Recollections of Full Years

One day after we had been married less than a year my husband came home looking so studiously unconcerned that I knew at once he had something to tell me.

“Nellie, what would you think,” he began casually, “if I should be appointed a Judge of the Superior Court?”

“Oh, don’t try to be funny,” I exclaimed. “That’s perfectly impossible.”

But it was not impossible, as he soon convinced me. My father had just refused the same appointment and it was difficult to believe that it could now be offered to my husband who was only twenty-nine years old. It was a position made vacant by the retirement from the Bench of Judge Judson Harmon who was my husband’s senior by more than a decade.

It was one day in January, 1900, that he came home greatly excited and placed before me a telegram.

“What do you suppose that means?” said he.

“I would like to see you in Washington on important business within the next few days. On Thursday if possible,” it read. And it was signed⁠—William McKinley.

We didn’t know and we couldn’t think what possible business the President could have with him. I began to conjure up visions of Supreme Court appointments; though I knew well enough that Supreme Court appointments were not tendered in that fashion and besides there was no vacancy.

Mr. Taft lost no time in responding to the President’s summons and I awaited his return with as much patience as I could muster. In three days he came home with an expression so grave that I thought he must be facing impeachment. But when he broke his news to me it gave me nothing but pleasure.

“The President wants me to go to the Philippine Islands,” he said, in a tone he might have used in saying: “The President wants me to go out and jump off the court house dome.” “Want to go?” he added.

“Yes, of course,” I answered without a moment’s hesitation. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I knew instantly that I didn’t want to miss a big and novel experience. I have never shrunk before any obstacles when I had an opportunity to see a new country and I must say I have never regretted any adventure.

Leaving our children at the bungalow with their nurses, Mrs. Wright, Maria and I went about, to Nikko, to Kamakura, to Kyoto and other interesting places, and we spent the intervals, indeed all our time, in restraining our intense desire to purchase everything we saw in the extraordinarily attractive little shops.

About the last of July, when the heat began to be rather more than we could stand, we left Yokohama and went up into the Hakone Mountains to Miyanoshita. The trip to Miyanoshita includes a two hours’ climb in ’rickshas up a steep incline from a village on the railway, where there was then no sort of accommodation for “Europeans,”⁠—only Japanese inns which, though they may have been excellent from a Japanese standpoint, did not seem to us to have been built for inn purposes. When we got out of the train it was seven o’clock in the evening. There were Mrs. Wright and her maid, her daughter Katrina, my sister Maria, the three children, Bessie the nurse, and I. We wanted dinner above all things else and we decided to get it. It all had to be prepared “European style” at one of the little inns, so by the time it was served and disposed of the night was upon us, and, I may say, the blackest night I ever remember seeing. We debated at length the possibility of taking the two hours’ ’ricksha ride in such darkness, but the chattering coolies, mainly by gesture and facial expression, succeeded in convincing us that it was the most desirable thing in the world to do.

It was about the end of the typhoon season and the predictions were that there would be no more heavy storms. But it began to rain and blow one day with rather more force than I had ever seen before, and I was told that we were in the midst of a typhoon. “Oh, well,” I thought, “if this is all I don’t see why there is so much talk about it.” It was just a very hard and very persistent storm. When I began to think it was about time for it to have blown itself out I was awakened one night by what seemed to me to be the bombardment of heavy artillery. My bed was shaking under me, the house was swaying, and the noise was terrifying. I jumped up with an instant idea of insurrectos, and a feeling that I must meet the situation on my feet; then I realised, at once, that it was the typhoon. It was as if all the winds that had blown for two days had gathered themselves together and were hurling themselves in one blast upon us. I reached for the electric switch, but there were no lights; I turned the button time and again; nothing happened. I fumbled for matches all over my room and could find none.

I shall never forget my first call from a Filipino family. They arrived shortly after six in the evening: el señor, la señora and four señoritas. We went through a solemn and ceremonious handshaking all around. I received them first, then passed them on to my husband who, in turn, passed them on with a genial introduction to my sister Maria. We had been sitting on the verandah, and when a semicircle of chairs had been arranged, the six of them sat down; el señor noisily cleared his throat a couple of times while the ladies calmly folded their little hands in their laps and assumed an air of great repose. It was as if they had no intention of taking any part whatever in the conversation.

El señor explained in Spanish that they were our near neighbours and that they had called merely to pay their respects. Mr. Taft had been studying Spanish diligently ever since he left the United States, but he is not conspicuously gifted as a linguist, and he had not yet waked up⁠—as he so often expressed a wish that he might⁠—to find himself a true Castilian. However, his ready laugh and the cordiality of his manners have always had a peculiar charm for the Filipinos, and he was able on this occasion, as he was on many future ones, to carry off the situation very well. We all nodded and smiled and said, “Si Señor” and “Si Señora,” to long and no telling what kind of speeches from our guests; then Maria and I complimented the ladies on their beautifully embroidered camisas, which started things off properly.