Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 2.djvu/25

 unfurnished, the Major showed me further favor by sending me a small table, roughly made on the spot, and a camp-stool. The next thing was to find something to sleep on (as I had brought with me only a small pillow and blankets) and washing utensils. As there was nothing of that kind to be got at "The Head" for love or money, I concluded to row back to the Arago and appeal to the generosity of Captain Gadsden. He at once authorized the steward to sell me a mattress, and advised me to apply to the quartermaster on shore for a tin basin and cup, in which quest I was successful. I slept on the mattress on the floor for several days, when I persuaded the post-carpenter to make me a bedstead and washstand out of unplaned lumber. With these appointments I managed to get along during my sojourn at "The Head."

I found board as easily as lodging. I had brought a letter of introduction from Secretary Chase to Mr. T. C. Severance, the Collector of the Port, who at once invited me to join his mess. We had an excellent table, indeed as good meals as at a first-class hotel in the North, and at a very reasonable price. The mess consisted of the Collector, two of his office assistants, a New England clergyman acting as Freedmen's agent, some commissary and quartermaster's clerks, Henry J. Winser, correspondent of the New York Times, and myself. Mr. Severance had been a banker at Cleveland, but had failed at the beginning of the Civil War. His good nature and willingness to oblige were without limit. His official responsibilities were not great, the arrivals of vessels subject to entry not averaging more than one a month, and what little work there was, his chief clerk did. Winser had a room next to mine and proved a very genial, gentlemanly companion, with whom I kept up close relations till his death in 1896. Mr. Howard, the Freedmen's agent, was a Harvard graduate and a well-informed, entertaining, liberal-minded man. The other members of the mess were like the good children who are seen but not heard.