The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-12-28

"'Sleen hund ed and ',teen. sir.n

when you arrested bim2"
"'Steen hundred and 'steep, SIR"
The officer gasped. He compared
the numbers himself Then be glanced
outside the stateroom door. Then he
sat in chair for awhile and fidded
with his fingers. Finally he said:
my man, you may go back to your
post. But beware, sir, bewarep
"You see," said Aggie, later, che
couldn't afford to admit that he had
been as big chump about the gun as
| had. Whenever he meets me now he
looks at me with red-like and inquirin'
eye"
The only iced water on the Vigilan-
cha was in tank in the Ulcers cabin.
Strict orders had been issued that no
enlisted man should drink thereof, I'M
was formal one and had been type
written and pasted up right beside the
tank. Aggie's dry throat thirsted for
a drink of the forbidden fluid. One
warm day when he thought the coast
clear he lodged into the cabin door,
grabbed the glass and turned the spigot.
just as the glass wes brimful the pom
derons figure of a certain staff officer
doomed up beside him. Aggie took in
the situation in flush. He made no
move to drink the water, but reached
for the toothbrush in his hatband.
Glow dare you drink that water,
sir?" demanded the lrate staff officer.
"Tm not drinking it, SIR" responded
Aggie, waving the toothbrush in salute.
you were going TO drink it, sirl"
81 beg your pardon" responded the
impassive Aggive, politely but firmly
II was not going to drink it,"
"Then, sir, what were you doing
with it2"
81 was going" said Aggie, holding
the drinking glass in one hand and the
toothbrush in the other, to brush my
teeth in it,"
Good heavens, sirl" gasped the
staff officer, his features a picture OF
horror, "that is worse than drinking
iiw
81 know it is" said Aggie, "but,"
and he pointed with his toothbrush to
the typewriter order, sit isn't against
ordersp 49,, IN
Then he stepped out on the guard,
and before the stunned staff officer
could recover his wits to protest, had
calmly brushed his teeth, replaced the
glass, and disappeared.
This was by no means Aggie's last
encounter with the same staff officer.
Aggie was born Spectator. He was
high-roller and would bet the boots
eff his feet on bobtail flush without
the culver of an eyelid. The ship was
fourteen days on the trip from Tampa
to Sitoney, and during the voyage Ag-
gle fuctuated between sffluence and
abject poverty. There were days when
he possessed practically the entire
available cash assets of the regiment.
There were other days when he put up
his jackknife as security for quarter
to get in a game. Now, the staff Cfficer
referred to was a persistent enemy and
prosecutor of every man who aspired to
accumulate wealth through the agency
of cards and dice. He instituted raid
after raid on the games, and one by one
the gamblers were thrust into the
guardhouse, there to mediate on their
sins. But Aggie was, as he put it,
"cagey," and it was not until the sew
enth day out that his capture and i'm
prisonment were achieved. Then the
staff officer folded his hands over his
plump corporation, heaved sigh of re-
lief and said
"Now I've got him. That ends the
gaming on this boat"
Alas for human hopes. On the fol-
lowing day he visited the guardhouse
to see if his victims we're properly con-
trite. Sad to relate, the first thing that
greeted the parsons eye in the guard
house was hourishing game of stud
poker, with Aggie acting as banker
and dealer. Then he gave it up.
When the Seventy-frst dashed up
San Juan hill, raggedly but bravely-a
company here and a fragment of bat
TALON there-the foremost man in his
company was Aggie. Up the hill
swept his company, over its crest and
$50 yards down the opposite incline in
support of Crimes battery. Just at a
barbed wire fence, hundred yards in
advance of the line where the Ameri-
can intrenchments were located that
night, Aggie got in line with one of the
enemy's rapid. fire guns. Five minutes
later, limping painfully over the crest
of the hill, the blood streaming from
half dozen wounds, Aggie passed his
captain.
"Hit?" asked the captain.
"They've p-p.peppered me, captainl"
he suffered with his never-failing
smile, "into regular pepper box"
That evening at the division hospital
they patched Aggie up the best they
could, rolled him blanket and left
him to lie there and gaze up at the
stars. He had limped and crawled five
miles with the blood streaming from
his wounds and he must have been
weak as sick kitten. But as the
evening wore on tremulous tenor
voice lifted itself in that place OF pain
and death and began to sing familiar
songs. The voice was weak but sweet
and it sang ON and on. And many a
poor shattered human being whose
light went out in that Cuban clearing
that night, imagined as he listened in
his delirium to the strains of "The Old
/ a. L h -