after surmounting almost hopeless obstacles, to fail now, it was sickening!

Furthermore, I had had before two separate experiences in lameness a displaced knee-pan, which healed, to be hurt once again two years later. I had spent altogether about four years upon crutches, and, expert as I had become, there was nothing attractive or pleasing in the prospect of being again reduced to artificial locomotion. In the event of being able to compass the revolution in the face of this last and greatest of all possible and unanticipated disabilities, I could not run, and in event of a collision I should be forced not only to stand and take it, but to stand on one foot at that.

In some mysterious way I managed to get into an Indiana Avenue street-car once more, and started home. A gentleman helped me off, gave me his arm, and, as I limped by his side in the darkness, he talked to me encouragingly, and told me that he had broken his leg only a few months before, that he had entirely recovered, and he felt certain that my hurt was only a slight sprain, from which I would not be greatly inconvenienced. It was kind, but not reassuring; and after a four years' uninterrupted daily exercise in the art of applying a flannel bandage, I am bound to say that the cheerful prophecy was not fulfilled. He assisted me up the front steps, rang the bell, and when the servant admitted me bade me good night. I was suffering too in

1892.]

AN UNLUCKY FAMILY.

47

tensely to notice his face as the door was opened. I never knew who he was; but I have often thought of our strange ramble in the darkness, and have still a distinct recollection of his agreeable voice, his gentleness, and all that he said in his effort to comfort me.

The Cs had been in one particular a most unlucky family. Almost constantly some one of its members was laid up for repairs; bruises, contusions, sprains, and dislocations were not only their own common lot, but that of their relations unto the third and fourth generation, and of the stranger within their gates. A lady who had been visiting them some time before had slipped and fallen, and had broken her arm and collar-bone, and it was weeks before she could be removed to her home. sister was at that time walking on crutches from a sprain of eighteen months' duration. I was the last addition to the standing list of casualties.

A

When the good people returned from their call a little while after my own arrival, they found me in the library with my foot stewing in a bucket of scalding water; their son, faultlessly dressed, with a rose in his buttonhole, keeping it up to a boiling temperature with more water, which he added, at short intervals, from the tea-kettle.

When they came in, guileless and innocent, and saw the touching tableau, I looked up out of a cloud of ascending steam like some sort of a baleful wraith,

and remarked concisely, "I've sprained my ankle

but I'm going."

Mrs. C

threw up her hands with a cry, and

sank down on a sofa.

After a while I was carried upstairs and put to bed. The surgeon came, made an examination, and said that the nervous shock had been severe, no bones were broken, but that the full extent of the injury could not be ascertained until the swelling had subsided; for by this time the injured member resembled the typical Chicago female foot as it is represented by New York and St. Louis cartoonists.

The next morning there was no apparent improvement, and my feelings were lacerated beyond expression by the spectacles of a trunk packed and strapped, of rugs, bags, and boxes, all in readiness for immediate departure. The crowning blow was the arrival of a sheaf of roses, pink and fragrant, with a charming note wishing me bon voyage from a friend who had not learned that, instead of bon voyage, it was to be non voyage to judge from appearances.

The hurt, the disappointment, the inevitable postponement, the downfall of roseate hopes and lofty ambitions, was endured with stoical composure; but I am not ashamed to confess that when I received a time-table with the hour marked in red ink when my train left Chicago and arrived in San

1892.] FEMALE WAR CORRESPONDENTS.

49

Francisco, sent with a note of congratulation and good wishes from another friend, I burst into tears. More than this, I settled down to enjoy that ancient sedative to overstrung feminine nerves, a good cry, and felt immensely relieved. A prospective war correspondent in tears is not a spectacle to be seen every day; but it must be edifying, not to say improving, when it does come within the range of ordinary vision. It simply proves that, even though the war correspondent be a woman, she does not cease therefore to be feminine and human. But I was destined to have more trials; first of all, visits of condolence from friends, fellow-journalists, and other well-meaning but not always tactful persons.

I have always managed to be somewhere near what in Kansas would be called the "cyclone centre." The previous summer, while on a visit to my family in Indiana, the horses attached to the carriage which was taking me to the railway station bolted and ran away. I was talking, and did not notice the speed at which we were going, and the gentleman who was my fellow-passenger remarked quietly, without changing his ordinary tone, "The horses are running off, but do not jump out."

I had always inveighed against the folly of people losing their heads under such circumstances, leaping out, and being injured for life or killed outright. It

was a fine opportunity to carry my theories into practice. I sat still, encouraged without doubt by the composure of the other passenger.

After a mad race of a quarter of a mile or so, the horses turned into an alley, the pole of the carriage struck a telephone pole and broke off, the right fore wheel collided with a heavy curb, and the frenzied brutes, entangled in their broken harness, came to a standstill, snorting and trembling. When the crash came, the carriage careened like a sinking ship, then settled and came down on its four wheels intact. The other passenger opened the door; we alighted, both a little pale and pretty well shaken up. As familiar objects flashed past us in our flight, the events of my whole life did not pass before me, as they are commonly supposed to do in moments of deadly peril, nor did I make any solemn vow to repent of my sins and make fitting reparation in the future. I knew perfectly well, even in that somewhat incoherent frame of mind, that I should not really repent of my sins, and that I could not make reparation if I tried. My one thought was pre-eminently practical and sordid: "I shall be killed, and my accident insurance policy has lapsed!"

When I reached Chicago, I went without delay to the office, and took out another policy, a prudential measure that was destined to be rewarded. I did not get the policy under any sort of false pretences. I told the secretary that early in life I had formed the