New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-07-25
AN OLD KENTUCKY TEAM.
By FRANCIS T. pvTToN.


I'll the long day at creedmoor he heard the fife
lard fortune if the Irish team may win the honor
The western t sun. red With ito heat. below IN
And leaves behind the early moon hung in thu
The grounds are all deserted the shadows deepe
And tins three ranks Of targets like deep embras
ures show.
Alone one worn attendant IN the barracks seek
His weary limbs are set with sleep before his eye
In the paleI light, pleasant dream rests on thu
In fancy now he leads the score and holds the vic
aark Have the plaudits reused him he wakes il
Hslfconssious Of strange noises that he hears o.
He rises, scarcely yet awake. and slowly opes the
door
Amassive ae tumbles ia and rings upon the floor
Hslf doubling - he back ward shrnks, he eeei
with rounded eyes,
In the dim light. a tall gsunt form-so tall, il
Long leather legeings laced with thongs come up
below the kn0e
cap of fur upon its head its resting jauutily;
Otter's hide;
Apowder.norn nigh two feet long is fitted to its
And ali about it where it stands in the pale moon
Loose joinred and stout sineved, Of grave and
score Of hunters muster and in dead silence all
Rest grizzly vita their hams up,clasped upon
Still grew they on the wakened lad his eye
among them ran,
And every where he seemed 70 count q rifle and a
Sudden they start; their ringing blast some
distant hunt ,r warns,
And from the WOODS shout Gomez back as hollow
The shadows open 40 they look; q stall wart man
stately lis stride. las well becomes his venerable
His beard CLEANS viii te; the shadows gray close
darklv on his back;
His rife trailing in his hand is long and grim and
No sound Of welcome breaks the spell until his
steps are stayed
Beneath a spreading pine. Just where the moon
light meets the shade.
Boys" said the old man, slowly, as merry
lThe frightened youngster gained new heart to
hear the kindly tOnel-
I'VE cant git down to tussle with our rifles on the
And there besn't no pesky varmints in ali the
country round;
But well show EN- some plain shOOtin-(here his
eyes sent srih gleam)-
Without any modern h1in's, by an old Kentucky
He spoke and through the waiting group hollow
And every rife leaped up to the shoulder of man.
No crouching ON tue greensward to aim bet~i1t
Each hint sent out its blaze Of sparks, in seeming
as it rose,
Then turning 10 whore stood the lad. the old man
spoke again:
Tomorrow. when ye sec the team and all tho
rifemen,
Give them our compliments, and say, when they
come here to shoot,
Yeve seen old Daniel Boone, come back to show
en- how to dot"
At this, a. at Q signal . shout went up whose
sound
Seemed like = distant echo from the Dark and
Bloody Ground.
It bounded back from wood to hill. and when it
fell away
Only the shadows of the upon the greersward
Law.
The poor lad watched in terror until the gray of
morn.
Doubling all moonlight hun ters and their freaks of
merry scOrn;
SUIT when the cheerful Etreaks of gray shot up |
along the sky,
10 ventured to the targets, which be scanned with
careful eye.
lew thrills of terror as he looked, ran inward to
his soul
Exactly in the centre each had bullet hole!
10 turned-the trees look graveIy down; the sky |
he shadows linger on the slopes that grid about |
the range;
he sun himself. half in doubt. just for a mo.
ment stops,
hen dances lightly down the Hill across the clo-
yer tops.
New York Graphic.