April 15.—He is dead! Assassinated! None else would suffice!
April 24.—To-morrow we are going to see them take him home, the child and I. The Fennimans have made me free of their front porch; they have a house on Union Square, New York. He will pass that way. The neighbors think I'm crazy to take a child of four or five. She may not understand, but she will see, and byme-by, some day, it will come back to her, and she'll be glad that Daddy took her with him.
April 25.—We left at daybreak. As it was raw and threatening, the child wore a little blue cloak and cap like a soldier's that Satira made to please her last winter. It being eight years since I've seen the city, I was forced to ask my way, but Mr. Esterbrook being at the station to meet some friends, he counselled me. Carrying Poppea, for the streets were thronged, I went out to Madison Square and so down to Fifth Avenue. Black on every side, hanging from roof to street, black-banded flags, black bands on people's arms, the great clock shrouded in black. There were no public stages on the streets that I could see, so I walked down Fifth Avenue to Seventeenth Street, then eastward to Union Square, and so down to Fourteenth Street.
One large building in particular was covered with black from the dormers down to the street, with all the windows hid by black-trimmed flags. I asked a passer-by whose house it was, and he told me that it was the home of a society called the Union League, formed by the best men of this city for the upholding of the Union.
We got to the house at half after one o'clock. I don't know how long we waited, bells tolling. A groan ran up and down the street, and then a great silence. From where I stood out by the fence, the porch and verandy being crowded, I could see the black-covered horses swinging round the corner from Broadway, and after them the car. Down the street it came, from the corner seemed an hour. I lifted Poppea to the iron fence post by the walk. The groan rose once more, and then silence, with all hats off. When the car passed, it seemed as though the world was dead, and that after the minute guns would follow the last trump!
Gazing before her at the car, the child pulled her little soldier cap off, then whispered to me, drawing my head down, "I don't see him, Daddy. Is he going to heaven in that bed asleep?" "Yes, yes," I said. "'N' when he wakes up, will he see muvver and Ma'gold and tell 'em we was here?"
A band struck up a dirge, so I didn't have to answer. I can't but think perhaps he'll find her mother, and tell her that there's an old fellow who couldn't fight, that just lives to right her wrongs.
After the car a stream of faces followed, men and more men of high-up societies and committees. I was looking at them without seeing, until one man passed and looked back as he went, at us I thought. It was John Angus! My suz, but he's aged or something. His face was drawn as if by pain or anger, I can't judge which.
Poppea saw him too, and as he passed she waved her hand, she's such an eye for faces. Then she turned her mind to some cakes the ladies gave her, with pink tops. It's wonderful how nature eases things for children.
May 10.—The Anguses are back, and folks say that Philip is not well, does not keep his footing as a boy should who is turning three. Satira saw him yesterday, sitting in his little coach behind the parapet, and she says he looks old and tired across the eyes.