Page:Autobiography of an Androgyne 1918 book scan.djvu/235

Rh a rather prominent position on the very edge of the line, and from rank after rank as they passed, I distinguished the words: '" There's Jennie June." At an inter-fort ball game at which there were 500 spectators, amid the continuous shouting, a score got together on my arrival and several times in unison shouted " Jennie June!" I achieved popularity at both forts, although a small percentage proved irreconcilable.

When soldiers of Forts X and Y met at athletic contests, they interchanged stories about my adventures. At the army manoeuvres in Virginia in 1905, in which soldiers from all the forts in states bordering on the Atlantic took part, my peculiarities and adventures were spread broadcast, as I learned through encountering on the Bowery a soldier from a fort which I had never visited who had just returned from the manoeuvres. Realizing that as " Jennie June" I was very widely known among soldiers, I made it a practice of asking those whom I ran across in New York if they had ever heard of "Jennie June." A considerable proportion, before I revealed my identity, were able to recount adventures in which I had figured.

During this closing period of my open career as a fairie, I was indeed very widely known personally. On the streets and on public conveyances when amid New York's crowds, I was a number of times accosted by young men, some of whom I could not remember, but who had seen me somewhere and knew me as Jennie June. Several times as many people knew me under this name and character as under my real masculine name.