Image provided by: Oregon City Public Library; Oregon City, OR
About Oregon City courier. (Oregon City, Or.) 1902-1919 | View Entire Issue (May 29, 1903)
HEROES. Mother Earth! Are thy heroes dead? Do they thrill the soul of the world do more? Are the gleaming snows and the popples red All that Is left of the brave of yore? Are there none to fight as Theseus fought, Far In the young world's misty dawn? Or teach as the gray haired Nestor taught? Mother Earth! are thy heroes gone? Uoe? In a nobler form they rise; Dead? We may clasp their hands In ours, . And catch the light of their glorious eyes, . And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers, 1 Whenever a noble deed is done There are the souls of our heroes stirred; . Whenever a field for truth Is won, There are our heroes' voices heard. Their armor rings cn a fairer field 'Tknn Greek or Trojan ever trod; Wssr Freedom's sword Is the blade they wield, And the light above them the smile of God! So in his isle of calm delight, Jason may dream the hours away, But the heroes live, and the skies are bright, And the world is a braver world to-day. -Edna Dean Proctor, In Normal Instructor. Two Soldier Boys. O T wag in Cuicknmaugit, during Au J I gust of '98. She was a Southern woman, her home within a few miles of the camp, but the sick and suffering soldiers that she ministered to In the 4'Hiiip hospital were boys from Northern liouies. She had flowers for all, and va lious little delicacies for those that were permitted them; and now and then she stopped to brush back the damp locks from some aching brow, and to try to soothe the pain. Often she would write letters home for them with wonderful sweetness. One day she stood by the tide of a boy that would never send another message to his mother, and her tears dropped fast Jor the 18-ycar-old hero, uow slipping -away into eternal rest. She could not 'bear any more that day, and turned to tto, but as she neared the entrance her eyes fell on a face she had not teen be fore; she Biniled back at the pair of jolly .dark eyes that met her own. The owner lay prostrato with lines of pain in his (face; but a laughing mouth, and the mis chievous eyes showed grit and fun. She was irresistibly drawn to the boy, and was thankful she had a few flowers left to offer him. "Thank you," laughed the soldier lad, jfiddlng mischievously, "1 kuew I was go ling to get those." . "How?" she asked, interested. ' -'Oh," he said, gravely, "I had my eye .-on them, and I knew you wouldn't go ly." It was not a very satisfactory explana tion, but she laughed at it, and so did wome of the sick boys. "When are you coming again?" de jmanded the boy, suddenly, after a mo linent's conversation, laying a detaining jtinnd upon her dress, as if loth to have iher go even then. "Whenever you say," she said lightly, land the lad's face brightened. ! "To-morrow," lie said eagerly. She went back to her hooie, and all through the night the dark-eyes haunted .'her; she made up her mind that on thai buorrow she would show him a picture Wie hnd, and perhaps tell him a little about another boy that had dark, fun Wing eyes, and that, 30 odd years be fore, had worn a blue uniform, too. iBut when she reached the hospital the next day the jolly-faced boy was too Kick to know her, and all through the following week he lay near the shadowy land. But the brave spirit did not quite go out and one day lie smiled the recogni tion he was to weak to speak. And as ifli went home that night a new idea took possession of her; why not have him moved to .her house. And now .that he was out of danger, she could make Ihim more comfortable and nurse him hack to health, as years before Bhe hud pursed that other black-eyed boy. Iler hair was whitening now; then It was brown and glossy, am. she was young, tier life before her. She sighed; if only she could know what had been the fate of that other, why he had never come back to her! -But she had long before given up expecting to know in this world. One day, a week or two later, when the soldier lad was comfortably ensconc ed in her home, ami was growing Btrong enough to take interest In his surround ings, ho said earnestly, "Why Is It you were so good to us fellows in the hos pital? Yon told me the picture In uni form there is of your father, that he was an officer In the Confederate army, and that your brother was in that army, too, and you know that it was our fathers who fought them." "But that Is all over now," she an swered gently. "There were brave sol diers on both aides, and the sons are as brave to-day." But the boy persisted. "Why did you tiring me here iusteud of some of the other fellows?" lie was seeking no compliment; he asked In direct honesty. "I wish I could have hnd the others too," she said, "but if you would like to know why I singled you out, wait a mo ment. Jack;" and she went upstairs to her room, quickly reappearing with a pic ture in her hand. This she silently handed to him. The pictured face he saw was that of a young man in soldier's uniform; and on the margin was written in firm, man ly hand: "Dorothy, from Edward, till this cruel war is over. April, '3." For a moment the soldier on the couch gated in speechless astonishment at the Mildier in the picture. Then the wom an broke the silence. "You see it, too?" she cried, "the strong resemblance? and it was even stronger than it looks there; for his eyes were Just the color of yours, and the expression was very like. I am the 'Dorothy.' My name is Dorothy Ashton, his name was Edward Kendall. Ho was a Yankeo soldier hut we found him, my mother and I, wounded in our barn, where he h.l drugged himself af ter the battle. We were loyal to the Confederacy, hut my mother was tender hearted and loving, and this soldier, ap parently dying, was Just the age of her one son, my only brother, who was light ing far away from us; so with thought of the boy we loved, we took this other, our enemy, Into a little hidden room, and nursed him back to life. We grew to care for him; for he was a gay, bright fellow, full of fun. even when suffering. He had a mother in the North whom he hnd not seen for many weary months. My mother, too, had not seen her soldier son for a long time, and so this estab lished a bond between the Yankee and the rebel. And as for Edward and me, all differences fell away when we looked into each other's eyes. It was no time, then, to talk much of love; but when he left us he gave me this picture and I gave him mine; and he carried with him my promise to be true till the time when the war was over and he could return to make me his wife." The woman's voice, which had been growing tremulous, tiroke then, and a tear fell on the coverlet. Then she went on quietly: "My dear, he did. not come back, and I have never heard of him since, but I have been true to him through all these years, and I know in my heart that he was true to me, and that, somewhere, before that terrible conflict was over, death claimed him. You see now that it was because of your resemblance to him that I brought you to my home." As she finished, the boy before her, whose face was strangely sobered, renched up and clasped her hand. "Now, let me finish the story for you," he said, earnestly. "You are right. He was true to yon he was. For your Ed ward Kendall was my uncle, my mother's brother! That explains the resemblance; they have always told me I looked very much like him. The picture is dated April, '(53, three months after that he was again wounded, got better, and was furloughed home; on the way he was taken down with fever, and was brought to a New York hospital. He grew rap idly worse, and his folks were sent for. His mother reached him just as he was sinking into unconsciousness. He rallied a moment when he saw her. 'Mother,' he said, and, handing her a picture of a girl, he murmured 'Dorothy.! It was the last word he uttered, and they never knew who 'Dorothy' was. But my grand mother kept the picture and had it plac ed with one of his, both In the same frame; and my mother has them now." For a few moments their tears fell to gether, the convalescent soldier lad and the womnn with the whitening hair. Then she brought him some supper, and fretted a little lest the excitement might make him ill again. A few weeks after Jack returned ' to his Northern home; but he did not forget his friend in the South. He and his mother sent many letters to her In the months that followed, and on Memorial Day, '09, when so many women decorat ed the new-made graves of their soldier dead, Dorothy Ashton, with Jack and his mother, visited a cemetery in Massa chusetts, and laid, for the first time, a beautiful wreath upon the grnve of her soldier-lover, who had died true to her and had slept his peaceful sleep for more than thirty-five years. Boston Tran script. ORIGIN OF MEMORIAL DAY. Rufu P. Parrl.il of Kewanee Urged Commemoration of the Dead, Memorial Day originated with a man who was recently followed to the grave at Kewanee, 111., by one of the largest throngs of old soldiers that ever attend ed a funeral in a town of like size. The name of this man was Rufus I'. Purdah and it is admitted that a letter he wrote to Senator John A. Logan wa; chiefly instrumental in the action of Con gress in establishing a day on . which throughout the nation graves of the Union dead fliould be strewn with flow ers and their brave acts commemorated. It is a inatter of history that the cus tom of decorating graves of toldiors was commenced in Kewanee in 18(53, five years before Senator Logan Becured the DECORATION DAY. "Dou't cry, grandma, you'll see him Herald, action of Congress appointing a memo rial day. It is known here that Mr. Par rish, who had always taken the greatest hiterest in this observance, wrote an ur gent letter to Senator Logan, urging him to take into serious consideration legis lation that would set aside a day on which all could join in memorial ser vices. Aside from the interest that Mr. Par rish took in such patriotic movements he had a very interesting history. His grandfather on his mother's side carried a flint-lock musket in the Revolutionary War, and the father of his father was a recruiting officer in the war of 1812. He was one of fifteen men to organize the first Y. M. C. A. in the United States. During the war of the rebellion and before he was an outspoken aboli tionist and figured prominently in under ground railroad work by which slaves es caped to Canada. He was in the fore front of nearly every movement of en lightenment of the community serving to foster libraries and lectures. Mr. Pnrrish was born in New Hamp shire about eighty-seven years ago "and came to Illinois in April, 1855. He is survived by his faithful wife, with whom he dwelt in wedlock for the unusual term of sixty-four years. Hiram Snyder. The author oif "Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen" tells a story of the Civil War, when the days dragged gloomily, in anticipation of news from the front, and when grief was likely to overtake any who had boys in the ranks. He says: One night the postmaster was reading aloud the names of the killed at Gettys burg, and he ran right on to the name of a youth we knew. The boy's father sat there on a nail keg, chewing a straw. The postmaster, for his sake, tried to shuffle over the name, aud hurry on to the next. "Hi!" said the father. Wha what's that you said?" There was nothing to do but to face the issue, and the postmaster repeated, with a forced calmness: "Killed Snyder, Hiram." The boy's father stood up with a jerk. Then he sat down. Then he stood up again, staggered to the door, and fum bled for the latch like a blind man. "God help him!" said the postmaster, wiping his eyes with his red handker chief; "he's gone to tell the old wom an." The minister preached a funeral rer mon for the boy and on the little pyra mid that marked the family lot, in the burying ground, they carved the inscrip tion: "Killed in honorable battle, Hiram Snyder, aged nineteen." Not long afterward, strange, weird, bearded men, in faded blue, began to arrive. Great welcomes were given them, and many a big gathering was held in their honor. At one such gathering, a ghost appeared, a lank, saffron ghoBt, ragged as a scarecrow, wearing the cape of a cavalryman's overcoat, with no coat beneath. The apparition was a youth of about twenty, with a downy beard all over his face, and a countenance well-mellowed with coal soot, as if he had ridden sev eral days on the top of a freight car near the engine. The ghost was Hiram Snyder. We forgave him the shock of surprise he had caused us, all except the minis ter, who had preached his funeral fer mom Years afterward I heard the min ister remark, in a solemn and aggrieved tone: "Hiram Snyder is a man who cannot be relied upon." A Straggler of 'tt'.i. Along the line of march of '63, I find a lonely, sunken grnve, unmarked; Yet well I know the soldier sleeping here; A comrade brave as any hero dead Or living, footsore, wenry, fallen out With leave; at rest so well he hears no breath Of lulling summer winds, nor fiercest shriek Of the November blast. No a lory of A bloody field Is 'round nbout him, but The grnss grows green, mid graceful trees still woo The breeze to music whose sweet words are "lteflt, Brnve comrade, sleep and rest;" and still, n hove The drifting snows, the winter winds shout, "Victory!" Ills monument Is high In all hearts: Ills fume Is bright with laurel, for all time. Albert ( Hopkins. Soldier Masons at Fort Monroe. Prominent among the two-year regi ments from the Empire State was the Tenth, or National Zouaves, raised in New York City. A working lodge of Master Masons was organized within this regiment. The meetings or commu nications were held in a casemate at Fort Monroe and were attended by many brethren from neighboring camps. The lodge entered, passed and raised thirty four members. Not infrequently gray clad soldiers of the Southern army, pris oners within the lines, found their way there and sat in lodge with their more fortunate brethren. Washington Post. A grateful dog Is better than an un grateful man. Saudi. again sonic tlme."-Ch!cngo Record i A Farmer's Daughter: I What She Can Do. In a paper read before the thirteenth annual convention of the Indiana State Dairy Association, Miss Edith Parsons, a student In Purdue, University, gave an interesting account of her experi ence in dairying. Miss Parsons began with the three or four cows kept to supply their owrr family, aud is now selling the product of between fifteen and twenty cows at a profitable price, because of its uniform excellence and regularity of supply. After recounting her ' difficulties In getting a good herd, she said: "After you decide to begin dairying, the ques tion arises: Who shall care for the milk and the butter? Shall It be the farmer and his sons who toil in the field all day, or shall ltbe the tired mother and wife who shall do this work, thinking it one of her many duties, Instead of a source of pleasure to her? No! "In my opinion, it should be the farmer's daughter who should come forward and say, I am young and know that I would enjoy taking full charge of the dairy work. How proud I will feel to think that, I am making gilt-edged butter. "Many mothers persist in saying that the work in a dairy is too hard for their daughters and would soon become a drudgery to them, but I believe moth ers of this opinion forget that any work, no matter how hard, If entered into with the soul and willing hands, ceases to be drudgery and becomes an art. "The dark side to dairying for the farmer's daughter Is that it is an every day business that can not be put into inexperienced hands, without getting things out of balance, and that whole days off must be few. But a girl who has tact and judgment enough to get the best results from a Jersey cow, is well qualified to win by persuasive measure any favor she may covet, "So I would say to the farmer's daughters, stick to the farm, keep up some profession that can be practiced on the farm, whether it be dairying or poultry- raising, don't for a single moment let the tempter have posses sion of you, but think of your health, and of those little gold mines on the farm and remember that with health comes happiness and with happiness wealth." HAS BUILT A PALACE FOR DOGS. A $5,000 building for dogs has been completed at Mrs. P. A. . Valentine's summer home, at Lake Oeonomowoc, Wis. It Is almost a palace, but not withstanding this, Its comforts will be shared by the plebeian watch dogs of the place, as well as the high-priced purps that have won blue ribbons at bench Bhows. The temperature of tho MRS. P. A. VALENTINE. building will be kept at 70 degrees, and there are splendid facilities for bathing and cooking for Mrs. Valen tine has employed a man to cook for the dogs, and he is Instructed to pre pare their food with as much care as If he were cooking for human beings. The only other dog mansion in the country Is that of E. W. Vanderbilt. nt Blltmore, but It Is not nearly so ele gant qs that of Mrs. Valentine. She wag formerly the wife of rhllip D, Armour, Jr., who died at Tasadeua, Cal., three years ago. TWO HANDSOME STOLE CAPES. Here are two chic stole capes. No. 1 shows heavy lace Iff deep cream with white, with a turnover collar to match. No. 2 displays a stole cape of heavy white linen trimmed with a narrow band of fadeless black canvas and openwork stitch done In black. White pearl buttons complete the trimming. There is a bishop turnover collar to match. When a woman you never saw has her bHck turned toward you, in nine teen times in twenty, when she turns around, she Is a disappointment It Is easier to judge some men by their coats than by their promissory aoteik HOW VEHICLES OBTAINED THEIR NAME OFTEN CALLED FOR THEIR ORIGINATORS- JL Jl EN who in these days "hire a back" never stop to Inquire how the ly I vehicle they engage to wheel them to thir homes or to a depot got I 1 its name. It suffices to know that everybody else calls it a hack, and 1 1 to them it is simply that and nothing more. The original hacks were termed hackney coaches because they were drawn by "hackneys," a name ap plied to easy-going, safe-pacing horses. Coach is derived from the French coche, a diminutive form of the Latin conchula, ft shell, in which shape the body of such conveyances was original ly fashioned. Seldom, If ever, is the full term, "omnibus," applied to those heavy, lumbering vehicles found in so many largo cities. With the character istic brevity of English-speaking ruees the title has been changed to "bus." These were first seen In Tarls in 1827, and the original name of omnibus Is derived from the fact that It first appeared on the sides of each conveyance, being nothing more than the Latin word signifying "for all." Cab is an abbreviation of the Italian word cabrlola, which was changed to cabriolet In French. Both words have a common derivative cabriole sig nifying a goat's leap. The exact reason for giving it this strange appelation Is unknown, unless because of the lightness and springiness of the vehicle in its original form. In some instances the names of special forms of carriages are derived from the titles of the persons who Introduced them. The brougham was first used by the famous Lord Brougham, and William IV., who was original ly the Duke of Clarence, gave the latter name to his favorite conveyance. The popular hansom derives Its name from Its introducer, Mr. Hansen; and the tilbury, at one time a very fashionable two-wheeled vehicle, was called from a sporting gentleman of the snme name. Landau, a city in Germany, was the locality in which was first made the style of vehicle bearing that name. Sulky, as 'applied to a wheeled conveyance, had its origin In the fact that when it first appeared the person who saw It considered that none but a sulky, selfish person would ride in such an affair, which afforded accommo dation to but one individual. The strange title was never changed. Coupe Is French in origin, being derived from the verb couper (coopay), to cut. This was considered an appropriate designation because It greatly resembled a conch with the front part cut off. The old-fashioned gig was given that nnme from its peculiar jumping and rocking motion, the word being from the French gigue, signifying jig, or a lively dance. COULD WE SUBSIST ON ENGLISH SPARROWS FOR ANY LENGTH OF N his usual habit the English sparrow, as we call him, or house sparrow, as we ought to call him, elects to stay close to human habitations. Yet the fact that he has spread over almost the whole country seems to proye that he migrates, for how otherwise could be have extended his field from this town, where he was introduced by Col. Proctor back in the 60s, to California, Canada and Florida? A hunter who was traveling through the Maine woods last summer came upon a lonely house In the middle of the great wilderness that still covers the northern half of the state. It was sixty miles to the nearest settlement, and that was not much of a settlement, either. Yet the first sound heard as he approached the place was the rasping chirp of a house sparrow. Now this little divvie, as we commonly regard him, must have crossed sixty miles of dense forest, and In all that distance he did not see one of the human beings of whose society he appears so fond. The hunter shot him on general principles. This instance is not singular. There are' in various parts of the country Isolated hamlets, unconnected with the rest of the world by railroads, nor even with good roads. They are seldom visited; they do not advertise their presence by the smoke of industries; yet the sparrows find them out, and as you enter you hear the racket of hundreds of these little gray backs. They stay after they have come In too, and you hear less of the robins and orioles afterward. Yet, after all, we probably do an Injustice to this bird. If we hear less of the song birds It is because the women wear them on their hats, and thereby persuade the gunners to destroy them. In some districts they have been wholly exterminated; in others they have been made shy and hasten away from the sight of men. The sparrow, on the contrary, is fearless; he has not been hunted for what a government official calls the "foliage," and he nests and roosts under our window ledges and over our doors. Probably we may as well resign ourselves to him, and, after all, ho is better than no birds at all. There is scarcely any meat at all on them, yet we hear of house spar rows served in Manhattan restaurants as quail, reed birds, almost any other thing that you like to call for. If this country should ever suffer from a famine as It never will so long as we keep out schools open, for famines occur only where there is dirt, Ignorance, laziness, Intemperance and all that goes with illiteracy and a degraded condition of the populace wo shall have sparrows enough to eat for several weeks. Brooklyn Eagle. JillAJilllAAlAAAl---TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTl I GOOD SboftQtofleJ;; TTTTT TTTTTtT- The late Augustus Hare was fond of relating an amusing incident which Il lustrated the absent-mindedness of his cousin, Dean Stanley, and Dr. Jowett. Both were quite devoid of either taste or smell, and for gome reason both were inordinately fond of tea. One morning they had each drunk eight cups, when suddenly, as Jowett rose from his table, he exclaimed: "Good gracious! I forgot to put the tea In!" Neither had noticed the omission as they sipped their favorite beverage. That the people of South Carolina had little regard for Theodore Parker, the anti-slavery leader, Is evident from the experience a Boston merchant once had In Charleston. According to J. H. Trowbridge, In the Atlantic Monthly, an excited crowd gathering around the hotel register where he had written bis name, observed him with suspi cious whisperings. Thereupon the ex cited landlord stepped up to him and said, anxiously: "Your name Is Parker?" "That Is my name, sir." "Theodore Parker, of Boston, the aboli tionist?" "Oh, no, no, sir! I am The odore D. Tarker, a very different man!" The landlord heaved a sigh of relief. "I am glad to hear It!" he said; "and allow me to give you a bit of wholesome advice. When you are reg istering your name In Southern hotels, write the D very plain!" Representative Julius Kahn, gays that Joseph Jefferson, the veteran actor, once struck a progressive West ern town, where he was to give a two nights' performance of "Rip Van Win kle." "After the performance on the first night," he relates, "we went back to our hotel, and there we found wait lug for our arrival the most prominent merchant of the town, a wholesale manufacturer of bedsprlngs. After a few preliminary expressions of his ap proval of the performance, the mer chant declared that he was prepared to furnish bedsprlngs to Jefferson's entire family free of charge, provided the actor would make one little change In the lines of his role. His proposition for the change was extremely simple. All he asked was that after the line TIME IN CASE OF FAMINE? where Rip exclaims: 'Oh, how my bones do ache,' Jefferson should add: 'But, ah, not thus would they have ached had I slept on B's bedsprlngs.' 'It was only a little, change, and the merchant was surprised and indignant when his proposition was rejected." P. T. Barnum and his wife were very fond of the gifted sisters, Alice and Phoebe Cary, who often visited them at Bridgeport. To a friend the famous showman once remarked: . "Alice was the more thoughtful, while Phoebe was always bubbling over with good spir its and wit. I never knew a brighter woman. One day I was taking her and some friends through my museum. At the head of the stairs was the cage containing 'The Happy Family,' which Included owls, cats, mice, serpents and other creatures generally mortal ene mies, but all living In perfect harmony, mainly because we kept them so stuffed with food that they had no temptation to prey upon one another. The cage stood directly at the head of the stairs, and Just as we reached the top a big serpent stretched Its head toward Phoebe. Forgetting the glass thickness that separated them, she was so startled that she uttered a scream, and would have fallen backward down the steps had I not caught her. Look ing up to me she said: 'Thank you. Mr. Barnum; but remember that I am not the first woman that the serpent has caused to fall." No Sympathy. "Charlie, dear," said young Mrs. Tor kins, "you know I never blame you for anything that is not your own fault." "But when the horse you bet on loses that isn't your fault, is It?" "Charlie, dear, the winner was Just as easy a horse to bet on as any other, wasn't it?" "Why er yes." "No one forced you to bet on some other horse." "No." "Then I can't see that you deserve any sympathy -whatever." Washing ton Star Onions. The onion contains one of the most powerful medical agents known. This Is an oil, the sulphide of allyL It Is this oil that causes the eyes to fill with water as you cut the onion. When the onion is cooked, the greater part of this allyl Is lost, but other compounds containing snlnhur remain.