But "the
wee drap o' Scotch bluid atween us" proved its potency as usual.
Miss Addison became an ideal friend because she undertook to improve
the rough diamond, if it were indeed a diamond at all. She was my best
friend, because my severest critic. I began to pay strict attention to
my language, and to the English classics, which I now read with great
avidity. I began also to notice how much better it was to be gentle in
tone and manner, polite and courteous to all--in short, better
behaved. Up to this time I had been, perhaps, careless in dress and
rather affected it. Great heavy boots, loose collar, and general
roughness of attire were then peculiar to the West and in our circle
considered manly. Anything that could be labeled foppish was looked
upon with contempt. I remember the first gentleman I ever saw in the
service of the railway company who wore kid gloves. He was the object
of derision among us who aspired to be manly men. I was a great deal
the better in all these respects after we moved to Homewood, owing to
the Addisons.
CHAPTER VIII
CIVIL WAR PERIOD
In 1861 the Civil War broke out and I was at once summoned to
Washington by Mr. Scott, who had been appointed Assistant Secretary of
War in charge of the Transportation Department.
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