“Look up!” said Mama, pointing to the Indian on the summit of the dome. “That statue was made by your Uncle Crawford, whose fireplaces you saw at the Corner.”
Either on this visit or a later one, my mother, going early to some function at the Capitol, was obliged to stand for some time before the closed doors. A panel of sculptured bronze in one of the doors caught her eye.
“Why, this is my family!” she exclaimed. “That is Louisa with Frank, Annie, and Mimoli.”
In the bronze bas-relief Crawford had put portraits of his wife and children. Frank was later to become famous as Marion Crawford the novelist.
The contrast between the fine government buildings and the shabby Washington streets and down-at-heel houses was startling, even to a child. The manners and dress of the law-makers of the land were not those of Mr. Sumner or Governor Andrew. The hotel was thronged with men in black frock coats and tall hats worn at an acute angle. The corridors and even the richly furnished parlors were provided with spittoons, which were in constant use. The man who did not chew tobacco smoked long black cigars. We stayed at Wormley’s Hotel, where Uncle Sam seemed more at home than any one else, ruling the proprietor, an intelligent mulatto, the servants, and the guests, with his persuasive authority. Though at home we heard constant talk about the negroes, my parents being forever busy in their interests, I had until now seen very few of them and was much interested in the black servants at the hotel.
Uncle Sam’s rooms were near Wormley’s, and here I passed the happiest hours of that Washington visit. My father, who had joined us, was occupied with Sanitary Commission business, leaving my mother free to enjoy Uncle Sam’s companionship.
“What do you think I saw?” a sharp-faced woman was heard to say to a friend, “Mrs. Howe—the Mrs. Howe—being kissed in the parlor of Wormley’s hotel by Sam Ward—what is more, she kissed him back. What do you think of that?”
“I think that if Sam Ward were my brother, I should have done the same thing!” was the answer.
The gossiping woman did not know of the relationship between the two well-known figures, though she knew both by sight. I have often remembered this incident, which justifies the wise old saw:
“Believe nothing that you hear, and half that you see!”