The Civil War brought such extraordinary demands on the Pennsylvania line that I was at last compelled to organize a night force; but it was with difficulty I obtained the consent of my superiors to entrust the charge of the line at night to a train dispatcher.  Indeed, I never did get their unequivocal authority to do so, but upon my own responsibility I appointed perhaps the first night train dispatcher that ever acted in America—­at least he was the first upon the Pennsylvania system.

Upon our return to Pittsburgh in 1860 we rented a house in Hancock Street, now Eighth Street, and resided there for a year or more.  Any accurate description of Pittsburgh at that time would be set down as a piece of the grossest exaggeration.  The smoke permeated and penetrated everything.  If you placed your hand on the balustrade of the stair it came away black; if you washed face and hands they were as dirty as ever in an hour.  The soot gathered in the hair and irritated the skin, and for a time after our return from the mountain atmosphere of Altoona, life was more or less miserable.  We soon began to consider how we could get to the country, and fortunately at that time Mr. D.A.  Stewart, then freight agent for the company, directed our attention to a house adjoining his residence at Homewood.  We moved there at once and the telegraph was brought in, which enabled me to operate the division from the house when necessary.

Here a new life was opened to us.  There were country lanes and gardens in abundance.  Residences had from five to twenty acres of land about them.  The Homewood Estate was made up of many hundreds of acres, with beautiful woods and glens and a running brook.  We, too, had a garden and a considerable extent of ground around our house.  The happiest years of my mother’s life were spent here among her flowers and chickens and the surroundings of country life.  Her love of flowers was a passion.  She was scarcely ever able to gather a flower.  Indeed I remember she once reproached me for pulling up a weed, saying “it was something green.”  I have inherited this peculiarity and have often walked from the house to the gate intending to pull a flower for my button-hole and then left for town unable to find one I could destroy.

With this change to the country came a whole host of new acquaintances.  Many of the wealthy families of the district had their residences in this delightful suburb.  It was, so to speak, the aristocratic quarter.  To the entertainments at these great houses the young superintendent was invited.  The young people were musical and we had musical evenings a plenty.  I heard subjects discussed which I had never known before, and I made it a rule when I heard these to learn something about them at once.  I was pleased every day to feel that I was learning something new.