Is it to be wondered at that I and Adams together prepared the most atrocious meals that ever a new husband had to eat?
I related my difficulties to Jack, and told him I thought we should never be able to manage with such kitchen utensils as were furnished by the Q.M.D.
"Oh, pshaw! You are pampered and spoiled with your New England kitchens," said he; "you will have to learn to do as other army women do--cook in cans and such things, be inventive, and learn to do with nothing." This was my first lesson in army house-keeping.
After my unpractical teacher had gone out on some official business, I ran over to Mrs.Wilhelm's quarters and said, "Will you let me see your kitchen closet ?" She assented, and I saw the most beautiful array of tin-ware, shining and neat, placed in rows upon the shelves and hanging from hooks on the wall.
"So!" I said; "my military husband does not know anything about these things;" and I availed myself of the first trip of the ambulance over to Cheyenne, bought a stock of tin-ware and had it charged, and made no mention of it--because I feared that tin-ware was to be our bone of contention, and I put off the evil day.
The cooking went on better after that, but I did not have much assistance from Adams.
I had great trouble at first with the titles and the rank: but I soon learned that many of the officers were addressed by the brevet title bestowed upon them for gallant service in the Civil War, and I began to understand about the ways and customs of the army of Uncle Sam.

In contrast to the Germans, the American lieutenants were not addressed by their title (except officially); I learned to "Mr." all the lieutenants who had no brevet.
One morning I suggested to Adams that he should wash the front windows; after being gone a half hour, to borrow a step-ladder, he entered the room, mounted the ladder and began.

I sat writing.

Suddenly, he faced around, and addressing me, said, "Madam, do you believe in spiritualism ?" "Good gracious! Adams, no; why do you ask me such a question ?" This was enough; he proceeded to give a lecture on the subject worthy of a man higher up on the ladder of this life.

I bade him come to an end as soon as I dared (for I was not accustomed to soldiers), and suggested that he was forgetting his work.
It was early in April, and the snow drifted through the crevices of the old dried-out house, in banks upon our bed; but that was soon mended, and things began to go smoothly enough, when Jack was ordered to join his company, which was up at the Spotted Tail Agency.