The regimental tailor was summoned.  He was cook to one of the companies, and there were at first some doubts whether he could be permitted to forsake the spit for the needle, during the time I should require his services.  All his tailoring-work had, heretofore, been done at odd times on a bench in the company kitchen, and thither he now proposed to carry the riding-habit.  I suggested that, in order to superintend the work, I should thus be driven to take up my abode for the time being in the barracks, which would be a decided inconvenience.

To remedy the difficulty, he was finally so happy as to find a soldier in “Company D,” who consented to officiate in his place as cook until his term of service to me should expire.

Behold, then, a little, solemn-looking man in his stocking-feet, seated cross-legged on an Indian mat by my parlor window.  He had made all his arrangements himself, and I deemed it wisest not to interfere with him.  The cutting-out was the most difficult part, and, as he had never made a lady’s riding-habit, that task fell to my share.  I was as great a novice as himself, and I must admit that this, my first effort, was open to criticism.  But the little tailor was of a different opinion.  He was in an ecstasy with our joint performance.

“Upon my word, madam,” he would exclaim, surveying it with admiring eyes, “we shall have a very respectable garment!” I do not know how many times he repeated this during the three days that the work was in progress.

I believe he had not perfect confidence in the culinary powers of his comrade of “Company D,” for regularly a half-hour before beat of drum his work was folded and laid aside, his snips gathered up, and, all things being restored to order, he would slip out, resume his shoes, which, Turk-like, he had left outside the door, and speed over to the barrack-kitchen to see how matters were going on.

In the mean time, great preparations were making below, under the supervision of our tidy, active little French servant, Mrs. Pillon, the wife of one of the engages, by whom the irregular and unmanageable Louisa had been replaced.

Biscuits were baked, a ham, some tongues, and sundry pieces of salt pork were boiled, coffee roasted and ground, sugar cracked, isinglass cut in pieces of the size requisite for a pot of coffee.  For the reception of all these different articles cotton bags of different sizes had been previously prepared.  Large sacks of skin, called by the Canadians porches, were also provided to hold the more bulky provisions, for our journey was to be a long one.

The distance from Fort Winnebago to Chicago was not very formidable, it is true, if the direct route were taken; but that we knew to be impossible at this season of the year.  The route by Kosh-ko-nong was out of the question; all the Indians being absent from their villages in the winter, and the ice being now gone, we could have no means of crossing the Rock River at that place.