This was an anxious thought for me to take to my state-room. Once there, and my restless young ones asleep, I realized the desperate venture we were making. Nothing had ever been as I wished. With the war, its causes, its ends and objects, I had nothing to do. My part was solely with the poverty, the heartbreak, the losses, the exile from home.
An unbidden vision, many a time thrust from me, now arose, insistent. My early home—all flowers and music and beauty, my opulent life; the devotion of honored friends—this was my heritage! Of this I had been unjustly defrauded. Ah, well! It was an old story—the story of another paradise, another yielding to sinful ambition, another sword, another parting with happiness and home to encounter difficulty, poverty, danger! Then, "The world was all before them where to choose a place of rest—and Providence their guide." Aye! Providence their Guide! This, this was the anchor of their hope, and must be mine.
We were awakened before dawn by a confusion on deck—the dragging of heavy ropes, hurried feet, loud shouts. Throwing on my wrapper, I ascended, to find my little boys already on deck, eager for adventure. It appeared we had met our consort, the Niagara, in a crippled condition, had thrown her a cable, and were now "put about" to lead her into port at Norfolk. The rising sun found us slowly returning with the Niagara in tow; but a few miles from Norfolk she signified her ability to go on without us, and we resumed our onward journey to New York.
Late in the evening all eyes were turned toward land—and presently the sky-line of New York emerged from the mists. Very different was it from the sky-line of to-day. Then we saw only the uneven line of moderate dwellings of unequal height, broken here and there by the upward-pointing fingers of the churches. There was no "Brooklyn Bridge" spanning the East River, no Babel-like towers of the modern sky-scraper, no great statue—like a bronze figure on a newel-post—of Liberty with her torch and coronal of stars. (I never did admire Miss Liberty. I always sympathized with the afflicted sculptor who exclaimed, as his vision was smitten by the giantess, "If this be Liberty, give me Death.")
We were, after much delay, "warped" into our own berth, and the "dear old muggy atmosphere" of New York stormed my unwilling senses: atmosphere thickened and flavored, after a sweltering summer day, with coal smoke, street-filth, and refuse of decaying fruit and many cabbages.
But all things were forgotten when we descried the slight figure of my general on the pier! Very thin and wan did he look, sadly in need of us. He took us, a party of eight, to a neighboring restaurant for dinner; and then we crossed the ferry and in the horse-cars, through miles and miles of lighted streets, we reached our little home, far away on the outer edge of Brooklyn.
The morning after our arrival we rose early to look about us. We were in an unsubstantial new house, narrow as a ladder and filled with unattractive furniture. Hannah agreed to take care of the children, and I set forth to find a market. After walking several blocks in different directions I concluded there was no market within reach, and I began to doubt my ability to provide a dinner. A fat, stolid-looking policeman strolled near me as I ventured:—
"Can you tell me, Mr. Officer, where I can find an honest butcher?"
"I'll be hanged if I know one," he replied.
I considered. We had brought biscuit and crackers. I must find some milk.