Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-04-16

| -L~- 80 uAAA - U1AVl1ll OLD yohiI1
wren laugh at her new fads and n,t;;n..
aoouI music, art, philosophy and what nnt
Ior oil book theories seem very nhs,,I ~" =.
NE, VINO ind all my knowledge of mon IN
t tee anu nonses, and to whom art mat
ters are matters of amusement and not ~
Pelne forte and dure thai people maize ny nf
mem nowadays with their STRUGGLES ~ =,
compr9hend all the various .;masfa,s y =
10 not Know whether or not Robert tool a
lea1 interest in the things that interested
dria ' Ray sumner m SIX years ago at Alexan-
vas put twenty-five and had not rot set
tied to business yet. Still, / rather tb;uII
ina WREN he rowed from the Thonsand
Island House wharf every afternoon IN in
to to a, Iee p sev Oven with her, and sat and
and Chopin and Ruskin, it was rather for
Sne sake Of the deep-set, dark eyes Of the
oIDyl IN that curious cave and the waves
OF brown hair that curled down. over her
oark forehead than for any wisdom that
nrs;t proceed from my niece Cicely's
" At the corners like the old smile of =
Cnpid's bow.
ihere was q small garrison at Sackett,s
narbor then. lido not think there is now.
and as it was Just around the corner, as
one may gos say, q the river and the lake,
were forever running down '!the bay" to
see their friends among the summer v;s-
itors. 'A'-
Among them wa a young Lieutenant of
i niaa B~lankenburg, Think, by name, q
met in Washington, and whose simple
mental purposes. He had had a campaign
against the Piutes or the Apaches, or some
other OF the red barbarians, whom white
Daroar1ans like this young. Lieutenant
chase around that uninteresting Western
country every summer As a consequence
he had as many tales a. Othello, and moth
ing suited my niece Cicely better, after
she had settled the artistic tendencies Of
the age With Robert in the afternoon at
by listening to the young Lieutenant's
stories about the death OF bis Major, the
tremendous strategy of General Crook ut
the affair Of Led Horse Canon and the real
reasons, plagiarized by artful Lieutenant
f6~ osmse,n from Captain Melnness,
Ser's command was lost at the Big Horn.
These m took place at evening, in one
corner OF the third-story veranda, while
the band crashed out waltzes on the bali
room floor beneath, and the lights Of Harris
and Titusville across the steamboat chan
mel threw crimson fire upon the dark water.
During them my sister-in-faw would
descant In my browsing ears upon the de-
ter1oratlOn OF the assemblies since the
first n she attended in the year 1855,
young Blankenburg would appropriate all
In order to keep his stream of anecdotes
strictly personal for my niece's benefit,
and Robert Martin would glover in the
dark.
Cicely never paid any attention to him
on these occasions. The Lieutenant had the
held in the evening, and in the afternoons,
as she told me at the time, she would ana
lyze his character to Robert in the DEVILS
Oven. They held long debates over the
Lieutenant's character. she said, just as If
it were q piece Of antique armor. They
assigned it sometimes to the fifteenth and
sometimes to the sixteenth century, again
putting it clear back into mid-mediavalism,
and again finding some similar specimen Of
military bric-a-brac among the Highlanders
Of Dundee's time. Despite these daily
revenges, Robert rowed Off to his yacht
breast every night in very bad humor.
Robert and some friends of his had hired a
cabin sloop to Toronto, and were making g
tour of the upper river and lower lakes.
The thing had gone on, | think. for five
mourned for the third time in thai period
the loss to the service in the death Of Gen
eral Candy in the lava beds closing for the
third time also by dilating upon that
gallant officers bravery: When the recital
was finished I saw ebuilient symptoms in
Robert. and clicked him. 1t was no use.
"It see rs 20 me-" he said in acoldly criti-
cal tone Of voice, as much as possible as the
SATURDAY. ReViep would talk il 1T had a tongue
instead of type, shat in our era we should
look for very different outward manifesto
tons of what is called bravery than in any
past era. Don't you think so, Miss Draper!!h
My sister-in-law had gone into her room,
which was just behind where We were sit
ting, and lighted the gas to look for a shawl
The light shone very clearly on Cicely's
face, and saw hey broad, white forehead
%,.or ~ ~, ~ PrDp,,, Iho r4;l MT ILL, tho
notion, as l Thought to myself, Of Roberts
breaking in upon her study Of the Lieuten-
ants character. Besides, being q clever
girl, OF course she knew that something I'M
pleasant was coming. Il think you are
talking a little over u heads" she an
self down to our plane of thought. DO you
think he can, ~Lieutenant!"
..If he can show me how bravery is any
different now from what it was a hundred
years ego he is a PRETTY, good lawyer'' 81 said d
lawyer, amt you, Mr.. Martini"
80, l mean,' Robert bluited out, that
we leave rows and rumpuses and riots to
policemen and that sort Of people nova
days. We pay taxes for them TO hght Tor
us. ldon'tla lay claim to the slightest de.
does any sensible man l know Of. II l was
foolish enough to get into q fight I hope 1
should be sensible enough to run away by
the time it got fairly started. People to-
day see that a mani body is merely a case
full of valuable and perisbable goods, and
think him worse than a fool to 60 out and
get it stove in and smashed up in any way,
and thus let it's contents be lost to the
world. Now, what l call true courage is
this: l have q little tailor at homo who
makes my clothes. He used to have a shop
on Thirteenth street. This spring he looked
the thing oven, took in all the points for
and against his grand strategy, and put
every cent he had into the rent and stock
of abig shop on Chestnut street.
"He CHANGED the savings Of a lifetime
when he signed that lease, and l was in his
shop when the lawyers clerk brought it
down, and I saw his hand tremble when he
did sign it. That was true courage"
If q Canadian bomb had come screaming
across from one Of the Martello towns in
Kingston Bay, and pumped down on the
parapet at Sackett's Harbor during guard.
mount, Lieutenant Blankenburgh would
not have been more surprised: What he
thought, however, of being classed with
policemen and subordinated in courage TO
tailors. we never knew. The last whistle
of the boat for Cape Vincent blew at that
moment, and, making hurried adleux TO
everybody but Robert, he rushed for tne
stairway, and q moment later we saw MN
leap across the space between the DOCK
and the steamer where the cang-planR hso
just been drawn in.
NV niece Cicely rose when the Lieutenant