, and although his administration was nearing
its close, and the stress of official cares was very great, he seemed to
have leisure and interest to ask me about my life on the frontier; and
as the conversation became quite personal, the impulse seized me, to
tell him just how I felt about the education of our children, and then
to tell him what I thought and what others thought about the unjust
way in which the promotions and retirements in our regiment had been
managed.

He listened with the greatest interest and seemed pleased with my
frankness. He asked me what the soldiers and officers out there thought
of "So and So." "They hate him," I said.

Whereupon he laughed outright and I knew I had committed an
indiscretion, but life on the frontier does not teach one diplomacy
of speech, and by that time I was nerved up to say just what I felt,
regardless of results.

"Well," he said, smiling, "I am afraid I cannot interfere much with
those military matters;" then, pointing with his left hand and thumb
towards the War Department, "they fix them all up over there in the
Adjutant General's office," he added.

Then he asked me many more questions; if I had always stayed out there
with my husband, and why I did not live in the East, as so many
army women did; and all the time I could hear the dull thud of the
carpenters' hammers, for they were building even then the board seats
for the public who would witness the inaugural ceremonies of his
successor, and with each stroke of the hammer, his face seemed to grow
more sad.

I felt the greatness of the man; his desire to be just and good: his
marvellous personal power, his ability to understand and to sympathize,
and when I parted from him he said again laughingly, "Well, I shall not
forget your husband's regiment, and if anything turns up for those fine
men you have told me about, they will hear from me." And I knew they
were the words of a man, who meant what he said.

In the course of our conversation he had asked, "Who are these men? Do
they ever come to Washington? I rarely have these things explained to me
and I have little time to interfere with the decisions of the Adjutant
General's office."

I replied: "No, Mr. President, they are not the men you see around
Washington. Our regiment stays on the frontier, and these men are the
ones who do the fighting, and you people here in Washington are apt to
forget all about them."

"What have they ever done? Were they in