Vanished Arizona | Page 8

and floating islands, but of the actual, practical side
of cooking, and the management of a range, I knew nothing.
Here was a dilemma, indeed!
The eggs appeared to boil, but they did not seem to be done when we
took them off, by the minute-hand of the clock.
I declared the kettle was too large; Adams said he did not understand it
at all.
I could have wept with chagrin! Our first meal a deux!
I appealed to Jack. He said, "Why, of course, Martha, you ought to
know that things do not cook as quickly at this altitude as they do down
at the sea level. We are thousands of feet above the sea here in
Wyoming." (I am not sure it was thousands, but it was hundreds at
least.)
So that was the trouble, and I had not thought of it!
My head was giddy with the glamour, the uniform, the guard-mount,
the military music, the rarefied air, the new conditions, the new
interests of my life. Heine's songs, Goethe's plays, history and romance
were floating through my mind. Is it to be wondered at that I and
Adams together prepared the most atrocious meals that ever a new
husband had to eat? I related my difficulties to Jack, and told him I
thought we should never be able to manage with such kitchen utensils
as were furnished by the Q. M. D.
"Oh, pshaw! You are pampered and spoiled with your New England
kitchens," said he; "you will have to learn to do as other army women

do--cook in cans and such things, be inventive, and learn to do with
nothing." This was my first lesson in army house-keeping.
After my unpractical teacher had gone out on some official business, I
ran over to Mrs. Wilhelm's quarters and said, "Will you let me see your
kitchen closet?"
She assented, and I saw the most beautiful array of tin-ware, shining
and neat, placed in rows upon the shelves and hanging from hooks on
the wall.
"So!" I said; "my military husband does not know anything about these
things;" and I availed myself of the first trip of the ambulance over to
Cheyenne, bought a stock of tin-ware and had it charged, and made no
mention of it--because I feared that tin-ware was to be our bone of
contention, and I put off the evil day.
The cooking went on better after that, but I did not have much
assistance from Adams.
I had great trouble at first with the titles and the rank: but I soon
learned that many of the officers were addressed by the brevet title
bestowed upon them for gallant service in the Civil War, and I began to
understand about the ways and customs of the army of Uncle Sam. In
contrast to the Germans, the American lieutenants were not addressed
by their title (except officially); I learned to "Mr." all the lieutenants
who had no brevet.
One morning I suggested to Adams that he should wash the front
windows; after being gone a half hour, to borrow a step-ladder, he
entered the room, mounted the ladder and began. I sat writing.
Suddenly, he faced around, and addressing me, said, "Madam, do you
believe in spiritualism?"
"Good gracious! Adams, no; why do you ask me such a question ?"
This was enough; he proceeded to give a lecture on the subject worthy
of a man higher up on the ladder of this life. I bade him come to an end

as soon as I dared (for I was not accustomed to soldiers), and suggested
that he was forgetting his work.
It was early in April, and the snow drifted through the crevices of the
old dried-out house, in banks upon our bed; but that was soon mended,
and things began to go smoothly enough, when Jack was ordered to
join his company, which was up at the Spotted Tail Agency. It was
expected that the Sioux under this chief would break out at any minute.
They had become disaffected about some treaty. I did not like to be left
alone with the Spiritualist, so Jack asked one of the laundresses, whose
husband was out with the company, to come and stay and take care of
me. Mrs. Patten was an old campaigner; she understood everything
about officers and their ways, and she made me absolutely comfortable
for those two lonely months. I always felt grateful to her; she was a
dear old Irish woman.
All the families and a few officers were left at the post, and, with the
daily drive to Cheyenne, some small dances and theatricals, my time
was pleasantly occupied.
Cheyenne in those early days was an amusing but unattractive frontier
town; it presented a great contrast to the old civilization I