One day there was an earthquake of long duration and extended vibration which would have been sufficient to destroy Manila had it not lacked a certain upward jerk calculated to unbalance swaying walls. One gets used to earthquakes in the Orient in a way, but no amount of familiarity can make the sensation a pleasant one. My husband was alone at the time and he had decided to hold hard to his bed and let the roof come down on him if it had to. The hospital was a one story wooden building and he really thought he was as safe in it as he would be anywhere. Moreover, he was quite unable to walk, so his fortitude could hardly be called voluntary, but he had scarcely had time to steel himself for the worst when his door was thrown open and in rushed General Funston.
“We must carry out the Governor!” he shouted; “we must carry out the Governor!”
“But how are you going to do that, General?” asked Mr. Taft.
He knew quite well that General Funston, in his weakened condition, would be incapable of carrying an infant very far.
“Oh, I have my orderly with me,” responded the doughty General, and by this time he had begun to get a firm grasp on the mattress while behind him hurried a soldier, shorter even than his chief, but with the same look of dauntless determination in his eye.
In spite of the straining on the rafters, Mr. Taft burst out laughing and flatly refused to let them try to move him. Fortunately for them all the upward jerk necessary to bring down the roof didn’t occur, so there is no way of telling whether or not, for once in his life, General Funston started something that he couldn’t finish.
We sailed from Manila on Christmas Eve, 1901, and, much as I had enjoyed my life and experiences in our new world of the Philippines, I was glad to see the tropic shores fade away and to feel that we were to have a few months in our own land and climate, and among our own old friends, before I sighted them again.
CHAPTER XI
A TRIP TO ROME
The winter of 1902, the greater part of which we spent in Cincinnati, is memorable only as a period of bereavement and protracted illnesses. Perhaps such a record has no place in a narrative wherein it is my wish to dwell on pleasant memories only, or, at least, to touch as lightly as possible upon those incidents which, for one’s peace, may better be forgotten, but a whole winter filled with grief and worry is not so easily torn from the leaves of the calendar rolled back.
In the first place, when I left Manila in December, 1901, I was very near to a nervous breakdown. This was due to the long strain of a peculiarly exacting official life in a trying climate, and an added weight of uneasiness about my husband’s illness.