Vanished Arizona | Page 5

then sat at a little table in the open, and were served with coffee, sweet cream, and butter, by a strapping Hessian peasant woman--all so simple, yet so elegant, so peaceful.
We heard the best music at the theatre, which was managed with the same precision, and maintained by the Government with the same generosity, as in the days of King George. No one was allowed to enter after the overture had begun, and an absolute hush prevailed.
The orchestra consisted of sixty or more pieces, and the audience was critical. The parquet was filled with officers in the gayest uniforms; there were few ladies amongst them; the latter sat mostly in the boxes, of which there were several tiers, and as soon as the curtain fell, between the acts, the officers would rise, turn around, and level their glasses at the boxes. Sometimes they came and visited in the boxes.
As I had been brought up in a town half Quaker, half Puritan, the custom of going to the theatre Sunday evenings was rather a questionable one in my mind. But I soon fell in with their ways, and found that on Sunday evenings there was always the most brilliant audience and the best plays were selected. With this break-down of the wall of narrow prejudice, I gave up others equally as narrow, and adopted the German customs with my whole heart.
I studied the language with unflinching perseverance, for this was the opportunity I had dreamed about and longed for in the barren winter evenings at Nantucket when I sat poring over Coleridge's translations of Schiller's plays and Bayard Taylor's version of Goethe's Faust.
Should I ever read these intelligently in the original ?
And when my father consented for me to go over and spend a year and live in General Weste's family, there never was a happier or more grateful young woman. Appreciative and eager, I did not waste a moment, and my keen enjoyment of the German classics repaid me a hundred fold for all my industry.
Neither time nor misfortune, nor illness can take from me the memory of that year of privileges such as is given few American girls to enjoy, when they are at an age to fully appreciate them.
And so completely separated was I from the American and English colony that I rarely heard my own language spoken, and thus I lived, ate, listened, talked, and even dreamed in German.
There seemed to be time enough to do everything we wished; and, as the Franco-Prussian war was just over (it was the year of 1871), and many troops were in garrison at Hanover, the officers could always join us at the various gardens for after-dinner coffee, which, by the way, was not taken in the demi-tasse, but in good generous coffee-cups, with plenty of rich cream. Every one drank at least two cups, the officers smoked, the women knitted or embroidered, and those were among the pleasantest hours I spent in Germany.
The intrusion of unwelcome visitors was never to be feared, as, by common consent, the various classes in Hanover kept by themselves, thus enjoying life much better than in a country where everybody is striving after the pleasures and luxuries enjoyed by those whom circumstances have placed above them.
The gay uniforms lent a brilliancy to every affair, however simple. Officers were not allowed to appear en civile, unless on leave of absence.
I used to say, "Oh, Frau General, how fascinating it all is!" "Hush, Martha," she would say; "life in the army is not always so brilliant as it looks; in fact, we often call it, over here, 'glaenzendes Elend.' "
These bitter words made a great impression upon my mind, and in after years, on the American frontier, I seemed to hear them over and over again.
When I bade good-bye to the General and his family, I felt a tightening about my throat and my heart, and I could not speak. Life in Germany had become dear to me, and I had not known how dear until I was leaving it forever.

CHAPTER II
I JOINED THE ARMY
I was put in charge of the captain of the North German Lloyd S. S. "Donau," and after a most terrific cyclone in mid-ocean, in which we nearly foundered, I landed in Hoboken, sixteen days from Bremen.
My brother, Harry Dunham, met me on the pier, saying, as he took me in his arms, "You do not need to tell me what sort of a trip you have had; it is enough to look at the ship--that tells the story."
As the vessel had been about given up for lost, her arrival was somewhat of an agreeable surprise to all our friends, and to none more so than my old friend Jack, a second lieutenant of the United States army, who seemed so glad to