Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1891-11-27
STANDING SENTRY.
\ story of the War of 1872.

- 1AbAy VI hhN ""h VI
Inever knew how my grandfather came
to 90 as a private soldier in the war of |
1872. Grandmother thought he might |
have gone as an officer, as he was the sec
ond lieutenant of the training band when |
the call came.
once heard grandmother speak of "that |
miserable bet, - but she would tell me moth |
ing about it. | concluded my old grand |
father had been a high spirited, fiery young |
man; perhaps he had been dared by some |
body, and of course grandfather wouldn't |
take a dare from anybody brave old |
grandfather. At any rate, there he was, a |
private of Company A, Massachusetts vol |
unteers, and summoned to do sentry duty |
one bleak night in November on the north |
ern frontier near Plattsburg.
Brave as every one thought him. my |
grandfather afterward said a chill ran over
him colder than the weather when his |
name was called off for sentry at a certain
point that night. The reason was, for
two nights previous the sentinels had been
murdered at this post; no sound of gun
had reached the camp-the swift arrow
and scalping knife had done the work. A
light fall of snow had each night shroud-
ed the dead soldier and covered up all
traces of his stealthy foe
With no known enemy in sight, not yet
Injured to the chances of war, the death of
the sentries cast a gloom over the whole
detachment, and when my grandfathers
name was called his comrades looked upon
him as one probably sentenced to death.
"Don't they say the third time will break
the spell?" said my grandfather, trying to
smile, but when a comrade from his own
village shook him by the hand, saying,
"Tm sorry it falls to you, Eben,' the smile
went out, and as he grasped his old neigh
boris hand, he said: Tell them | was at
my post.
Then, graspng his gun, with sturdy
front my grandfather set out for his lonely
watch, but his last words with his old
neighbor made his thoughts turn to the
home he should. in all likelihood, never
see again.
He saw his biggest boy and namesake,
his Eben, heaping up the fireplace whose
ruddy glow lighted the tidy hearth and the
home circle gathered around it.
In the warmest corner was his old father
leaning on his cane and talking to his
Eben, and his little Sarah, whose knitting
was idle as she listened. Were they talk
ing of the war? Farther back in the room
he could catch a glimpse of the placid face
of his wife-by her knee two little figures
robed for bed Now the trundle bed comes
Out VI the SlduONS, anu ny It's Slut hlccl
the little white figures. Hank! he hears
what they say: "GOd bless father and
mother, and take care of father, way off
TO the war Amen said my grand
father, for the picture was too real for
him. Then he added to himself: "God
will take care of me till my time
comes" From that moment my grand
father said he felt stout-hearted, and sure,
somehow, that his time to die had not
come yet-if he kept his wits about him.
So my grandfather set to work to take
in the situation.
His beat extended along a rising knoll
from whose top he could look over an eX-
tent of marshy, frozen ground, bordering
river so deep that no fOotman could cross
My grandfather saw his danger would
come from the other end of his beat
which was nearer to the edges of a forest
From this forest a low growth of hazel brusl
crept out on a wedge shaped piece of land
the wide end of the wedge began where tn,
forest ended and it slanted down to tn,
river, leaving a broad, open space between
the beat and the brush. This space wa
covered with snow, on which the moor
glittered, except in one place where tn,
ground seemed broken.
The fall of snow had been light the nigh
before and it had blown off the knoll, o
which my grandfather was glad, as IN
could not be so easily seen when pacing t.
and fro; he was glad, too, the snow still
whitened the low ground so that he cOul,
see distinctly way into the hazel brush
"If it does not cloud up, or the moOl
would not go down." said my grandfather
but there was scudding shadows across tn
sky, and feeling in the air that mean
snow when the moon should go down, an,
it was now approaching the horizon.
Grandfather kept walking on, with A"
sharp eye out" and every now and the
he would sing to himself:
God is our refuge and defence
In trouble our unfang add
and then he would break off and merrill
hum yankee doodle dandy" and whe
he came to
How we made the Red Coats run
With Yankee Doodle Dandy
he would slap out the time vigorously upo
his knees for he was bitterly cold
He afterward said that ''neither religio
nor patriotism could keep man war;
that night standing sentry" the air fel
like half-frozen blanket wrapping hiI
round; then it seemed as if it grew warm
er, and he was just lifting a cup of hot CT
der that had been sizzling in pewter mu
before the fire little Eben had made, whe
he started and said, "pm going to sleep!
He looked down at himself, andhe wa