San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-03-16


She looked after him as he stepped into
the UillGgC street.
he had been quartered last night.
Good mornin, sir" returned Mrs.
Birdsell, rushing out of her kitchen,
with a rolling pin in hand, and leaving
her pie crust fiat on its back, all dotted
with dabs of butter, as an ermine cape
is with little black tails.
She looked after him as he stepped
into the village street. Her first emotion
was feminine admiratiOn-her second.
feminine curiosity.
What a beautiful young man. she
said to her respectable self. 'Sech legs!
Sech hair-jest the color of ripe chest
nut burrs-only don't like that streak
of it on his upper lip. I've olluz under
stood from deacons that the baird of
man cum in with Adams fall and waZ
to be shaved off. Naow I'd give hui
pie to know what Gineral Washington's
sent him on here for. It's the greatest
kind of pity he didn't come a few days
before. That old granny, Gineral Put
nam, wouldn't hev let SIR Henery Gin
ton grab them forts down to the High
lands if he'd he'd sech young man as
this to look arter him and spry him up"
Before he continued his walk Major
Skerrett paused a moment for long
hearty draft of new October new
American, finer tipple than old Eng
lish October. Finer and cheaper! In
fact, it was on free tap. No cask to
bore. No spigot to turn. No pewter
pot to fill. Major Skerrett had but to
open his mouth and breathe. He in
hailed, and he had swallowed science
knows how many quarts of that mellow
golden nectar, the air of an American
October morning.
While he is indulging in this harmless
debauch, let Mrs. Birdsell's question,
What did General Washington send
him on for?" be answered.
Peter" said Washington Familiarity
to Major Skerrett, his aid-de-camp, Il
have written peremptOrily several times
to General Putnam to send me re-en-
forcements. They do not come"
The chief was evidently somewhat in
the dumps there at his camp, near Pen
nibecker's mill, on the Perkiomy creek,
twenty miles from Philadelphia, at the
end of September, seventeen hundred
and seventy-seven.
Il suppose" tie major suggested,
"that Putnam cannot get out of his
head his idle scheme for the recapture
of New York-that suicidal parade as
Aleck Hamilton calls it."
81 must have the men. Our miserable
business of the Brandywine must be
done over"
Eyes; Sir William Howe is bored
enough in Philadelphia by this time
Everybody always is there. 1t would be
only the courtesy of war to challenge
him out and then beat him away to jol-
lier quarters"
81 do not like to challenge him unless
| have couple of thousand more mer
You must take little ride, major, up
to Old Put, at Peekskill, and see that
they start"
"The soldier obeys. But he signs that
he may miss battle or an adventure.
Adventures sprout under the heels of
knights Grant like you, Peter. Peeks-
kill is not many miles away from the
spot of one of my young romances."
The noble old boy paused an instant,
sentimental with the recollection of
handsome Mary Phillipse and nineteen
years ago.
THE men will come like drawing
teeth" he resumed. "Old Put is-what
was that Latin phrase you used about
him to Lafayette the other day?'
"Tenax propositi," Skerrett replied.
"Anghce, obstinate as a mule. All
Skerrett! we poor land surveyors, tina
had to hug levels and compasses through
the woods, know little Latin and les
Greek. But there was more of you
quotation to express the valuable side o
Putnam's character"
Nee vultus instantis tyranni, Ment
quatit solida," quoted the major; AM
then translated impromptu. 'Never