future as a public singer, but I was very happy in the contemplation of it.

That summer I took a rest, preparatory to my first season,—how thrillingly professional that sounded, to be sure!—and it was during that summer that I had one of the most pleasant experiences of my girlhood,—one really delightful and young experience, such as other girls have,—a wonderful change from the hard-working, serious months of study. I went to West Point for a visit. In spite of my sober bringing-up, I was full of the joy of life, and loved the days spent in a place filled with the military glamour that every girl adores.

West Point was more primitive then than it is now. But it was just as much fun. I danced, and watched the drill, and walked about, and made friends with the cadets,—to whom the fact that they were entertaining a budding prima donna was both exciting and interesting—and had about the best time I ever had in my life.

Looking back now, however, I can feel a shadow of sadness lying over the memory of all that happy visit. We were just on the eve of war, little as we young people thought of it, and many of the merry, good-looking boys I danced with that summer fell at the front within the year. Some of them entered the Union Army the following spring when war was declared, and some went South to serve under the Stars and Bars. Among the former was Alec McCook—"Fighting McCook," as he was called. Lieutenant McCreary was Southern, and was killed early in the war. So, also, was the son of General Huger—the General Huger who was then Postmaster General and later became a member of the Cabinet of the Confederacy.

It is interesting to consider that West Point, at the time of which I write, was a veritable hotbed of conspiracy. The Southerners were preparing hard and fast for action; the atmosphere teemed with plotting, so that even I was vaguely conscious that something exceedingly serious was going on. The Commandant of the Post, General Delafield, was an officer of strong Southern sympathies and later went to fight in Dixie land. When the war did finally break out, nearly all the ammunition was down South; and this had been managed from West Point.

Of course, all was done with great circumspection. Buchanan was a Democratic president; and the Democrats of the South sent a delegation to West Point to try to get the commanding officers to use their influence in reducing the military course from four to three years. This at least was their ostensible mission, and it made an excellent excuse as well as offered great opportunities for what we Federal sympathisers would call treason, but which they probably considered was justified by patriotism. Indeed, James Buchanan was allotted a very difficult part in the political affairs of the day; and the censure he received for what is called his "vacillation" was somewhat unjust. He held that the question of slavery and its abolition was not a national, but a local problem; and he never took any firm stand about it. But the conditions were bewilderingly new and complex, and statesmen often suffer from their very ability to look on both sides of a question.

Jefferson Davis was then at West Point; and, as for "Mrs. Jeff"—I always believed she was a spy. She had her niece and son with her at the Point, the latter, "Jeff, Jr.," then a child of five or six years old. He had the worst temper I ever imagined in a boy; and I am ashamed to relate that the officers took a wicked delight in arousing and exhibiting it. He used to sit several steps up on the one narrow stairway of the hotel and swear the most horrible, hot oaths ever heard, getting red in the face with fury. Alec McCook, assistant instructor and a charming fellow of about thirty, would put him on a bucking donkey that was there and say:

"Now then, lad, don't you let him put you off!"

And the "lad" would sit on the donkey, turning the air blue with profanity. But one thing can be said for him: he did stick on!

Lieutenant Horace Porter, who was among my friends of that early summer, was destined to serve with distinction on the Northern side. I met him not long ago, a dignified, distinguished General; and it was difficult to see in him the high-spirited, young lieutenant of the old Point days.

"Do you know," he said, "Mrs. Jeff Davis sent for me to come and see her when she was in New York! Of course I didn't go!"

He had not forgotten. One does not forget the things that happened just before the war. The great struggle burned them too deeply into our memories.

Nothing would satisfy the cadets, who were aware that I was preparing to go on the stage as a professional singer, but that I should sing for them. I was only too delighted to do so, but I didn't want to sing in the hotel. So they turned their "hop-room" into a concert-hall for the occasion and invited the officers and their friends, in spite of Mrs. Jeff Davis, who tried her best to prevent the ball-room from being given to us for our musicale. She did not attend; but the affair made her exceedingly uncomfortable, for she disliked me and was jealous of the kindness and attention I received from everyone. She always referred to me as "that singing girl!"

As I have said, many of those attractive West Point boys and officers were killed in the war so soon to break upon us. Others, like General Porter, have remained my friends. A few I have kept in touch with only by hearsay. But throughout the Civil War I always felt a keener and more personal interest in the battles because, for a brief space, I had come so close to the men who were engaged in them; and the sentiment never passed.

Ever and ever so many years after that visit to West Point, a note came behind the scenes to me during one of my performances, and with it was a mass of exquisite flowers. "Please wear one of these flowers to-night!" the note begged me. It was from one of the cadets to whom I had sung so long before, but whom I had never seen since.

I wore the flower: and I put my whole soul into my singing that night. For that little episode of my girlhood, the meeting with those eager and plucky young spirits just before our great national crisis, has always been close to my heart. As for the three dark years that followed—ah, well,—I never want to read about the war now.

Clara Louise Kellogg as a Girl
From a photograph by Sarony

It was almost time for my début, and there was still something I had to do. To my sheltered, puritanically brought up consciousness, there could be no two views among conventional people as to the life I was about to enter upon. I knew all about it. So, a few weeks before I was to make my professional bow to the public, I called my girl friends together, the companions of four years' study, and I said to them:

"Girls, I've made up my mind to go on the stage! I know just how your people feel about it, and I want to tell you now that you needn't know me any more. You needn't speak to me, nor bow to me if you meet me in the street. I shall quite understand, and I shan't feel a bit badly. Because I think the day will come when you will be proud to know me!"