The morning news., 1897-08-17
LITTLE BREECHES."
The Episode on which Col. Hay
Founded His Poem.

Founded His Poem.
From Land of Sunshine, Los Angeles.
While every American has, in our am
bassador to England, that undivided In
terest of the fractional master in the pub
lie servant, there is upon our present
representative at ST. James an unusual
local lien. For it was not more Mr.. Nc
Kinley than a gentleman OF Los Angeles
who sent Col. John Hay to keep the lions
fur smooth to us-ward.
However much their graduated author
may look down upon those first achieve
ments, it is not the Life of Lincoln" but
the pike County Ballads" that have been
his making. As a historian Mr.. Hay IS
asslduous, sincere, and a recorder. AS
the troubadour of Pike he was and will
remain a classic; and 1t is better TO be
a backwoods classic than a metropolitan
mediocrlty. But for Little Breeches"
and its tremendous vogue, he would hard
ly have come into the century with Lin
coin: but for the Century he never would
have gone 10 Great Britain, short of his
own proper expense and but for an Iowan
now gracefully growing gray in Los An
geles, there would have been no Little
Breeches'-for Hays masterpieces rests
upon true story.
Ephraim H. Winans Is now a we'll
known Angeleno About the year 1863
he was an itinerant preacher in the
middle west: and in New Virginia, Ia,
witnessed the dramatic incident which
was destined to be the motif of one Of
the best dialect ballads In American lit
erature.
Several years later Mr. Winans was in
Warsaw. H., the home of Hays father.
He dined at the Hay house: and, after
ward, the family Qncluding john accom-
panied him to the Presbyterian church,
where he preached on Divine Providence;
Its Possibilities Under Natural Laws" HIS
exesesis was, briefly, that Providence may
work in answer TO prayer, or of its own
tender mercy without miracle, but wholly
In accord with rational laws-chletiy
through the spirit. And among other illus
trations, he told the story which has since
with some changes, under poetic hcense)
become the enduring Little Breeches." In
a visit this spring to Warsaw, MIR. Winans
secured the letter In which Hay acknowl-
edges the source of his inspiration.
The episode which inspired Hay was as
follows:
A dark. rainy night In April. 1868, Tor
thereabOuts; il cannot have been more
than a year from thaD, a district minste-
rial association was In session In New Vir-
ginia, Ia. The Rev. Henry B. Heacock
(now located somewhere in Northern Cal
lforna) had just stepped to the stand,
and was giving out the hymn:
Amen 50 let 1t be.
when a man, named Proudfoot, burst into
the church crying:
"A horsei for Gods sake horsew
He had driven his wagon up to the
church steps and handed out his wife and
parents but, just as he reached TO take
his little 4-year-old boy from the back OF
the wagon, the horses stampeded and were
gone In the darkness.
The meeting was broken up, and the
congregation (among them Mr.. Winans)
started out 10 follow the runaways. The
night was impenetrably black; the rain
and the Iowa mud made any thing like
tracking impossible. The searchers swept
concentric circles In the direction In which
the horses were headed; and, In that
fenceless prairie. through mire and gloom,
they foundered on.
At last. possibly half mile from town,
they came upon the runaways. one horse
was down in the head OF a gully. the other
up on the bank. the wagon, half over
turned. behind them. But the child was
not there.
Round about they searched for the pre-
SUNDAY trampled lad, but no trace was
10 be found Their ignprovised torches
were burning out. a Mr.. Reed remem-
bored an unused cabin half a mile across
the fields, and let the party thither 10
md dry material for new torches A
flock or about hity dheep had taken ref
uge in the cabin from the storm ana
their bloaung served 10 guide the search
ers But, when they az last found tho
place they could not open the door
A man WAS boosted up; crawled into
the gable. and brought out the torch.
wood when he crnwlcd out he said
81 thought ] heard a voice IN tharo."
No one believed it u must have been
some note OF the blcatng sheep but no
Insisted. Al last they forced the rcluct-
ant door. ond 10. Ia the middle OF the
flock. sitting on a box, was the lost child!
lie did not. IN real life, say!
] want chaw Of terbacker.
And that's what's the matter with me.
lie simply said Here I am. papa"
quite unabnshed boy his experience.
How had he come there VA the night
across the uncompasscd fields, 80 far from
the spilled wagon2 God knows Per-
haps he heard the voice Of the sheep in
the storm. and followed Il. And how
did he pass the door which excited men
could barely forco2 For that Mr.. Wlnaus
says
"i suppose the door may have been open
when ho came in. and that the sheep.
cr0wdluH back from where he sat- closed
a.. and that the ruin swollod Il 30 that li