Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-10-10

| he would fall off the bank and drown.
Well do i remember the Rocky Noun
tain canary. His voice %squeaked horri-
| bly,. 1t needed oilins. He was affected
with that dire ailment, frog in the
throat l often wondered why he didn't
swallow a high c and choke to death.
l yearned for those bid familiar voices
of the night, last eve, and yearned my
self to sleep. 1t wasn't the first time
that a yarn of mine had put some n to
sleep.
Dreams disturbed my sleep. thought
| that l was on a soldier train en- route to
Kentucky. AT each station ladies'
| dressed in soldier buttons and brass
| cross-guns met the boys and presented
them with baskets filled with doughnut
holes and bouquets of forget-me-nits.
From such heavenly illusions my sens
| es pulled back to the stern realities OF
life. My bed fellow was slowly pouring
a quart of snore and sob into my up
turned ear. At last he filled it and
arose regretfully and meandered out on
| the parade ground to empty it.
While there, l gazed with rapture and
tear-dimmed eyes on the starry vault OF
the zenith. Heaven-born thoughts were
| borne to my mind on the wings of the
night breezes. They percolated through
my No. 6 hat and stirred the inmost re-
cesses of my soul. I thought of several
of the beautiful things written by By
ron. Milton, Shakespeare and Company
Poet Kearney.
The white, fieecy clouds, which fitted
across the azure sky seemed to me great
| armadas sailing in an ocean of blue.
The winds which kissed the scared a
of Mother Earth and soughed In the
~cornf1eld were grooming a sad lullaby to
the sleeping day. The scrubby pines
dotting the hillsides were waving at
tenuated arms and casting grotesque
shadows on the close-cropped green
sward. They resembled bogie men
dancing a minuet. The stars cast a mel
low radiance over the enhancing scene.
They were more ~resplendent than usual,
for they had been freshly secured with
| FraZzifoam. I knew it to be a fact. be-
| cause l read it in a magazine adver-
| tisement. Many other thoughts, which
the divine afTiatus wouldn't work on and
| mold into shape were seething in my ar
| dent soul like fizz in a glass of soda wa
ter.
My reverie was broken by the appear
ance of a soldier conrade. He was a
self made man and had gained wealth
in a single night. His costume was the
| most striking thing about him. I ex-
! pected that it would strike me for two
bits. but it didn't. He wore a hat on
| one ear, a wen on his neck and a pair of
| suspenders. Everything but these few
i%ncidentals and his feet had been soaked
for Kentucky bourbon. Yet he seemed
I among men. Not a hand-me-down, or
5-cent counter king, but a king which
had stood nea the head of a royal flush
| and won a jack pot full of happiness. /
/ iCIllGlllDCl LID lC bChCu lHO ~ u
something" If there is anything that
! will fill the average soldiers heart with
| rage and cause him to leave a mellow
moonlight, it is a mellow comrade. l
left him bathing in the golden sheen and
returned to my tent.
Sleep, accompanied by more dreams,
visited me. / dreamed that my coun-
try's call was stronger than the breath
of a Kentucky colonel and hat I was an
enlisted man in the army and was hap
Ply, for 1 had left my appetite at home.
l thought that there We're other people
in the world just as important as army
officers and Pullman car porters. l saw
hundreds about me dying of yellow, ty-
| phoid and malarial fever, but felt no
fear because some n told me that fe-
Yer is not a bone disease. In another
Kaleidoscope brain picture, Yavapai
| Mag, the bear mascot, was helping
Lieutenant C%ruikshank teach the Las
Cruces company to keep step and pre-
serve the interval. / also dreamed that
the volunteer army was being retained
in the service for the purpose Of teach
ing Spain an object lesson, and /
thought that it was serving as an OBJ
ject lesson to the volunteers.
I awoke to find my socks tied to the
tent pole and filed with burdock burs.
Unquestionably, the night experiences
in a new army camp are fraught with
tender and exciting phases.
TRUTHFUL JAMES.