El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1898-05-17
THE WAR DREAMS.

thought of peace. The shore is dusty
smelly bit of sandy coral, and the
| houses in this town are built like
snare-drums: they are dismal thor
oughly, and the sun makes men sweat
and wish to God they were somewhere
else.
But the men in the blue uniforms
are young, and Madame Besulieu.
who keeps the restaurant, strives to
| please, so it came to pass that [ attend
ed one of these happy-go-lucky ban
quets. The others were artillery Off
GERS, men from off the ships. with a
little sprinkle of cavalry and infantry
just for salt. They were brothers, and
yellow ack-hellish heat-bullets, and
the possibility of getting mixed up in
a mass of exploding iron had been dis
| counted long back, in their schOolbOy
days perhaps. Yet they are not with
out sentiment. and are not even callOus
to all these, as will be seen, though
men are different and do not think
alike-less, even, when they dream:
| "Do you know, [ had dream last
night" said a naval officer.
$50 did II
$50 did L." was chorused by the
well, wellp' said. "Tell your
dreams. Mr.. H., begin"
'Ob, it was nothing much. L:
Dire AIMED that was rich and old, and
had soft stomach, and 1 very much
sort of feeling, this very old and rich
business, since L am neither, nor even
| now do want to die, which part was
| true in my dream.
| Il thought WAS standing on the
bluffs overlooking the Nile. l
saw people skating, when
sue denly mum bers of Appropriateness
- great masses of them broke up
through the ice and began swallowing
the people. This was awfully real 20
me. l even saw Mac there go down
one big throat as easily as a cocktail.
Then they came at ne in q solid wall.
was crazed with fear-I fled. l could
not run: but coming sud- euly on pile
of old railroad iron, l quickly made q
bicycle out of two car wheels, and
flew. young hippo more agile than
the rest made himself bike also. aud
we scorched on over the desert. My
| accommodation l woke up. Begad,
this waiting and waiting in this feat is
surely doing things to mel"
| The audience laughed, guyed, and
| said let's have some more dreams, and
other things. This dream followed
the other things, and he who told it
was an artilleryman:
| "Mv instincts got tangled up with
one of those Key West shrimp salads,
| | reckon; but war has no terrOrs for a
man who has been Though my last
| midnight battle. I dreamed 1 was
supe rintending two big Pinch guns
VIII CHI. we're firing on an enemy's fleet.
do not know where this was. We
got out of shot. but we seemed to have
plenty of powder. The feet kept
coming on, and | had to do something,
so l put an old superannuated SER
ge mt iu the gun. He pleaded, but I
said he was old, the case was urgent, it
did not matter how one died for his
country, etc.-so we put the dear Id
sergeant in the gun and fired him atthe
fleet. Then the battle became hot l
loaded 90 diers IN the guns aud fred
them out TO sea, until l had no more
soldiers. Then began firing citizens. l
ran out of citizens. But there were
Congressman ar, und somewhere there
in my dreams, aud though they made
spec hes of protest to me under the
flve-minute rule, L promptly loaded
the IN in, and touched them off in their
turn. The fleet was pretty handbook
ing by thi, time, bus still in the ring.
4 could see the foreign sailors
picking pieces of Congress
men from around the breech-
blocks, and the officers were brushing
| was about to give up, when | thought
OF the Key West shrimp salad. One
walked conveniently up to me, and l
loaded her in. With last convul>ive
yank 1 pulled the lock-string, and the
deet was gone with my dream"
How do cavslrymen dream, Mr.. B
p" was asked of yellow-leg.
''Oh, our dreams are all strictly pro-
fessional, too. l was out with my troop,
a la H. l., fnA aoGks
enormous horse. He was very red
faced, and crazy with rage at US. He
yelled like one OF those cir en-whis' les
out there in the fl ct.
HE said we were towards and woulr
not fight So he had q stout pickle
fence made, about six feet high, aud
then, forming US in line, he said no
cavalry was any good which could be
stopped, by any obstacle. Mind you,
be yelled it at us like the siren. He
said the Spaniards would not pay any
attention to such towards. Then he
gave the order to charge, and we flew
into the fence. We rode at the fence
pell- mell-into it dashed our horses
while we sabred and shouted. Behind
US now came the big colonel-very big
be was now, with great red wings
saying, above all the din, You snall
never come back" and | was sque. zed
fence until 1 swoke; aud now l have
changed my cocktail to a plain YER
mouth
When appealed to: the infsntry Of
ticer tapped the table with his knife
thoughtfully: My dream was not so
tragic: It was moral strain: but suf-
fered greatly while it lasts d. Some
how L was in command Of company
of raw recruits. and was in some
trenches which we were constructing
under fire. My recruits were not like
sOldiers-they were not young men.
They were past middle age, mostly fat,
and many had VIII tie side whiskers af-
ter the fashion of the funny Papers
whe they draw ban ker tyres. l had
a man shot, and the recruits all got
around me: they were pleading and
crying to be allowed to go home.
Now l never had anything in the
world but my pay, and am pretty we'll
satisfied as men go in the world, but L
suppose he American does not breathe
who is averse to possessing great
wealth himself; so when one man said
he would give me 81 900, 900 in gold is
| would let him go, I stopped to Ghiuk.