Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1896-05-29
DANDY DICK.

DANDY Dick? Why, l was with him on
his last trip and can tell you how it all
happened, - said Tom SmClter of Platts-
burg. . Know him? 1 should say l did, for
Dick ard l were sChuulmatCs as young
sters and we sold goods for the same house
for the first five years Of our travelling.
Yes, he was mighty particular as to his
dress and boosted that he was the best
groomed man on the road. NainY He was
vain-that is a fact, and he would have
been the last man to deny it himself, for
/ remember well what he said to the boys
In the vestibule at Parker's once, just be-
fore we were to go in to dinner. He was
got up to kill that day, his splendid head
of curly black hair dressed by the best art
list of scissors and pomade in Boston, his
large, shapely, white hands and fingers
manicured beyond criticism and his whole
appearance really magnificent. The boys
chaffcd him, of course, and one of them
good naturally called him Dandy Dick,
at which he famed out: Dandy Dick, eh?
Well, 1 nm u dandy, and l am glad of it,.
OF course, after that the name stuck to
him, and in less than a year half the con-
tinent knew him as Dandy Dick.
but the name was not an i'll fit, nor
did it carry when applied to him the sig
nllChDOb VI an tIlJlIClg u COlltI Il /
of description rather and a most apt one,
too, a normal and fitting expression of
him as the plume is to a soldiers hat or a
bright bouquet to an elegant vase. For
in the first place he came by his vanity
honestly, for his grandsire was a captain in
General Anthony Wayne's regiment, and
Wayne, you know, was the dandy of the
continental army and drove headlong into
battle at tho head of his ragged Irish line
as faultlcssly grOomed as a flop, and his
senior captain was of the same metal, for
he went into the fray with his linen as
snow white as the generals and came out
of it as bloody. In fact, the physical re-
semblanc9 between grandsire and grand
son was startlingly close, and looking from
tho painted figure of one to the living form
of the other a man would swear that the
hero of the eighteenth century was the
drummer of the nineteenth.
''ThCn, too, he was a great big chap,
over six feet in his stockings and hand
some featured, u wholesome sort of Il fell
low to look at. And he bore himself rs his
grandsiro did, with n straightfurwardness
of look and a bearing of stateliness beflt-
ting his size, but tempered from haughti-
ness by a most gracious suavity II "a de-
lightful self consciousness that God II
his tailor had made him well up to the
highest line of his type and he was glad of
it. But in spite of his fine dressing and
the gladness he evidently felt in it, not one
of us but knew that within that big hand
some body with it's lions strength was a
lions courage, too, and that, with his
grandsire's love of fine things, there had
como down to him on that red tide of de-
scent which dominates us all beyond what
vua think tho upunbSirp'G orit ne Nvpll
"WiJh such strong, red blood and with
such a body, and such "a sweet conceit of
himself withal, life was full to the brim to
him, even Us n cup of spiced wine whose
bouquet fills the nose of him who sips it
with a delicious tingling. He loved the
smell of the grassy fields, the odor of pine
covered hills, the warmth of the sun when
its fatherhood mates with the maternal
forces Of the world, the bright beauty of
flowers and the charming lOveliness of
girls, whose eyes grew ~lOVelier as they
gazed on him. He was an old time Greek
in the fullness of his senses to receive and
absorb what was pleasing and in his deli
cacy, too for never did one of US ever see
Il gross look in his eyes or hear a low word
from his mouth, Self c%ontentcd, happy
and gay he was, but never low minded; in
love with life and health and the sweet
%joyfulncss that belongs to these as the red
tones belong u the wine and the s~prightly
effervescence to champagne, but nothing
beyond this and nothing less fitting TO
himself as God made him,
my God! How well l remember the
crash! He had just left me and gone into
the smoker when it came, and when, after
u horrible dclay-an eternity, it seemed to
me-the axemen cut the timbers that held
- 100. e
wreck, sorely bruised, but otherwise un-
hurt, my first thought was of Dick, In a
moment l found him under "a tree somc
rods from the row of the dead and the dy-
ing, with his right leg crushed from ankle
to thigh and his left arm broken at the
elbow.
"'Oh, Dick l cried, as 1 knelt by his
side and kissed his dear face, while my
eyes Vert blinded with tears. Is it all VI
with you? Are you going, old boy?'
" i am glad you have come, old fellow,
he murmured in reply. Il knew you
would find ma if you got out alive. Yes
this is my last trip, and you can enc in
the samples
"Well, boys, that broke me all up, anC
/ went all TO pieces, and | lost all contro
of myself and sobbed as a mar sobs wheI
his heart breaks out of control as he kne6l'
by the side Of a man whom he loves will
a mans love for "A comrade, when tina
oomrado lies dying. And l swayed to anC
fro in my grief, and l cried. oh, Dick,
cannot let you go. My God, l cannot le
you go!
"And then the characteristic courag,
and, may l say, vanity of Dick, the Dicl
whom l loved, came out, and in death, a
in life, the same true self of him was re
vealed, and, strange as his reasoning was
SO unlike what would have been that o
most men placed as was he, it calmed ant
comforted me beyond telling,