Frolicking with Soldiers.
Of course they always regarded me as a girl-boy weakling. Policy required that I always represent myself as a person of no talents except those of the fairie, and as a person occupying a humble station in life. Otherwise some of a vicious turn of mind would have followed me up with the purpose of blackmail, as was done in 1905, when the thirst for money suddenly put an end to my association with soldiers of one fort and almost occasioned my murder. Some quizzed me from time to time in order to ascertain whether I was worth following up, but I saved the situation through subterfuge. While they were ignorant that I belonged habitually to a high social stratum, I lost only trifling sums through robbery and blackmail.
They looked upon me as a rather remarkable individual. One of them told a policeman in my presence that I had been the talk of the fort for months. In a parade in which my soldier friends took part, I as spectator occupied a rather prominent position on the very edge of the line, and from rank after rank as they passed, I distinguished the words: “There’s Jennie June.” At an inter-fort ball game at which there were 500 spectators, amid the continuous shouting, a score got together on my arrival and several times in unison shouted “Jennie June!” I achieved popularity at both forts, although a small percentage proved irreconcilable.
Popularity and Fame Achieved.
When soldiers of Forts X and Y met at athletic contests, they interchanged stories about my adventures. At the army manoeuvres in Virginia in 1905, in which soldiers from all the forts in states bordering on the Atlantic took part, my peculiarities and adventures were spread broadcast, as I learned through encountering on the Bowery a soldier from a fort which I had never visited who had just returned from the manoeuvres. Realizing that as “Jennie June” I was very widely known among soldiers, I made it a practice of asking those whom I ran across in New York if they had ever heard of “Jennie June.” A considerable proportion, before I revealed my identity, were able to recount adventures in which I had figured.
During this closing period of my open career as a fairie, I was indeed very widely known personally. On the streets and on public conveyances when amid New York’s crowds, I was a number of times accosted by young men, some of whom I could not remember, but who had seen me somewhere and knew me as Jennie June. Several times as many people knew me under this name and character as under my real masculine name.
Adventures at the Forts.
I overran the two military reservations as no other civilian would have been allowed to. Soldiers on or off guard would escort me under or behind the fortifications, beyond the “dead line” for all other civilians. Sometimes at night when I had learned that one of my intimates was on guard on a certain beat, I would seek him. Perhaps I would run up against a stranger on guard, but one who knew me by sight or reputation. A voice out of the darkness: “Halt! Who goes there?” “Jennie June.” “Advance to be recognized!” On half such occasions I received the most enthusiastic welcome, and always at least kindness and permission to go on my way.
When I met an acquaintance on guard at night, I would kiss his rifle and bayonet as being the emblems of the highest function of the mere animal man. I would also kiss his gloves and his hat, and shower the rest of his clothing with kisses.
Sometimes I was admitted for an hour or two in the guard-house, where the soldiers waiting for their turn at guard would while away their time in spooning with me, imagining that I was a complete physical puella. I was even introduced near midnight into the prisoners’ quarters. To be thus handed over to the youthful military prisoners—in general the wildest and roughest of all humanity—was the attainment of the very height of my ambition as a fairie.