twenty years at hull house

I SUPPOSE all the children who were born about the time

of the Civil War have recollections quite unlike those of the children

who are living now. Although I was hut four and a half years old when

Lincoln died, I distinctly remember the day when I found on our two

white gate posts American flags companioned with black. 1 tumbled

down on the harsh gravel walk in my eager rush into the house to inquire what they were "there for." To my amazement I found my father

in tears, something that I had never seen before, having assumed, as

all children do, that grown-up people never cried. The two flags, my

father's tears, and his impressive statement that the greatest man in

the world had died, constituted my initiation, my baptism, as it were,

into the thrilling and solemn interests of a world lying quite outside

the two white gate posts. The great war touched children in many

ways: I remember an engraved roster of names, headed by the words

"Addams's Guard," and the whole surmounted by the insignia of the

American eagle clutching many flags, which always hung in the family