* * * * *
As we neared San Francisco several of the boys spoke to me of taking up
a purse for my benefit. Soldiers are always generous and
warm-hearted--the best men, individually, in the world.
I said no to them, that they must not take up a collection for me ... I
did not really feel that way, at heart, but I liked better seeming proud
and independent, American and self-reliant....
Later on, at the very dock, I acceded ... but now I was punished for my
hypocrisy. The boys were so eager to be home again, they only threw
together about five dollars for me ... when, if I hadn't been foolish, I
might have had enough to loaf with, say a month, at San Francisco, and
do a lot of reading in the Library, and in books of poetry that I might
have picked up at second-hand book stores....
However, I gathered together, before I went ashore, two suits of khaki
and two army blankets, and a pair of good army shoes that afterwards
seemed never to wear out.
And a young chap named Simmons, who had been sergeant, had joined the
army by running away from home, took me to an obscure hotel as his valet
... he wanted to "put on dog," as the Indians say.
He had parents of wealth, back in Des Moines.
I served him as his valet for the two weeks he stayed at the hotel. He
had been shot through the left foot so that a tendon was severed, and he
had to walk with a cane, with a foot that flopped at every step.
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