My husband told me just to get out of reach of shot and shell
and wait there till we heard of the victory, and I am for
doing THAT, and no other thing."
Nearly two hundred women, bent upon their own way, are not to
be taken any other way; and the few old men who had been sent
to guide the party, and shoot what game was necessary for
their support, surrendered at once to this feminine mutiny.
Besides, the condition of the boys and girls between seven and
fourteen was really a deplorable one. They were too old
to be cared for as infants, and they had been obliged, with
the strength of children, to accomplish the labor of men and
women. Many were crippled in their feet, others were
continually on the point of swooning.
It was now the 20th of April. The Senora and her daughters
had been six weeks with the American army, exposed to all the
privations which such a life entailed. But the most obvious
of these privations were, perhaps, those which were most
easily borne. Women endure great calamities better than the
little annoyances affecting those wants which are part and
parcel of their sex or their caste. It was not the
necessaries so much as the luxuries of life which the Senora
missed--the changes of raiment--the privacy--the quiet--the
regularity of events.
During the whole of the 20th, there was almost a Sabbath
stillness.
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