Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1897-03-18

~ wv S0s4IVs ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS W ~
Event In Army Lie.
Sometimes said the old soldier,
I'VE got considerable many potatoes,
and then again we wouldn't have any
at all for weeks; very likely nothing
but hard bread and coffee and pork,
and maybe corned beef, and perhaps
beans; but whether we got them often
or seldom. potatoes were always more
or less Of luxury.
When potatoes were issued by the
commissary. when we came to draw
our rations, would of course get GER
tain quantity. proportioned to the num-
Der of men we had on duty In the COM
pany. II we had forty men the pota-
toes We got, when we came to count
them out, might number sixty. II
there were sixty potatoes for forty men
obviously some of them would have to
be cut in two, or else they would have
to be given out two to some men and
one to others, and that Is what was
done; man got two small potatoes or
one big one. For myself preferred
two small ones; but of course took
whatever was given to me, and said
nothing; but liked 1t better to get two
potatoes, SO as not TO risk everything
In one package. / have known a big
handsome potato that a man had car
ried grayely to his tent. filled with de-
lightful anticipations as he went along,
to turn out bad inside.
There was no greater test of cooks
management than the way he gave out
potatoes, and the man who could do
this to the satisfaction of everybody
was good deal OF man. 1t Is i'm
possible to give everybody exactly the
same quantity, but an effort to get as
near to this as possible, spirit Of fair
ness, was recognized instantly, and no.
body expected more. The potato he
got might not be so big by quarter as
the one he saw put on the plate of the
man ahead of him, but he said nothing;
somebody had got to have the other
potato, and it might just as like have
come to him.
But something more than fairness
was required to give out the potatoes
successfully man had got to keep
the run of what he had given out and
the number of men supplied, and have
some idea of the number of potatoes
left and the number Of men to come.
He could give himself some margin by
issuing the big potatoes first; on
pinch, along at the end, he could give
mt M thraa ar a otv OLE
of the biggest of the smalled potatoes,
instead of two. But he must know
whether there were any men who had
not come yet and whether they were
likely to turn up or not, and he must
keep the run of all these things with
out stopping to think, as he forked up
the potatoes from the camp kettle and
put them on the plates held out to him
by the men as they passed. And gen.
orally he came out just right. More
than once l have known him to put
the last potato on the last mans plate.
"But he did not always bring things
out with that nicely. have known as
many as three men on the end of the
line to be left without any potatoes.
All gone. Well, now, there was a sit
uation. No potatoes issued for month
before, and none likely to be issued for
a month again. Here they were, all
the other men in the camp eating po-
tatoes at that minute and none for
them. You can't very well describe
how they did feel; but they never said
a word Thew looked at the cook and |
the cook looked at them. 1t was
and that was all there
was to 1t. The cook had given out his
own potatoes and had none for himself;
and the three men walked down the
street, looking neither to the
right nor to the left, and to their tents;
and ate hard bread on day when all
around the camp was filled with lux
ury."-New York Sun. |