The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-09-26
THE LITTLE FLOUR BARREL"


with the shovels and the picks called
him the ''Iittle flour BARREL" When the
poor man, who had struggled to keep
his family fed and clothed, had been
placed away in the dark earth where he
had so long toiled, nothing but black
despair faced the little group which had
been plundered of its only help.
The ''little -four barrel came TO the
rescue. He had the energy, small as he
was, to do, and the heart TO see a duty
which no one expected of him.
Weak, young, dminutive, but giant in
courage and honor. the little fellow took
his tin dinner-pail and left his home
now bereft of its only supporter. He
trudged along TO the smutty, discolored
shaft. He stepped on the rickety cage
and went down into the sunless bowels
of the earth And with little lamp
hooked to his cap he worked alone in
the dark and the silent gloom. And the
great sinewy miners came to love him
| for his pluck, and to run to his assist
ance when the task was too heavy. The
little -four barrel became the pet of
the neighborhood, and the hero of the
county. There was not, in all the coun-
try about, man who did not quote him
to his children as an example of true
nobility; nor a bully who would not
speakgently and tenderly of him and to
him.
lie "little flour barrel was S-years-
old when he first went down into the
great, black, dangerous hole, knowing
that there his father had been crushed 10
death, but with heart that was steeled
against fear and peril by an overwhelm-
ing, overmastering sense of duty to his
helpless family. Eleven years he toiled
on, deep in the earth, coming up at
night begrimmed and jaded, but, with
unrelenting ambition, working still, for,
far into the night by poor light, the
''little flour barrel while his stronger
companions slept, bent over a worn
spelling book and dog-eared arithmetic
and McGutfey's reader that was ter
rible ruin. And the other miners knew
of the ambitions of the boy; they knew
that he was bringing his mind up and
polishing it, and they all predicted great
things at last for ''the little -four barrel. "
One day the boy, now grown TO
young man of nineteen, went down int O
the mine for the last time. When he
came out with the black dust in his ears,
and coated on his face, and hanging in
his eyebrows he threw his shovel and
his pick down forever. HIS long study
of the books had not been in vain. lie
no longer doubted himself. He was
fairly well educated. What he knew he
knew thorouhgly, for he had learned it
by himself. He entered the Lockhaven
Normal school with high honors. Four
years later he quilted it with high
honors, graduating in $780, 1t had been
hard task. The 'little flour barrel"
had no money. He paid his way through
the Normal by teaching classes in the
lower grades.
The 'little flour barrer' now became
"Some pumpkins among his fellows.
He became a school teacher. The mus
cular miners with whom he had worked
were proud to send their children to tho
''little flour barrel 20 teach. He had
become scholar.
He was known as the ''little flour
barrel" no longer. 1t was now John
Davis. And John Davis was not salts
fed with teaching school, either. He
had the courage to leave the drudgerv
of the mine for the broader field of the
school. He had the courage to leave the
school for the more remunerative field of
law. He began reading law in the office
of w. A. MARI in Ashland, Pennsylvania.
In 1888 he was admitted to the bar. He
practiced law in Pottsville for two years.
One day in 1885 the people who lived
near the mouth of the old shaft hear d
once again from the ''little flour barrel"
The news came, and it created great re-
joicing, that the ''little -four barrel had
been admitted to practice before the
supreme court.
But later the community was still
further surprised to learn that he was
not yet satisfied, but was still rea ching
out. In 1885 they heard that he ha
moved to Kansas and had married.
The Republicans in Sedgwick county
this year have for their candidate for
county attorney the "'.ltle flour barrel
Is he the man fcr the place? Is the
manhood of so noble boyhood TO be
distrusted or to be pushed aside by the
people with either intention or indiffer-
ence: Is the bone and the sinew of the
little flour barrel grown stronger,
more vigorous, more manly. capable of
aught but what is honest and true and
dutiful: Is the heart that was brave aud
true to a stricken family at s years capa-
bic of aught but honesty and truth at SO?
The heart of the "little -four barrel is
the heart of John Davis The men who
know him honor him for what he is.
The men who know his history honor
him for the struggles that have made
him what he is.
Does not every mans heart that has
been torn and pierced by adversely and
want in youth, so out to John Davis
when they read the story of his noble
life: Does not every man whose ambi-
ton has had path Of roses all through
life, do honor to John Davis fog the good
he has done and wish him well IN the
success he has won with such struggle:
The American people hold that man a
hero who from poverty has come up.
and with untiring, unfiaggiag, unrelent-
ing energy has battled against his condi-
ton and his adversely and his restricted
beggarly opportunities until at last he