Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-12-30
at once, l warrant you. FOR if bonflre's
well ennu oh real fire is not HING to iolo

at once, warrant you. FOR ii bonflre's
well enough, real fire is nothing to Joke
over, and the stoutest heart may well quail
before it. And it wernt no false alarm,
neither. AS we ran toward the house we
saw the fames breaking savage1y from the
windows of the upper floor and twisting
and licking around the roof AS the draft
blew them first one way and then another
''Eh, but what a scene that was! The
angry fire, roaring, cracking and leaping
higher every minute; the black forms Of
people running to and fro in the yard be-
meath; men shouting, women sore ming
and the cattle in the stalls believing and
blethering wi fear
"a few on us was going to turn the poor
beasties loose when we was stopped by
summat which at once turned our
thoughts away from them and made us
well nigh sick at heart VII dismay For
the runror ran like lightning throu h lie
crowd that Farmer Scrivner's wife and her
babe, as had scarce been born il week wer
still in the upper bedroom, cut off from
the t.of the house by the fire And then
we looks and sees her at the window wav-
ing her arms wildly for help and shrieking
(poor soulD like one daft VII terror
"a ladder goes the cry. "A ladder--a
ladderI But somehow there weren't no
ladder to be found upon the spot. and while
they was hunting for one, and we was
standing looking on in sort of palsy like
from helpless dislnay, a tall, dark figure
bursts through us, brushing US asi lie Ike
so many childer, and begins to climb pipe
which ran down from the shooting of the
caves.
''We knowed the figure. Not another
man in the place could have gone up nat
pipe so active and strong. But the
flames was darling riglt across it, near the
top, and we held our breath VII SUI p. use
whether parson, for all his strength and
courage, would be able to get past. But
he never hestated or shirked-no not a
second! Nay, through the belt of fire he
went. brave as lion, and grasping the sill
of the window swung himself in.
I'VE didn't boot him this time, war
rant you. But we set up such a cheering
as, they told US afterwards. was lie ,rd over
at Revelsilam yonder, ten good mile away.
F., And our cheering didn't lose nothn when
| a minute or t. later we seed him lower
| ing mother and babe VII a rope of sheets
and blankets safe into the score of arms
! stretched out below to take them.
But the flames had gained terrible now,
and all the roof wer ablaze Parson wer
him to jump and save himself and we'd
help to break his fall. and he wer just
about to, when We seed him suddenly tag
ger back-chokpd, sup, o e, by the thick
ening smoke-an,l the flames filled the
window, and the roof groaned and swayed,
then fell in wi fearsome crash. And
that n parsons end.
~ thowt that sparks from the ashes
of tbs bonfire mat lave lighted OIL tie
thatch, and so sialttii u4c fire there, for
the wind did blow tii.el way. And that
didn't make IL feel less guilty like. i5ut,
anyhow, we've none of us had no stomach,
since then, for keeping Gunpowder Day,
and reckon we shan't have, leastaways
SO long as P;srson Elves is remembered in
Z."-Iondon Truth.
Reporting the Eatt,e of Sedan.
Sedan was marked by Efforts of journal
istic enterpr e-cru,ie, it is true, hut in
dicative at least of el4rsy. 1t was the
New York Tribune which took "irst
spear" The wiel,ler OF the weapon was
Briton. Holt White, man whose abilities
should have given him better fate than
premature death in an Austrian hospital,
was with tue Germans on the day so I'M
fortunate for France. He stood by Sheri-
dan when Napoleon's letter of surrender
was handed by General Reile to old Will
helm; the napkin that had constituted
Relies fiji 3 cf truce was given him as a
souvenir. And then with dauntless cour-
| age he walked right ocross the battlefield
through the still glowing embers of the
battle, reached the frontier, made for the
nearest railway station and got to Brussels
early next morning. He could not tele-
| graph from there.
! his own Story was that when he ten
dered his message tie people at the Office
refused to transmit it, scouting him as
either a lun; tic or 'bear' bent on Gre
ating panic OIL the Stock exchange, but
! have heard t,.at he had not the cash with
him to pay fer long message. Anyhow
he came to London, getting there the day
! but one after the battle, in time for short
synopsis If his narrative to be printed in a
late edition of the Pail Mall Gazette. 1t
| appeared at length in next mornings
| Tribune.-ArchiLal Forbes in Century,
Gold Nugget Shaped Like Hand.
There have been many large and oddly
shaped gold nuggets found in the United
| States and elsewhere, but the oldest of
| them all was that discovered at the Midhas
mine on Sulky gully, near Melbourne,
| Australia, in 1887. The nugget was fiat
and almost the exact counterpart in con-
tour of a colossal human hand held open
with the exception of the thumb and fore
finger, which were closed together in
manner so as to make it appear that the
thumb was holding the finger in place. rs
greatest length was 121a inches and it's
greatest breadth inches.
1t was of the very purest gold, with but
little of foreign substances adhering
(mostly between the fingers and weighed
GIT ounces. 1t was found in the northwest
main drive of the Mldhas mine, 100 feet be-
low the surface of the earth and at spot
only fifty feet from where the famous
Lady Brassey" nugget was discovered the
year before. 1t weighed fifty one pounds
of pure gold, worth 1925 per pound.-St.
Louis Republic.
She Becomes Real Interested.
Mrs. General Custer devotes the greater
part of her time to reading in public a
paper called ION the Plains''
In the course of this paper she describes
hunt out Of a western camp or post. Mrs.
Custer is a good hunter and has often ac-
companied her husband on these expedi-
tions. She says that when reading the de-
scription she practically goes through the
whole thing. She hears the horn, the dogs,
the calls of the men, the clatter of hoofs.
She feels the motion of her horse, sees the
stretch of prairie and is thrilled by the ex-
citement OF the chase.
AT the end she is as tired as if she had
really spent hours in the saddle, and can
scarcely bring herself back to the realities
of her surroundings.-New York Recorder.
In Westminster Abbey.
! A party of American tourists who Wis
tied London recently, while passing
through Westminster abbey, paused rev.
erently before the bust of Longfellow which
stands upon the wall in the poets corner.
One of the visitors, a young girl. with
tears in her eyes, placed rose in the folds
of drapery ACROSS the old poets breast.
They passed Oh. Presently they missed a
child who be onged to the party. On search
ing for her icy found her lingering before
the bust. She had bitten off one of her
little curls nj laid it beside the rose.
: HE is the only American here" she said
"and it wac Ill / had to give n-Youth's