CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 



THE WAR WITH SPAIN 



MY Brother had been ordered to Washington to prepare, at the 

 Smithsonian Institution, an elaborate and fully illustrated treatise 

 on the Indian Sign Language. He had not fairly started on this work 

 when the outbreak of the Spanish War put a stop to it and sent him 

 off to active service. The war also interfered with my plans, for I had 

 rented my house and meant to take the family to Germany for a year. 

 On account of the war we decided to remain at home, for a reason that 

 I explained to Mr. Cleveland, whom I met in the street. He asked me 

 when we expected to sail and I said that we had changed our plans 

 and would stay at home. With a faintly contemptuous smile, he asked : 

 "You are not afraid of Spanish cruisers, are you?" To which I replied: 

 "Not at all; Spanish cruisers wouldn't trouble a British ship." I then 

 went on to say that I had a vivid recollection of travelHng abroad, when 

 our currency was still at a heavy discount. While we should certainly 

 win the war, we were so utterly unprepared, that we might lose some 

 of the initial battles and even a temporary defeat would turn the ex- 

 changes against us. We might find ourselves in a foreign country and 

 embarrassed by a depreciated currency. On this his comment was: 

 "Ah! I hadn't thought of that; perhaps you are right." 



Accordingly, it became necessary to find some place to spend the 

 summer, Brookline, Mass., being already selected for the following win- 

 ter. My Wife had the good fortune to discover Cataumet, on the Buz- 

 zard's Bay side of Cape Cod within three miles of Mr. Cleveland's place, 

 Gray Gables. Cataumet has been our summer home ever since. My chil- 

 dren love it above every other place on earth, and my grandchildren 

 are following in the same path. During the summer of that year I was 

 able to keep pretty steadily at work, but had to return to Princeton for 

 a short visit in July. The 3rd and 4th of that month were among the 

 most terrifically hot days that I have ever experienced, but the news 

 that Cervera's fleet had been destroyed made us forget the weather. 

 The Spanish Admiral proved himself to be a chivalrous and gallant 



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