RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
train creaked and puffed and struggled over the icy tracks.
When we reached Omaha I received a telegram telling me that my mother had died the day before, and I found it no longer possible to brace myself against the inevitable collapse. We hurried on to Cincinnati and arrived in time for my mother's funeral, but I was too ill to be present. It was two months before I began to recover.
In the meantime Mr. Taft left us and went on to Washington for consultation with the President and Mr. Root and to appear before the Philippine Committees of the House and Senate which were then conducting minute inquiries into conditions in the Islands preparatory to passing a much-needed governmental bill. For a whole month he was subjected to a hostile cross-examination, but he was able to place before the Committees more first-hand and accurate information on the subject of their deliberations than they had theretofore received. This was exactly what he wanted to come to the United States for, and he would greatly have enjoyed it had he been in his usual form, but he was not. During his stay in Washington he was the guest of Secretary and Mrs. Root and only their friendly care and solicitude enabled him to continue so long. In March he was compelled to return to Cincinnati for another operation, the third in five months. Everything considered, it seemed to me the Taft family had fallen upon evil days.
However, the weeks passed, I began to improve, and as soon as my husband had fairly set his feet on earth again we began to make plans for our return to the Philippines. There could be no thought of abandoning the work in the Islands just when it was beginning to assume an ordered and encouraging aspect, nor was it possible just then to shift the responsibility to other shoulders. This would have been too much like "changing horses in the middle of a stream."
My husband was able while he was in Washington to pre-
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