The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1877-06-01
OLD GILBERT.

chair Sunday night, III front OF his
room (next door to this otlice) chat
ting and laughing, and. seemingly,
in excellent health. His cO-renter
went of to church. and when he re-
turned 1T eleven, old Gilbert was
dead. His wife from her bed heard
the old man brea thing hard, went to
his relief where he sat, and found
him dying. Taken to his bed, he
soon died, with s'(iOod-by, Lizzie,'
Ito his wife, as his last words.
Old Gilbert, as we have often had
occasion to notice, was not II very
common character. He was respect
full, obliging, industrious, and had no
mean idea Of manly dignity.
HIS other claims to our notice con
sisted in his Affections, and in the
energy and success he exhibited in
having surmOunttll them. In one
eye he was blind, and he had but one
arm. The loss OF All eye gave him,
apparently, no trouble; he would
march as straight to the front and
walk as upright as an Indian, and
the blind eye seemed to twinkle and
shine in laughter almost as merrily
as the good one.
His right arm was but stub, but
it was no useless, idle stub. Gilbert
was II fiddler, aud no very mean one
either, as many lads and lassieS
about Monroe, and older toes, too,
might attest who have danced many
pleasant hours into the past to the
music of old Gilbert's fiddle. Per
haps, some One-armed soldier who,
before the war, like Burns's old
friend, could make his "elbuck jink
and diddle," but has now no supple
elbow and no music, save in his head
and heart, left, may be curious to
know how this old darkey managed
to draw his bow with only a stump
OF al arm, such as this same old
Confederate may remember Major
General Loring has. The mechanism
may, or may not have been Gilbert's
invention, but the movement Ger
tainly was his.
To his short stump of an arm old
Gilbert had rugged up a frame work
OF small iron rods, SO arranged that
the tiddle-b could be secured at
the end, the whole being adjusted so
rs to be put Oh, or removed at pleas
ure. With this simple continuance,
the bow could he made to oscillate
with all the rapidity necessary in the
fastest jig or tiercest puncheon- floor
break down ever fiddler tiddled.
Gilbert was also an expert wood
chopper, missing his kerr but seldom
and cutting cord Of wood for burn
ing in such time as enabled him at
least to make a living. But Gilbert
tired Of land and pole axe, and took
to fishing with u trOt line in the
river, in which one has need OF a
skitf and of the knowledge and skill
necessary to use it. Swimmer, or
not, the old darkey set his lines in
water forty feet deep at places and
tended them punctually in his skitf,
taking of fish and batting his
hooks, in spite Of wind and weather,
and managing his skiff, sitting amid
ships, with one arm, better than the
writer can with two. His adroitness
in this business may have passed
unobserved, save by a few, but it
is, nevertheless, NO small achieve
ment for a man with but one arm to
accomplish, successfully, that which
will puzzle most full-armed oarsmel
to do without considerable practice.
But Gilbert's fishing venture did
not prove lucrative, and, we believe,
like many others who have courted
and cajOled the fishes aud got no
bites, he reeled his lines and betook
himself to some other calling, ex-
..ctly what we do not know except
that he devoted his head to the busi-
ness of carrying clothes for his dusky
spouse, Il colOred woman who takes
in washing, and survives to wonder,
perhaps, if there was not some way
and means by which that large
basket of clothes could not have
been moved about without calling
into fho hood of har oil