LITMIR.BIZ

      A MULE LUNCHING FROM A PILLOW.

      As we advanced farther into the forest, Eliza received further whispered confidences about my neck, stiff and sore from the roll of patriotic blue that was still the rest for my tired head, and she resolved to make an attempt to get a feather pillow. One day she discovered, near our camp, a house that was cleaner than the rest we had seen, and began negotiations with the mistress. She offered a "greenback," as we had no silver then; but they had never seen one, and would not believe that it was legal money. Finally, the woman said that, if we had any calico or muslin for sale, she would exchange her pillows for either the one or the other. Eliza forgot her diplomacy, and rather indignantly explained that we were not traveling peddlers. At last, after several trips to and from our camp, in which I was secretly interested, she made what she thought a successful trade by exchanging some blankets. Like the wag's description of the first Pullman-car pillows, which he said he lost in his ear, they were diminutive excuses for our idea of what one should be, but I cannot remember anything that ever impressed me as such a luxury; and I was glad to see that, when the pillows were installed in their place, the faith in my patriotism and in my willingness to endure privations was not shaken.

      The General was satisfied with his soldiers, and admired the manner in which they endured the trials of that hard experience. His perplexities departed when they took everything so bravely. He tried to arrange our marches every day so that we might not travel over fifteen miles. So far as I can remember, there was no one whose temper and strength were not tried to the uttermost, except my husband. His seeming indifference to excessive heat, his having long before conquered thirst, his apparent unconsciousness of the stings or bites of insects, were powerful aids in encountering those suffocating days. Frequently after a long march, when we all gasped for breath, and in our exhaustion flung ourselves down "anywhere to die," as we laughingly said, a fresh horse was saddled, and off went the General for a hunt, or to look up the prospects for water in our next day's journey. If this stifling atmosphere, to which we were daily subjected, disturbed him, we did not know it. He held that grumbling did not mend matters; but I differed with him. I still think a little complaining, when the patience is sorely taxed, eases the troubled soul, though at that time I took good care not to put my theory into practice, for reasons I have explained when the question of my joining the march hung in the balance.

      My life in a wagon soon became such an old story that I could hardly believe I had ever had a room. It constantly reminded me of my father. He had opposed my marrying in the army, as I suppose most fond fathers do. His opposition caused me great suspense, and I thought, as all the very young are apt to, that it was hopeless misery. Now that the struggle was ended, I began to recall the arguments of my parents. Father's principal one, mindful of the deprivations he had seen officers' wives endure in Michigan's early days, was that, after the charm and dazzle of the epaulet had passed, I might have to travel "in a covered wagon like an emigrant." I told this reason of my father's to my husband, and he often laughed over it. When I was lifted from my rather lofty apartment, and set down in the tent in the dark—and before dawn in a pine forest it is dark—the candle revealed a twinkle in the eye of a man who could joke before breakfast. "I wonder what your father would say now," was the oft-repeated remark, while the silent partner scrabbled around to get ready for the day. There was always a pervading terror of being late, and I could not believe but that it might happen, some day, that thousands of men would be kept waiting because a woman had lost her hair-pins. Imaging the ignominy of any of the little trifles that delay us in getting ourselves together, being the cause of detaining an expedition in its morning start on the march. Fortunately, the soldiers would have been kept in merciful ignorance of the cause of the detention, as a commanding officer is not obliged to explain why he orders the trumpeter to delay the call of "boots and saddles;" but the chagrin would have been just as great on the part of the "camp-follower," and it would have given the color of truth to the General's occasional declaration that "it is easier to command a whole division of cavalry than one woman." I made no protest to this declaration, as I had observed, even in those early days of my married life, that, in matrimonial experiences, the men that make open statements of their wrongs in rather a pompous, boastful way, are not the real sufferers. Pride teaches subtlety in hiding genuine injuries.

      Though I had a continued succession of frights, while prowling around the tent before day hunting my things, believing them lost sometimes, and thus being thrown into wild stampedes, I escaped the mortification of detaining the command. The Frenchman's weariness of a life that was given over to buttoning and unbuttoning, was mine, and in the short time between reveillé and breakfast, I lived through much perturbation of mind, fearing I was behind time, and devoutly wished that women who followed the drum could have been clothed like the feathered tribe, and ready for the wing at a moment's notice. On this expedition I brought down the art of dressing in a hurry to so fine a point that I could take my bath and dress entirely in seven minutes. My husband timed me one day, without my knowledge, and I had the honor of having this added to a very brief list of my attributes as a soldier. There was a second recommendation, which did duty as a mild plaudit for years afterward. When faithful soldiers are discharged after their term

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