The crowd on the levee howled and screamed with rage. And now the rain came down in sheets. There came a roar of shoutings and imprecations and crowding feet down Common Street. “Hurrah for Jeff Davis! Shoot them! Kill them! Hang them!” I locked the door on the outside and ran to the front of the mob, calling with the rest, “Hurrah for Jeff Davis!” About every third man had a weapon out. Two officers of the United States Navy were walking abreast, unguarded and alone, looking not to right or left, never frowning, never flinching, while the mob screamed in their ears, shook cocked pistols in their faces, cursed and crowded and gnashed upon them. So through the gates of death those two men walked to the City Hall to demand the town’s surrender. It was one of the bravest deeds I ever saw done. Thus, through all the hurly-burly of our active life I sometimes caught glimpses of the stirring events of long ago that make the history of Louisiana so enthralling. “The late onpleasantness” was generally avoided in conversation except when we were in the company of Northerners. I greatly preferred consorting with the Creoles, who still dominated the social life of the city, and did not speak of themselves as Americans if they could avoid it. Why should they? Their civilization is Latin to the core! While they celebrate the national holiday on the Fourth of July, ten days later they observe with far more pomp and circumstance the Fourteenth of July, the French national holiday, that commemorates the fall of the Bastille. We made a pilgrimage to the lovely old Girard Street cemetery where in the street of tombs we found the inscription: “Francis Marion Ward, died 1847.” This was my mother’s youngest brother, the adored “Mannie”, who perished in the terrible yellow fever epidemic which carried off one eighth of the population. Our six months in New Orleans were breathless ones, crowded with strong emotions and vivid impressions. The best people of the place were hospitable beyond belief, but there were some who resented the appointment of a Northern woman to the office my mother held; and she used to say, “Satan has a fresh flower for me every morning when I come to my desk.”