The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-28


 Comfort for Families at Stations In
 the East-Fate of Those at FrontieI
 Reservations--A Story of Post Lif'
 During the Cuban Conflict.
 At army posts, recent days, as well as in the rice-fields and jungles Of the Philippines, history has been or is be-
 ing made which, while it may not go
 down. vellum bound, to generations to
 come, is nevertheless, of as much mo ment to those immediately concerned as
 the chastisement of the ragged bands or little Tagalogs is to the affairs Of na-
 tion. Here at these deserted stations the hearts of officers wives are being
 sifted as were the hearts of the men III
 the understanding highways from Ca loocan to Malolos. At the posts war
 made duieter desolation, scandals no
 less tempestuou9 because in teapots, jealousies as great between lleutenants wives as between generals in the tleld and milder heroism without the purple rags of battle. Fever, bullets and blum ders made no greater havoc on the field.
 The picture of one of them is, in gene- ral all of them, though at the present time none of the regiments formerly stationed near New York left the Wo- men and children behind in the bar racks they deserted. Those of the otfi- cers' wives whose regiments were in the east went to their parents homes to await the return of the soldiers. This was the case with the Thirteenth infan- try, which left Governors Island for the Philippines, and also with the Ninth infantry, that left Sacketts liar bor, and the squadron of Third cavalry that was stationed at Fort Ethan Allen. In the west, however, conditions were different, especially so in the Cuban war At Fort Logan, near Colorado's largest city, there were stationed de- tachments of infantry and artillery.
 A woman who knew the place in those days described this particular post as a collection of thirty or forty brown adobe buildings planted outside, stand ing on fifteen acres of parade-ground- all covering the top of a hill ten miles from the range. A ragged little town bouses for soldiers wives, stores and sa- loons-slid down hill towards the rail-
 
 branch line and a single telegraph wire and a single telephone wire slipped down the valley to the main line and wires from the city, The station-mas- ter was postmaster. His wife was tele- graph operator
 ''She and the commanding officer kept secret many orders they burned to tell, said the narrator. "A pretty road with trees and grass and flower r-beds beside it, climbed up hill from the station, past the hospital, to the parade, just where, the administration building, the guard-room and the saluting cannon huddled about the flagstaff. Directly across the parade from there, parade worn smooth and dusty with drilling, were the barracks; to the right line of twenty officers houses, with lawns and trees in front, and a hundred miles ot rocky mountains behind. The days were dazzling, quivering hot, but the nights were gratefully cool.
 life in summer was gay at this post Civilians visited and lived at the off, cers' row a great deal. Never gun sa- luted the flag but flock of lawn skirts and duck trousers stood in front of the and more people than the officers families could muster unaided watched from the porches. Carriages and assorted vehicles from the Country club rolled in to see drills. Dress-pa ! rade was carnival. Nights the city did not dance at the post, the post danced in the city; for in town was the | headquarters of department, and a | colony of officers, retired officers, rich in the many ways by which army officers | grow rich in the west, by marriage, i mines and land. The fort was pleasant | to the city, the city to the fort; and mo- body thought of work or war.
 "Orders to move came. The regiment ! swung once round the sand road along [ the officers quarters, the band playing | Busters old 'Garryowen, dropped over | the hill by the hospital tumbled into cars, marched through the city with col | DTS cased and breaches of the rifles wrapped in stockings, packed itself into cars again and footed away. Only four were left in officers row and a detail of men in barracks to look after property. That night there were few single lights along the whole row. The scent of primroses and red | dover was the same-the katydids and | 'rogs from the valley, the wind in the buffalo grass, cold puffs from the noun .ains flickering through warm air from he gullies, the lights and whistles of rains beyond the river-except for the regiment, all was the same. The fort vas more desolate than the foothills be- lind it.
 "When the women had watched the trail out of Tampa, they traggled back to the post. Though most of them had close kin and their old lomes near the seaboard, they liked heir real deserted homes better Some. at the first to return, had eft their houses with, furniture undis- ,ooks Some had sold out Returning, many left their boxes untouched, camp ng until the war should pass and cer- ainty for them come back with peace. Iany walls were bare that summer, and 'acking boxes, nailed up, cumbered the torches where hammocks used to hang. ,wice day the letter-carrier walked up he row and back, twice or three times he post-wagon rattled to the station nd back.
 illustrated gossip and islander was he first embroidery upon the field of nonotony. All the mistakes, disap- and indiscretions of the CIV women were told and rctold sooner han the faces of the victims became