Evening star., 1902-08-23
NO CHANGE WHATEVER

hole We leave in the puddle when We drop
| out of view, isn't 1t? There may be, and
| probably is, plenty of triteness in that re-
mark. But the fact itself is a source of
| never-failing wonder to me. The individual
| who first made the remark How soon We
| are forgotten! was perhaps a Chaldean.
/ the saying is so old, but what a heaping
| amount of truth there is in it,
A pretty enthusiastic gossoon. I went
| rollicking off to the Philippines when I got
| my commission bit over three years ago.
| The Philippines weren't so we'll known to
| the American people then as they are now,
| ana l didn't know when l started whether
| l was due to ever come back or not.
Didn't give much thought to the matter.
| anyhow.
Well, I went through just about what
all the rest endured down there. Padded
| around for days and weeks at a stretch in
| swamps, got rained hard and often
| that l almost developed web feet, slept out
| in the open. with the miasma rising all
around about as often as did under cover.
| Was joggled about from this command to
! that on different islands, saw fellows
! whose faces had been familiar to me on
| the streets of little old Washington wither
| away with the fever, had mighty close
shave from the fever myself, got piece of
| my shoulder Clipped away by bolo in the
hands of Filipino with whom, at the
| time he tackled me, l was conversing upon
most amicable terms, and all that.
al uuiIilS the ll1ile ifldt WAS GOWN
| there Washington and everybody 1 had
known in Washington. including my own
| folks, seemed to grow farther and farther
away from me in the haze. During the
last year that I was down in the Philip
pines it seemed to me as if 1 had always
been there-that 1 had been born and
| brought UP there. and that my memories
of the United States and the good, whole
some American folks, including the girls,
heaven guard 'em We're the merest fig
meatS of dreams. During the first year l
suffered, of course. like most of the others,
from nostalgia-suffered horribly from ii.
| LoneSOmeneSS is q good enough word for
| the old thing, but when they term it nos
talgia 1t really is SO acute that a fellow
has absolutely no control over it. Life
doesn't seem to be worth "a button to him,
and it's often a toss-up whether he'll COM
nit suicide or not. Some chaps get over
it, and good many don't. I've seen men
plenty die of the lonesomeness called
| nostalgia, and they weren't weakly, effemi-
nate, pth-hearted men, either. but bruis-
ers, some of them, who had fought like
wild dogs when there was fighting for them
| to do.
We'll, as I say, all of the world back
here drifted into the shadows for me along
toward the close of my third and final year
down in the islands. l had long since got
over the lonesomeness. although, of course,
[ looked forward to coming back. But l
figured that things back in the states, and
especially in my home, Washington, would
| be vastly changed - changed SO that 1
back. / calculated that the Washington
| monument and the Capitol ud look about
the same but 1 couldn't but believe that
everything else would be entirely different.
| had it in mind that all of the folks that
L had ever known would be old-looking,
even those whom l had left behind looking
clipper and youthful. This is sort of bug
that a fellow gets in his head after con-
| siderable foreign service. You see, events
have moved SO swiftly for him that he
can't help but imagine that the same pace
has been kept up in the place that he left
behind him
Il left Washington three years ago in the
latter part of July, and. by an odd coin
cidence, 1 got back here on the same date
that | had made my departure. When l
got off the train l was astonished to note
that the gateman at the station looked ex-
actly the same as he had on the day that
left Washington. l examined him closely,
but; no: there wasn't particle Of change
in his face shape He didn't look in
fact, as If he'd moved more than a square
Or two, just for exercise, since I'd started
away.
Grip in hand, I started for the car, and
in passing the rows of black carriage-yell-
ers, the faces of many of whom had been
familiar with since boyhood. 1t occurred to
me as rather odd that they didn't have
long kinky wool, and that they weren't
bowed down with age. But there they
were, sprightly and merry ever and. to
all 1ntents and purposes, SO far as any
! change in their appearance went, they
might JuSl dS wen nave DeSh SHo0ZAS on
the seats Of their vehicles. waiting for
fares, from the very hour Of my starting
for the Philippines.
Il expected to find my father and mother
looking about hundred years old apiece.
But [ didn't find them looking in any such
way. l arrived Unexpectedly, and found
my mother industriously cleaning house,
with a towel wrapped around her head.
and keeping the black maid at her task
My mother is always cleaning house more
or less, and, to my intense amaZement I
found her looking precisely the same as
she looked about a thousand times before
when Ia been hustled about from room to
room while she was engaged in her favor
| lite avocation Of switching the furniture
about and busting things. The only diff
ference that l found in my sister was that
instead CT wearing a dress down to her
shoetops she had one Of the regular long
variety on but otherwise she was iust
about the same, with, perhaps, bit of
extra sauciness, as it struck me on ac
| count OF the long skirt. My setter dog
that I'd raised from pup I expected to
ind a toothless old wreck, mumblins bread
crusts out in the back yard, but when I
got in, burned If he wasn't thrashire the
dickens out of another shaggy dog out
in the alley, and 1 had to hustle out there
and pry him loose. The recognition that
dog gave me was worth travelling all the
way from the Philippines to receive
though.
After greeting my mother and sister
hopped car to go down to see my dad.
iecllllS convinced tnat ne, at rate.
would look old and careworn after the MIL
lion years or so-as it seemed to me-since
had gone away. Instead of that, I found
him with his feet cooked up on his desk.
cigar In his mouth, his mustache pretty
perktly twisted at the ends, and he looked
whole lot huskier than l felt after the
hard old siege of 1t that I'd been having
All of his business associates looked eX-
actly the same, too, and when i recognized
the very same office coats on some of EN-
that they'd been wearing three years before
had to pinch myself and wonder whether
all of those Philippine swamps and bolos
and plng-pinging Of Jorgensens and all of
the rest were not merely a jumbled dream
in my mind-whether I'd really ever lett
Washington at all. The buildings all look
ed the same. The conductors on the ears
didn't appear to be day older. When the
departments let out, as the boy SAYS. al
of the old-time faces were just just the
same as L had always seen them. It struck
me that the very holes in the asphalt Were
about the same. Met forty-'leven girls
that l had known and been chummy with
before leaving. Down in the Philippines
I'd somehow or another figured it out tha:
all of these girls had, of course married
and raised families, and all that-but there
they were just blooming and pretty as
ever, and it seemed hard to think that the