Of course there
has been much shopping to do, and for a time it was so confusing--to
have to select things from a counter, with a shop girl staring at me,
or perhaps insisting upon my purchasing articles I did not want. For
years we had shopped from catalogues, and it was a nice quiet way,
too. Parasols have bothered me. I would forget to open them in the
street, and would invariably leave them in the stores when shopping,
and then have to go about looking them up. But this is the first
summer I have been East in nine years, and it is not surprising that
parasols and things mix me up at times.
Faye has a beautiful saddle horse--his gait a natural single foot--and
I sometimes ride him, but most of my outings are on the electric cars.
I might as well be on them, since I have to hear their buzz and clang
both day and night from our rooms here in the hotel. The other
morning, as I was returning from a ride across the river to Council
Bluffs, I heard the shrill notes of a calliope that reminded me that
Forepaugh's circus was to be in town that day, and that I had promised
to go to the afternoon performance with a party of friends. But soon
there were other sounds and other thoughts. Above the noise of the car
I heard a brass band--and there could be no mistake--it was playing
strong and full one of Sousa's marches, "The March Past of the Rifle
Regiment"--a march that was written for Faye while he was adjutant of
the regiment, and "Dedicated to the officers and enlisted men" of the
regiment.
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