Peck's Sunshine Part 18

Young Farmer got down off the firkin, and got on his knees, and tried to repeat some Sunday school lesson, but all he could think of was, "Evil communications corrupt two in the bush." The old gentleman, who was struck in the small of the back by a piece of ice that fell off some b.u.t.ter, thought he was struck by lightning; so he began to sing, "A charge to keep I have."

The boys up stairs got a bag of buckshot, and opened it, and every little while would throw a handful onto the outside cellar door, right above the heads of the freezing occupants of the refrigerator, at the same time pounding a piece of sheet iron to make thunder. They kept this up for an hour, and then got a barrel and filled it with broken gla.s.s and pieces of crockery, and they would roll it across the floor above, while one would take an ax and pound on some bar iron that was leaning against the wall, making a most hideous noise.

Charley Farmer said he supposed he was as well prepared to die as he ever would be, but he said he would give ten dollars if he had his pants down there.

Uncle Armstrong asked him what difference it made whether he had his pants on or not, and Charley said he didn't want to be ushered into the New Jerusalem with all his sins on his head, before the angels, and nothing on but a knit unders.h.i.+rt.

They were discussing this question when they gave vent to a dying groan, closed their eyes, and then all was still.

The prisoners thought it was all over, and they didn't stir for about ten minutes. They thought the house had blown away, and left them alive, and they were inclined to be thankful even for that; when Charley and Will came down and opened the refrigerator, and told them the storm was over, but that it was the almightiest cyclone that ever pa.s.sed over Kansas.

HOW JEFF DAVIS WAS CAPTURED.

The accounts of the capture of Jeff Davis, in his wife's clothes, which have been published ever since the war, have caused many to laugh, and has surrounded the last days of the confederacy with a halo of ludicrousness that has caused much hard feeling between Mr. Davis and the American people. His friends would have been much better pleased if he had bared his breast to the cavalryman who captured him, and been run through with a sabre, and died with some proud last words on his lips, such as, "Who will care for mother now," or "The cause is lost. Send out a search warrant to find it."

It was a terribly ridiculous ending to a great struggle, the way we have been in the habit of reading the story, but now we have a new light on the subject. Mr. Davis has written a book on the war, and in it he gives the following particulars of his capture and the bravery he displayed.

Instead of sneaking off in his wife's petticoat, after a pail of spring water, Mr. Davis describes that escape as being almost a b.l.o.o.d.y encounter. He says:

"I had gone perhaps fifteen or twenty yards when a trooper galloped up and ordered me to halt and surrender, to which I gave a defiant answer, and, dropping the shawl and raglan from my shoulders, advanced toward him. He leveled his carbine at me, but I expected if he fired he would miss me, and my intention was, in that event, to put my hand under his foot, tumble him off on the other side, spring into his saddle and attempt to escape. My wife, who had been watching, when she saw the soldier aim his carbine at me, ran forward and threw her arms around me. Success depended on instantaneous action, and, recognizing that the opportunity had been lost, I turned back, and, the morning being damp and chilly, pa.s.sed on to a fire beyond the tent."

This puts an entirely different face on the affair, and instead of being a childish coward, he represents himself to have been an arch conspirator, who disguised himself as a female to get a good chance to throw a boy off his horse and steal the horse. We can only admire the calm determination of the man, as he stood there waiting for the boy to shoot, so he could rush up, unarmed, put his hand under the soldier's foot, tip him off the horse, get on himself, without receipting to the government for the horse, and skedaddle.

It is not necessary to inquire what the boy would have been doing all the time Jeff was pulling him off the horse. We all know how easy it is for an unarmed old man to spill a healthy soldier off a horse. We can readily see that the soldier could not have whacked the old fellow over the head with the empty carbine, or drawn his sabre and run him through, or given him a few shots out of a revolver.

Jeff had, no doubt, arranged in his own mind to chloroform the bold Michigan cavalryman, but his wife broke it all up by throwing her arms around him at an inopportune moment, thus pinioning the President of the Confederacy so he could not whip the Union army. And so, like Adam, Jeff lays the whole business to the woman. What would we do without women to lay everything to?

And while Jeff must ever doubt the judgment of his wife in breaking up his plans at that trying moment, when so much was at stake, how that soldier, whose life was saved by her act, must revere her, memory!

Had the woman not held Jeff the soldier must have been pitched off his horse, and striking on his head, he must have been killed.

Mr. Davis does not say so, but we have no doubt his plan was to have the soldier strike on his head on a projecting root or stone, so he would be killed. If there should be another war, we should never join the cavalry branch of the service unless there was an understanding that no old men, armed with petticoats and tin water pails, should be allowed to charge on cavalrymen and throw them off their horses.

It is said that during the late war no man ever saw a dead cavalryman, but if the tactics of Mr. Davis had been adopted early in the war, the mortality must have been fearful, and perhaps the result of the war would have been different. We cannot be too thankful that Jeff didn't think of that way of demoralizing cavalry before.

THOSE BOLD, BAD DRUMMERS.

About seventy-five traveling men were snowed in at Green Bay during a late blockade, and they were pretty lively around the hotels, having quiet fun Friday and Sat.u.r.day, and pa.s.sing away the time the best they could, some playing seven up, others playing billiards, and others looking on. Some of the truly good people in town thought the boys were pretty tough, and they wore long faces and prayed for the blockade to raise so the spruce looking chaps could go away.

The boys noticed that occasionally a lantern-jawed fellow would look pious at them, as though afraid he would be contaminated, so Sunday morning they decided to go to church in a body. Seventy-five of them slicked up and marched to the Rev. Dr. Morgan's church, where the reverend gentleman was going to deliver a sermon on temperance. No minister ever had a more attentive audience, or a more intelligent one, and when the collection plate was pa.s.sed every last one of the travelers chipped in a silver dollar.

When the s.e.xton had received the first ten dollars the perspiration stood out on his forehead as though he had been caught in something. It was getting heavy, something that never occurred before in the history of church collections at the Bay. As he pa.s.sed by the boys, and dollar after dollar was added to his burden, he felt like he was at a picnic, and when twenty-five dollars had acc.u.mulated on the plate he had to hold it with both hands, and finally the plate was full, and he had to go and empty it on the table in front of the pulpit, though he was careful to remember where he left off, so he wouldn't go twice to the same drummer.

As he poured the shekels out on the table, as still as he could, every person in the audience almost raised up to look at the pile, and there was a smile on every face, and every eye turned to the part of the church where sat the seventy-five solemn looking traveling men, who never smole a smile. The s.e.xton looked up to the minister, who was picking out a hymn, as much as to say, "Boss, we have struck it rich, and I am going back to work the lead some more." The minister looked at the boys, and then at the s.e.xton as though saying, "Verily, I would rather preach to seventy-five Milwaukee and Chicago drummers than to own a brewery. Go, thou, and reap some more trade dollars in my vineyard."

The s.e.xton went back and commenced where he left off. He had his misgivings, thinking maybe some of the boys would glide out in his absence, or think better of the affair and only put in nickels on the second heat, but the first man the s.e.xton held out the platter to planked down his dollar, and all the boys followed suit, not a man "pa.s.sed" or "ra nigged," and when the last drummer had been interviewed the s.e.xton carried the biggest load of silver back to the table that he ever saw.

Some of the silver dollars rolled off on the floor, and he had to put some in his coat pockets, but he got them all, and looked around at the congregation with a smile and wiped the perspiration off his forehead with a bandanna handkerchief and winked, as much as to say, "The first man that speaks disrespectfully of a traveling man in my presence will get thumped, and don't you forget it."

The minister rose up in the pulpit, looked at the wealth on the table, and read the hymn, "A charge to keep I have," and the congregation joined, the travelers swelling the glad anthem as though they belonged to a Pinafore chorus. They all bowed their heads while the minister, with one eye on the dollars, p.r.o.nounced the benediction, and the services were over.

The traveling men filed out through the smiles of the ladies and went to the hotel, while half the congregation went forward to the anxious seat, to "view the remains." It is safe to say that it will be unsafe, in the future, to speak disparagingly of traveling men in Green Bay, as long as the memory of that blockade Sunday remains green with the good people there.

ANGELS OR EAGLES.

We are told that in the revision of the Bible the pa.s.sage, "And I beheld an angel flying through the midst of heaven," has been changed to "eagle," and that all allusions to angels have been changed to "eagles."

This knocks the everlasting spots out of the angel business, and the poetry of wanting to be an angel, "and with the angels stand," has become the veriest prose.

We have never had any particular desire to stand with angels, not this year, but there was a certain beauty in the idea that we would all be angels when we got through whooping it up down here and went to heaven.

Particularly was this the case with children and women, and old persons, and to have the angel business wiped out by a lot of white chokered revisers is too much. There are many of us that would never make very attractive angels, unless we were altered over a good deal, and made smaller.

Some of us, to pa.s.s current among angels, would have to wear wigs. How would a male bald-headed angel, with a red nose, and one eye gone, look flying a match through the blue ethereal s.p.a.ce with a trim built girl angel? The other angels would just sit around on the ground, picking pin feathers out of their wings, and laugh so a fellow would want to go off somewhere and get behind a tree and condemn his luck.

There are few men who would be improved by fastening wings on their shoulder blades, and we never believed they could make the thing work, but the preachers have kept pounding it into us until we all got an idea there would be some process that could transform us into angels that would pa.s.s in a crowd.

Now, you take Long John Wentworth, of Chicago, a man seven feet high, and weighing four hundred pounds. What kind of an angel would he make?

They would have to put wings on him as big as a side show tent, or he never could make any headway. Just imagine John circling around over the New Jerusalem, until he saw a twenty dollar gold piece loose in the pavement of the golden streets. He would cut loose and go down there so quick it would break him all up.

And then suppose angel Storey, of the _Times_, and angel Medill, of the _Tribune_, should have got their eyes on that loose gold piece, and got there about the same time before angel John arrived, and should be quarreling over it? John would knock Storey over onto a hydrant with one wing, and mash angel Medill in the gutter with the other, and take the gold piece in his toes and fly off to where the choir was singing, and break them all up singing, "You'll never miss the water till the well runs dry."

We have never taken a great deal of stock in the angel doctrine, because we knew pretty well what kind of material they would have to be made of, but we had rather be an angel than an eagle. Who the deuce wants to die and be an eagle, like "Old Abe," and eat rats? In a heaven full of eagles there would be the worst clawing that ever was, and the air would be full of feathers. Eagles won't do, and the revisers ought to have known it.

If we have got to be anything let us insist on being angels, via the Bible, and then we can have some fun. With big flocks of angels, and good weather, and nothing to do but to sing praises and browse around to pa.s.s away the time, and no rent to pay, and no bills of any kind to keep track of, it does seem as though some of us could think of some tableaux, or picnic, or something to have a good time, but let us strike on being eagles, revisers or no revisers.

AN ACCIDENT ALL ABOUND.

A most ridiculous scene occurred at a church in Newcastle, Penn., one Sunday, a short time ago. A policeman was pa.s.sing the church as a gentleman came out. The man jokingly accosted the policeman and said he was wanted inside meaning that he would be glad to have him turn from the error of his ways, and seek the truth and enjoy a peace that pa.s.seth all understanding. The stupid policeman thought there was some trouble in the church, so he went in.

The s.e.xton, seeing a policeman, was anxious to give him a favorable seat, so he said, "Come right in here," and he took him into a pew and waved his hand as much as to say, "Help yourself." There was another man in the pew, a deacon with a sinister expression, as the policeman thought, and he supposed that was the man they wanted arrested, so he tapped the deacon on the arm and told him to go into the aisle. The deacon struggled, thinking the policeman was crazy, and tried to get away, but he was dragged along. Many of the congregation thought that the deacon had been doing something wrong, and some of them got behind the deacon and helped the officer fire him out.

Arriving at the lock-up, the policeman saw the man who told him he was wanted in the church and asked him what the charge was against the deacon, and he didn't know, so the s.e.xton was appealed to, and he didn't know, and finally the prisoner was asked what it was all about, and he didn't know.

The policeman was asked what he arrested the man for, and he didn't know, and after awhile the matter was explained, and the policeman, who had to arrest somebody, took the man into custody who told him he was wanted in the church, and he was fined five dollars and costs.

He says he will never try to convert a policeman again, and the policeman says he will never go into a church again if they get to knocking each other down with hymn books.