Of course the children took much
interest in the trophies I occasionally brought back from my hunts. When
I started for my regiment, in '98, the stress of leaving home, which
was naturally not pleasant, was somewhat lightened by the next to
the youngest boy, whose ideas of what was about to happen were hazy,
clasping me round the legs with a beaming smile and saying, "And is my
father going to the war? And will he bring me back a bear?" When, some
five months later, I returned, of course in my uniform, this little boy
was much puzzled as to my identity, although he greeted me affably
with "Good afternoon, Colonel." Half an hour later somebody asked him,
"Where's father?" to which he responded, "I don't know; but the Colonel
is taking a bath."
Of course the children anthropomorphized--if that is the proper
term--their friends of the animal world. Among these friends at one
period was the baker's horse, and on a very rainy day I heard the little
girl, who was looking out of the window, say, with a melancholy shake of
her head, "Oh! there's poor Kraft's horse, all soppin' wet!"
While I was in the White House the youngest boy became an _habitue_ of
a small and rather noisome animal shop, and the good-natured owner would
occasionally let him take pets home to play with.
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