There were no intruders and ah! those were happy
days. Uncle Sam seemed to be making up to us for what we had lost during
all those long years in the wild places.

Then Augustus Thomas wrote the play of "Arizona" and we went to New York
to see it put on, and we sat in Mr. Thomas' box and saw our frontier
life brought before us with startling reality.

And so one season followed another. Each bringing its pleasures, and
then came another lovely wedding, for my brother Harry gave up his
bachelor estate and married one of the nicest and handsomest girls in
Westchester County, and their home in New Rochelle was most attractive.
My son was at the Stevens Institute and both he and Katharine were able
to spend their vacations at David's Island, and altogether, our life
there was near to perfection.

We were doomed to have one more tour in the West, however, and this time
it was the Middle West.

For in the autumn of '96, Jack was ordered to Jefferson Barracks,
Missouri, on construction work.

Jefferson Barracks is an old and historic post on the Mississippi River,
some ten miles south of St. Louis. I could not seem to take any interest
in the post or in the life there. I could not form new ties so quickly,
after our life