The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-06-12
Local observations saturday.
ORIGIN OF "YANKEE DooDLE.v
The Air Universally Known in One
of the Basque Provinces of Spain.

New York Sun
You know Yankee Doodle isn't Yankee
air at ALL said the Confederate major.
lighting his corncob pipe and leaning Back
in his easy chair near the club window.
WHAT exclaimed his boon companion,
the son Of a federal colonel.
4" Yankee Doodle doesn't any more belong
to you Yankees than it does to the South
erners. When my. father was compare
lively young man he visited San Sebastian,
and met Senior Queheille. an aged Biscayan
gentleman, who was United States vice con-
SUI there, and Senior Queheille proved to
him that Yankee Doodle was a Biscayan
air. Ny father told him about a difficulty
which he and some friends had just had
Basques had surrounded them and shouted,
Kill themy, Senior 'Queheille Said to him:
Why didn't you whistle your national
air? 1t would have saved you
.r, - Our national air. my father exclaimed
Had you but whistled it, I repeat said
the old gentleman, the angry BasqueS
might have taken YOU to be, what they mod,
the Basques. for purity, of race, and purity
of language, and. indeed, originality of mu-
sic; for the air is SO old they believe our
here with him, along with our tongue.
Many man. you know, has been saved by
knowing the secret signs the Freemasons
use. My sons, it would have been worth
the trial
g But surely; sir, you jest answered my
v.
on my word. no. answered the vice
consul. 1t is most certainly an old Guipuz-
coan air. I have known it from my child
ago, when I first heard It in Boston, and
asked a gentleman what it was. Why, our
national air. he replied in g, disguised
told me that you had got it from the Brit
ish at Bunker Hill. | told him that might
be. but that originally it must have come
but l can prove the fact to you. Tomorrow
Is one of the days those gentry outside let
their women come in with .vegeta bles Come
you shall be convinced.
You may be sure my father was on time
Ten next his pipeg o3 proceedns To the
plaza with the old Spanish gentleman, they
found it thronged with market women from
far and near. A middle-aged woman who
had sold her supply of vegetables was get
ting ready to start for home. Senior Que
heille accosted her in Basque and learned
that she was from Tolosa, some ten or
twelve leagues south of San Sebastian, He
spoke to her again. She smiled and imme-
strange to my fathers ears, but the air
thrilled in his ears and made him take off
his hat and stand with barred head. 1t was
'Therer exclaimed the consul. triumph
antly; is not that the tune you play on the
Fourth of July and when you go into bat
The very same answered my father,
" Come along; we have only begun the
proof and Senior Queheille hurried him
from point to point of the crowded square,
addressing here a woman from Vergara,
there one from Hermann; now a girl from
Trun. then another from Oyarzun, until he
had questioned the length and breadth of
Gupuzcoa. The result was invariably the
same. Most could sing words to the tune,
a few could only hum it, like the children
in our nurseries from Maine to Tampa,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, but my
Il Their had proof positive that the air of
Yankee Doodle was not only known in
that region. but universally known.