text: W OAcyL jl yjjihS I jEpp 4a • Jvkfi 1 /''‘‘ a / \^w »aw/..v ~? i^^yXtK l. M 7 W' * m I ~Yi OS fel iwi I A &5-J3 SS? - ; Im®'. TaSimli M fe;] B•' Bfi Sil sA Bl m Mil 3f' i i\*n?rr ImLw A t>/4LwIKI3K% fe ~^W -f 11* 1 aHH& > y 9 X A d A\ t. „ < S - - *•? WWBk O f f V\ by Edward B. Clark. X intention to make army life so attractive for the sergeants and the corporals that they would be willing to re-enlist. Then again the amount of pay given the “non-coms” was intended to act as an incentive to the privates to behave themselves well and to stay in the service so that in time they might secure promotion. There is an army post at Fort Myer close to Arlington, the national cemetery just across the Potomac from the capital. A good place to live in. Bo Jr. To Lie Town At many old soldiers are stationed at Fort Myer, men who have enlisted and re-enlisted until the sleeves of their dress coats are pretty well covered with the stripes marking their years of service. These old soldiers tell many stories of the old days when the army life was not as pleasant as it is today and when the recruit's lot was far from a happy one. In those old days, desertions were many and some of the stories which the veteran regulars tell today of the time when they wore recruits lets one know readily enough why some men under the old conditions did not care to follow the flag. Here is one story of recruit life in the army for 29 years ago that is rewritten with no changes of fact and with only a little change of language from the way that an old soldier told it: "In the winter of 1888 I was stationed at David’s island, New York harbor, a recruiting rendezvous of the army. There were about 800 newly enlisted ones stationed there at that time. The island is a little affair lying fairly low in the water and without any protection from the storms which blow in from the east through Long Island sound. January and February, 1888, were months of sunshine, and flowers were peeping on the sunny side of things before anyone could guess whether March was to roar in like the lion or to bleat like the lamb. Early in the second week of that March month New York was overwhelmed by a tempest of wind, and snow. It was in that storm that Koscoe Conkling met with the exposure which caused the illness leading to his death in a few days. It was the worst storm known to the history of the eastern country. The New Yorkers, however, did not experience its full fury, for their buildings gave them shelter. “It was left for a few recruits of the United States army, the men on guard, to bear the brunt of the blizzard and to face the elements that gave them battle. On the night of March 11, the storm broke. At nine o’clock, the sky over the sound was unclouded, and there was not a whisper of wind over the water. Within ten minutes, the black clouds had banked up, and in another ten minutes they were shaking out their burden of snow, while the wind which had sprung to its full strength almost without warning, was roaring down the sound from the Atlantic. At midnight there were great drifts of snow against every obstacle which offered the least resistance to the wind. Out of doors speech was impossible for the blasts tore the words from one’s lips and smothered them with their bowlings. “On that night I was on guard as corporal of the first relief. The sergeant of the guard flew moments after midnight stepped from the doorway of the guardhouse and was swept from his feet by the wind. He saw what a terrible night was ahead of us, had already come to us in fact, and he sent a man to the quarters of the officer of the day to ask permission to take in the outlying sentinels or to give orders to them to seek such shelter as they could find. The officer of the day’s quarters were surrounded with heavy evergreen trees and the lighted up the ocean. Brilliant St Beaks of Blue and Green in Gulf of Mexico. A most remarkable marine phenomenon was observed from the steamship Dover. Capt. Yon A. Carlson, as that vessel steamed to Tampa from Mobile. When at a point 35 miles from Mobile light, at seven o'clock on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the ship ran suddenly in a streak of light communication. WASHINGTON.—In the last year or two, Congress has shown a disposition to be generous to the army. Among the other measures passed with a special view to the decreasing of the number of desertions was one which increased materially the pay of enlisted men. The non-commissioned officers particularly were well treated by the bill, for it was the officer, looking out, did not comprehend how terrific the storm really was, and so word was passed that the chain of sentinels should not be broken. “At one o'clock my guard relief was ordered out to relieve the men on post. No man who was on that island that night has in his keeping words strong enough to describe the awful fury of that eastern gale. The combined thunder of 20 mountain storms could not equal the noise of the roaring of the waves as they pounded the shore. The wind added its bellowing to the uproar and its strength almost took away the powers of motion and of speech. “The relief started from the guardhouse. No man through the darkness brought by night and the tempest could see the outline of his nearest fellow. The whiteness of the snow would have relieved the blackness had not the lashing of the elements blinded the vision.” I ordered the men to unfix bayonets because of the danger of cutting one another, and I gave the order passing from one man to the other and fairly bellowing it into their ears. Then the order was given to ‘secure arms’ and to clasp hands. It was only by the handclasp that one man could tell that he had a companion. “Into the teeth of the tempest we edged our way. Twice within 50 yards of the guard house the little squad was thrown from its feet. All sense of direction was lost and nothing but a collision with one of the low-lying barracks buildings after ten minutes’ toiling progress gave the little command knowledge of its whereabouts. A half frozen sentinel whose post luckily was under the lee of the barracks, was relieved and took his place at the rear of the hand-clasping column. “The hospital of the garrison stands, or did stand at that time, at the extreme east end of the island. Back of it along the stretch of beach runs a sentry's post. A man walking there and looking straight eastward finds no land upon which his eye may rest. That night the lashing fury of the waves was spent mainly on that lonely sentry beach. The first relief managed to reach the front of the hospital which gave some protection. I ordered all the men except the one who was to relieve the sentry on the beach to huddle under the piazza while I took the relieving recruit to find the man on post. “We rounded the end of the hospital. The blast threw us down. The wind was tearing down the sound and the salt spray and the snow commingled dashed into our faces. We dragged our rifles and edged our way through a wall of wind. A few feet of progress and the blast again threw our feet from undering from the water which alternated blue and green, the colors being so brilliant that the vessel was lighted up as if she was covered with arc lights with colored globes. A half mile streak of dark water, and a blackness that settled like a pall over the ship, followed and a second streak of the same brilliant hued waters was encountered. The second streak was about as wide as the first.” uttered a word. Back over the sand we went through the howling and the lashing. We lost our bearings and ran into an obstruction. I traced its outline and knew what it was. It was the hospital morgue, a wooden structure not more than 15 feet square. We crawled around it until we had reached the west side, where the shelter gave us breath; from the doorway of the morgue came a challenge that even the noise of the storm could not smother—'Who comes there?' "The answer, 'Relief,' was yelled back by two voices in unison, and we crawled into the dead house. There, standing guard in the grewsome place, was a colored lad, only four weeks a soldier, and within touch of his hand, resting on its zinc bier, was the corpse of a man. "Driven by the storm to seek shelter, that black recruit, rather than leave his post to get the protection afforded by the hospital, had chosen in the blackness of midnight, and with wind and wave raging without, to take up his watch by the dead, because the place where the body lay was on his post, which he was under orders not to desert." Two army deserters convinced a certain raw recruit that there was something more than words in the saying he had once heard to the effect that republics always are ungrateful. It fell on this wise: one, and when the ship ran out of it the same black waters and a night of exceptional blackness were also encountered. A. D. Montmollian, traveling freight agent of the line, was on board the vessel, and he and Chief Engineer T. J. Cole fully substantiated Capt. Carlson's statement regarding the phenomenon. “I have sailed the high seas for 22 years,” declared Capt. Carlson, “but I never saw anything that approached this blue and green light from the toiled along the sand for the entire length of the sentry’s beat, but no sentry could we find. I raised my voice and shouted. The man within two feet of me did not know that I had been in the service. The sergeant in charge turned two prisoners over to him with instructions to guard them while they drove a mule team and collected the garbage from the barrels in the rear of the quarters. It was the dead of winter, and for the first time in years the hannel between David’s island and the town of New Rochelle was frozen over. The recruit plodded along after his prisoners, but, being green to such work, he kept close at their heels instead of trailing along at a distance of five paces as he should have done. Guard and prisoners reached a point near the shore directly in the rear of the commanding officer’s quarters. There one of the deserters seized an empty garbage barrel and an opportunity at the same instant. He threw the barrel’s head like a candle. The water. The night was dark, but clear, and we ran into the streaks without any seeming warning. I was in the pilothouse when we struck it, and I ran on deck, thinking that something was on fire. "The crew tumbled out to witness it also, and it was magnificent. It was so light that it was remarked by the chief engineer that it could be read by, and to make sure I grabbed a paper and the finest print that I could find was easily discernible. "We ran out of the streak into a kilt. Holding hands we crawled digging our free hands and our knees into the ground until we reached a point where the waves stopped our progress. "Thence we turned by the flank and snuffer and tore his "Springfield" from his hand. Then the garbage barrel was removed and the recruit was threatened with death if he made an outcry. He was forced to march at the bayonet's point to the shore of the island and then to run over the ice toward the mainland with his former prisoners at his heels. When the deserters and their victim arrived near the New Rochelle shore a hole was clipped in the ice by means of the bayonet and the rifle was dropped through into the waters of the sound. Then the recruit was told that if he chose he might return to the garrison." He told his former charges that he preferred to throw in his lot with them, for if he went back he would be certain to get a heavy dose of the guardhouse for neglect of duty in suffering his prisoners to escape, and for the loss of government property in the shape of the Springfield rifle which was now at the bottom of the sound. The deserters told the recruit that he could come with them if he chose, and they started for a saloon in the outskirts of the town, a place known to them, there to wait until it was time to go under cover to the depot to take a train which made no stop for many miles beyond the place of boarding. About an hour before the train was due the recruit told the deserters that he had "weakened" and that he would go back to the island to "take his medicine." They offered no objection and their companion started for the shore while they took a back road to the depot. The recruit had soldier-making stuff in him. He had been maturing a plan all the time that he had been in the saloon. The deserters once out of sight, he made for a farm house, told his story hurriedly, secured a horse and rode at a cavalry pace for a hamlet a few miles east of New Rochelle. He was afraid to go to the depot to which the deserters had gone because he feared that they would see him and, suspecting his motive, would take to the woods. At the little village to which he had gone headlong on his horse, he secured the services of a constable readily enough—for there was a reward for the arrest of deserters—and by telling his story and by threatening the station master with all the penalties possible of infliction by the federal government, the recruit induced him to flag the train. The deserters were caught, handcuffed, and sent back to the island. The board deliberated long if not wisely, and finally reached the conclusion that the country's treasury could not well bear the burden of the loss of the money represented by the price of one rifle, and so it was decreed that the cost of the weapon should be taken out of the pay of the recruit who had done his duty by the government and had shown pluck and understanding, even if he had lost a rifle. There was a disgusted young soldier on David's Island. He was not made of the stuff of deserters, but desert he did. The channel was still frozen and the morning after he learned of the order stopping his pay there was one soldier less to answer “Here,” at reveille roll call. The streak of black water and the darkness of the night seemed to increase as we did so. From the streak of blackness we ran into the second streak of lighted waters. Each of the streaks and the intermediate streak of black water was about half a mile wide.”—Tampa Times. There are about 12 generations of flies a year, the sexes about equally divided, each female laying about 1,000 eggs. The Prolific Fly. Things that Went Wrong. A few days ago, Mrs. Elfleda Yager, an elderly widow residing in Oak Park, having lost her confidence in banks, drew all her savings out of the institution in which she had kept them on deposit for years, and hid the money in the oven of her kitchen stove. Early the next morning, she made a fire in the stove. But before she did so, she took the money out of the oven and secreted it in an old, cracked teapot in the cupboard. Yesterday morning, a farmer named Johnson or Jones — accounts differ from the other side of Worth, delivered a barrel of apples at a South side grocery store. “Packed these yourself, did you?" asked the grocer. “Yes, sir.” “In your usual careful and honest manner, I suppose?” “Yes, sir,” answered the farmer with a wink. “I’ll warrant them to be the same size all the way down.” When the barrel was opened, it was found that they were crabapples. — Chicago Tribune Mrs. Dense—How very plainly that dear woman is dressed! Mrs. Sense—Yes, indeed; but you must remember it is Lent. Mrs. Dense—No! You do not mean to tell me, really and truly, that she borrows her dresses? Dives had made himself very wealthy by opposing his neighbors. and the latter, grown poor concurrently, were wont to gather at his gate each morning to clamor for bread. But, Dives, though touched, did not lose his head. "I mustn’t make paupers of these unfortunates!" he exclaimed, and was universally applauded for his discretion when he offered to give a stone, provided the beneficiaries of his bounty first got another stone elsewhere. —Puck. Briggs— I say, old man, what's good for insomnia? I haven't closed my eyes for five nights. Wiggs— You want to have a boxing match. The first time I tried it, I remember, my eyes were closed for a fortnight. Pretty Visitor (on board a battleship)—They say that Jack is leading a double life. Sweetheart (who has been with the fleet) —He must be leading more than that, for he promised to die for as many different girls as the countries we visited. —Judge. Little Girl — What's an intelligence office, mamma? Mother — It’s a place where one goes to find out what wages cooks are charging, Edith. —New York Herald. Housemaid (whose employer is a novelist) —It’s easy to see that my master is unhappily married! The women in his novels all die before the story ends! —Fliegende Blätter. The Careless Matron. The Honest Farmer. A PUZZLE TO HER. Discretion. Good for Insomnia. A Girl in Every Port. Correctly Defined. HIS WIFE LIVES ON. Where the Pinch Took Effect. “Never let your shoes pinch you.” “Gee! I don’t. It’s my family’s.” Shoes that pinch me. I have to buy, on an average, 18 pairs a year!”—Chicago Tribune. A GIRL BEFORE SHE’S SPOILED. A girl—the sweetest thing on earth, A gleam of Heaven from her birth. At church, rapt symbol of devotion; Her soul, a font of pure devotion. At school, she learns with brow unbent: At play, her mirth is innocent. She dances, and a living grace Reflects chaste thought from every face. At home, she is a thing of joy, A gem of light, without alloy. —T. W. Mac Lean, in Chicago Record-Herald. Simple. In the express train from Paris to Nice, two travelers began to talk. “You are going to Nice?” “Yes.” “Also to Monte Carlo?” “Oh, yes. I go there every year.” “You always play there a little, doubtless?” “Certainly—once every morning and every evening—quite regularly, two sittings in the day.” “And you lose sometimes?” “Never.” "How is that possible? May one take the liberty to ask how you manage that?” “It is quite simple; I play the violin, and nothing else.”—Royal Magazine. METHOD IN MADNESS. The Visitor—If you really are Napoleon, tell me how you came to lose the battle of Waterloo. The Lunatic—Sir, I make it a rule never to talk shop. One of the Oppressed. "Not that way," whispered a burglar to his accomplice after they had broken into the hotel; “the proprietor's room is down this way.” "What’s the matter with you?” growled the more expert cracksman; "I know my business. We were to get to the room of the head waiter.”—Royal Magazine. Doesn’t Attract. Peleg Haw vows we ain’t. had no cold weather to speak of since he bought a thermometer. "Well," declared Deacon Cripes, "Peleg ought to know that a thermometer won’t act like a lightning rod."—Puck. Homelike. The Bachelor—You must feel a little homesick since you moved into this new neighborhood. The Merry Widow—Not a bit. All my new neighbors snub me just as they did where I used to live.—Cleveland Leader. Marital Remarks. "Yes, sir," said the millionaire, "I can say, with pride, that I am a self-made man." "Well, there is no accounting for tastes. Some folks are easily pleased," said his wife.—Judge. Obliging. He— I like to see a diamond in the rough. She — Well, if you furnish the diamond I have, I have the ruff. —Yonkers business man. 