❦ COURSE THIRTEEN ❦ AND AGAIN THE PRAIRIE Once more it was on the Prairie that the company cruised. It was the fourth time, once to Bar Harbor, once to Penobscot Bay, and once to Hampton Roads. So often has the ship been the company’s floating home, that long-service members are more familiar with her than with any other ship in the Navy, unless it be the Machias. With the company were men from naval militia in New York City and Brooklyn, congenial companions, with more of naval wardrobe than the Second Division showed. The cruise was mostly in the Sound. The ship was engaged in squadron maneuvers. A flotilla of six torpedo boats accompanied the squadron, as did also four submarines. Boats of this kind were in 1908 comparatively new to many in the company, and when Ensign Hogan found an opportunity to make a descent in a submarine he embraced it. Back in Hartford the men grew busy in preparing for the Bridge Dedication, the most important festivity which the city has ever conducted, to which the command voted to invite its old nautical guest, H Company of Springfield, down. The dedication opened October 6 with the firing of a salute, by the division, of course. In the evening the division paraded in a historical pageant, the men representing men-o’-wars men of the conflict of 1812. The battalion paraded in the giant military procession of October 8 as a landing party, marching in white hats, and being among the warmest favorites in the long column. In the afternoon it banqueted in the Y. M. C. A. with H Company men, for whom the division’s poet laureate had evolved a lyric, of which the following is a specimen verse: “When dinner’s o’er, we then will go, then will go, then will go, When dinner’s o’er, we then will go, to East Hartford’s sandy shore.” While the company was beating up Pearl Street, an automobilist rammed the hospital apprentice, an incident which developed an aftermath in the superior court when with a former Philippine soldier, Sergeant Benedict Holden, as attorney and counselor and proctor in admiralty, McIntyre got a verdict. In his argument Sergeant Holden commended the division as a patriotic command in which the city might well take pride. ANOTHER CHRISTMAS TREE Jan’y 4, 1909—Fourth Day Out. Lat. 41° 49′ N. Long. 71° 36′ W. Bar., rising; Wind, E. S. E.; Atmos., Smoky. All hands happy. Thus ends this Day.—[Extract from the Division’s Log.]