When I was wearied with the toil incident to our extensive commercial operations and the labors and anxieties of battle we sat upon the sand and he sang to me, playing the accompaniments on his guitar. When I hear those old songs to-day they come to me with the far faint odor of the breezes that swept across the ocean in that long gone time and I hear again the golden notes of that melodious voice mingled with the soft music floating out from the touch of his fingers.
Three years later I saw my soldier again. He had just received his commission as captain and was recruiting his company at Fortress Monroe before sailing for the unknown West. The first real sorrow came to me when I watched the St. Louis, the United States transport, go out to sea with my soldier on board. From her prow floated a flag like that which had waved over the fort we built on the sands in that time when life had lost all its troubles and the sunshine of the heart filled earth and sea and sky with radiance. I felt then as I had not before realized that this was my soldier's flag to which his life was given and to my view the stars in it shone with a new glory.
The St. Louis was bound for Puget Sound where was the new station, Fort Bellingham, which I thought must be farther than the end of the world. Not one ship of our whole great fleet in the olden days had sailed for Puget Sound.
V A KEEPSAKE FOR THE ANGELS
When we went home Uncle Charles came to the wharf to meet us. He was dressed in the clothes left to him by my grandfather's will and, dangling from his watch-chain, glaring at us in bold relief against his black velvet vest, a set of artificial teeth grinned in ghastly manner from their gold settings. In those days artificial teeth were not common, and when Mr. Durkee, a dentist from Connecticut, came into our neighborhood and hung out his sign, all of a certain class who could raise money enough had their teeth taken out and replaced by false ones.
That year when my grandmother asked Uncle Charles what he would like for a Christmas present he chose "a p'ar of dem sto' teef," explaining that his were "moughty nigh wo' out, chawin' 'backer en a gnashin' de mules of a week days en de sinners of a Sundays."
My grandmother reasoned with him on the folly of making the exchange but he had set his heart upon it and she, with her habit of spoiling her servants by indulging them, permitted him to be measured and fitted for his "sto' teef," of which he was so proud that he wore them more for ornament than use, displaying them at all special functions.
As Uncle Charles drove us home he had many confidences to make to my grandmother. The most important was about little Sara Elizabeth.