The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1899-05-25

yard at the Deweys, and the doctor hav-
ing a professional call likely to detain
him all day, George procured a half
filled powder horn, and calling his
young companions together, invited
them to unite with him in a self-ap-
pointed celebration. Having bored
hole in one of the logs and filled it
with powder, they arranged a fuse, in
serted plug, and retired to a safe dis
lance to await results.
The plug was not driven in with suffi-
cient force, however, and was blown out
without making the desired report.
Running forward with one impulse the
boys would have recharged. but George,
| waving them back, eXclaimed "One
mans life is enough at a time" and go
ing to the log was proceeding to pour
in more powder, when it exploded di-
rectIy in his face.
With eyes fast shut he made straight
for the rain tub, and plunging his head
in, shook it violently about.
When he raised it, with hair all
singed, and eyebrows and Iashes gone,
he presented a strangely altered APP
pearance, but there was not a culver on
the small, powder-burned face, as, turn
ing to his companions, he asked:
Does it show much?"
The least candid of them was obliged
to admit that it did; but George. still
sanguine of escaping detection, hoped
that after it stopped smarting, it
would look better"
When the doctor returned from his
distant call that evening, however, he
! found a patient awaiting him at home;
and in the quiet seclusion of the two or
three days following the adventure the
future admiral had leisure in which to
concoct new plans for the entertain
ment of himself and his young friends.
During the Mexican war he was an
ardent worshiper at the shrine of Gen.
Taylor, who licked the enemy every
time"
He never tired of looking at picture
of him which hung in his own room;
and when the boys, catching the mill
tary spirit which pervaded the air,
fought sham battles, he always insisted
upon personating old Zack," assign
ing the part of Santa Anna to some one
else, an appointments of characters
sometimes resulting in a mutiny.
One night one of the younger set, then
''siX-year-old," and not allowed to 90
with the big boys, recalls the fascina-
ton which his society had for him, and
the hair-erecting stories of the yellow
back variety with which he sometimes
RECALLED him. On certain memorable
evening the smaller boy. stealing away
from home at dusk, joined young
Dewey and two of his associates, and
| accompanied them up a deep ravine TO
an old-fashoned sawmill, which they
set in motion, the double object thus ac-
complished being the seeing of the old
thing shake itself to pieces and the Sc
friend, the miller's son, by the suspen-
sion of operations consequent upon
draining the pond.
The immense amount of snow which
falls in the mountains and valleys of
New England and the large deposits Of
lNt w IIiNll III III III us iiNtiS lIldNt INC
breaking up of winter in that arnorth-
ern climate period to which every boy
endowed with a spirit Of adventure
looks eagerly forward.
Two small rivers, the Winooski and
the Onion, come togther in Montpelier
in such a way as to form the letter 7,
and around this letter the town is built
| In the spring. when these streams are
swollen by the melting SHOWS, and
pieces of ice are hurried along by the
current, the boy who gets upon the
smallest cake" which will bear his
Notwithstanding often in water four or
five inches deep-and succeeds in effect
ing a landing upon the mass of pull
verified ice. interspersed with huge end
wise and cross-wise blocks which
lodges six miles below, becomes the
hero of the hour.
On such occasions young Dewey was
in his element, leading the way in every
daring enterprise and acquiring that
hardihood and utter disregard of dam
ger of which the victory at Manila was
the glorious outcome. 1t was while
guiding his ice raft past bridges and
piers, over cross currents formed by the
influx of lesser tributaries and around
quick bends in the river that he learned
his first lessons in the science of nayi-
cation.
"What man has done man can do"
was the motto which formed the pro-
pelling power of his young life, carry
ing through every boyish undertaking.
Who knows but that it may have in
spired his later achievements as we'll?
OF his experience at the Washington
county grammar school in Montpelier.
the first educational institution which
he attended, much has already been
written. Its pupils, taught by first one
teacher and then another, had acquired
the reputation of being rather difficult
subjects, and Dewey is said to have
taken an active part in the initiatory
hazing to which each new principal was
subjected and to have been the ring
leader in the reyolts which marked the
remainder of his connection with the
school.
When Hon. Zebina X. Pangborn, eX
notn7, Of dorsey civ and now tbp