Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-07-08
DANDY DICK.

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"Dandy DickP Why, was with him on
his last trip and can tell you how 1t all
happened" said Tom Smelter Of Platts-
burg. "Know him1 / should say did, for
Dick and / were schoolmates 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 b0asted that he was the best
grOomed man on the road. VainP He was
vain-that is fact, and he would have
been the last man to deny it himself, for
] remember we'll what he said to the boys
In the vestibule at Parker's once, just be-
fore we were to 60 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
chaffed him, OF course and one of them
good naturally called him Dandy Dick,
at which he famed out: Dandy Dick, Ell?
Well, am dandy, and I am glad of it,
OF course, after that the name stuck to
him, and in less than year half the con-
tinent knew him as Dandy Dick.
'sBut the name was not an Ill lit. nor
did it carry when applied to him the sig
niflcance of an epithet, but seemed a term
of description rather and d most apt one
too, o normal and fitting expression Of
him as the plume is to q 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 captain in
General Anthony Wayne's regiment, and
Wayne, you know, was the dandy of the
continental army and drove headlong into
battle at the head of his ragged Irish line
us faultlessly groomed as a fop, 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-
semblance between grandsire and grand
son was startlingly close, and looking from
the 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
"Then, too, he was a great big chap,
over six feet IN his stockings and hand
some featured, wholesome sort of fell
low to look at. And he bore himself as his
grandsire did, with ghtforwardness
of look and q bearing of stateliness befit-
ting his size, but tempered from haughti-
ness by most gracious suavity and q de-
lightful self consciousness that God and
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
come down to him on that red tide of de-
scent which dominates us all beyond what
we think the grandsire's grit as well.
"With such strong, red blood and with
such body, and such sweet conoeit of
himself withal, life was full to the brim to
him, even as q cup of spiced wine whose
bouquet fills the nose of him who sips it
with delicious tingling. He loved the
smell of the grassy fields, the odor of pine
covered hills, tho warmth of the sun when
its fatherhood mates with the maternal
forces of tho world, the bright beauty of
flowers and the charming loneliness 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
gross look in his eyes or hear low word
from his mouth. Self contented, happy
and gay he was, but never low minded; in
love with life and health and the sweet
joyfulness that belongs to these as the red
tones belong to the wine and the sprightly
effervescence to champagne, but nothing
beyond this and nothing less fitting to
himself as God made him.
my God How well remember the
crash! He had just left me and gone into
the smoker when it came, and when, after
= horrible delay-an eternity, it seemed to
me-the axemen cut the timbers that held
me down and l crawled out of tho awful
wreck, sorely bruised, but otherwise I'M
hurt, my first thought was of Dick In o
moment l found him under a tree some
rods from the row of the dead and tho dy-
ing, with his right leg crushed from ankle
to thigh and his left arm broken at the
elbow.
"Oh Dic1r cried, as I knelt by his
side and kissed his dear face, while my
eyes were blinded with tears. Is it all up
with you? Are you going, old boy?'
q Il am glad you have come, old fellow, ,
ne murmured in reply. 4 knew you
would find mo if you got out alive. Yes;
this is my last trip, and you can send in
the samples
swell, boys, that broke mo all up, and
went all to pieces, and lost all control
of myself and sobbed as a man sobs when
his heart breaks out of control as he kneels
by the side of man whom he loves with
mans love for q comrade, when that
comrade lies dying. And swayed to and
fro in my grief, and cried. oh, Dick. l
cannot let you go. My God, 1 cannot let
you go'
"And then the characteristic courage
and, may say, vanity of Dick, the Dick
whom loved, came out. and in death, as
In life, the same true self of him was re-