My Colonel came himself with his staff in the afternoon to escort us to his headquarters at the Marine Hospital. On our way we passed an abandoned house, on the walls of which grew the most glorious specimen of fuchsia I ever beheld. I had always heard that this was a marine plant, and I now saw to what perfection it could be brought in the sea air. It reached to the second story and was covered with a shower of great scarlet and blue bells. "Dixie colors," said one of the ladies. We gathered gorgeous bunches and fastened them in our white dresses.
The parade ground was a lovely stretch of green, and beyond, the blue waters of the sea sparkled in the afternoon sun, each little wave gemmed with a diamond and set in sapphire.
A siege gun had just been mounted, and there was to be practice-firing at a buoy for a mark.
I was standing with my group of friends when a handsome officer approached with a military salute and invited me to honor his company by firing their first gun. I went forward with him, and he put the lanyard in my hands.
"Wait for the word of command, Madam," he said.
"And then what?" I inquired.
"Oh, then pull steadily," and with that he stepped back.