The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-08-05
Copyright, 900, by P. Y. Black.)


"Ye're the most extrorny future Of
the campaign thu old corporal said
with placid admiration. 81 loves daisies,
an ye're one Of the prettiest speshmens
/ know, so We are. You ought to be
dead by all rights. Both legs gone. Man,
ye're in great luck. Ye're worth $72 a
month forevermore. But what tickles
me is We didn't die, an l bet on yer
dyin.' Yere tough, my joker. Ye ought to
have died. Ye're the most extrorny
future of the campaign
The corporal and the recruit were sit
ting by the bedside of wounded soldier
in camp near Santiago. The man on the
cot was deathly pale from loss Of blood,
but the immense vitality which had en-
abled him to survive the loss, by she'll,
Of both legs above the knee, now per-
mitted him to be cheerful and hopeful.
''Seventy-two a month pension will be
a picnic" said he, with a laugh. WON
der if they'll give me fake legs like that
one Amos Chapman rode about with at
Fort Supply in the nation. Gee! Corp,
wait till 1 hobble down to the parade an
see you fellers sweating at the double
time with old Daddy Weiss hollerin' at
you: Mind the distance, you there!
Sergeant, see that that man has an
hours extra drill! Keep your hands up!
You're like lot of sailormen!' An l will
sit by an laugh at you Wow, won't I
Taught"
The corporal grinned, but the recruit
looked piteous and sorrowful.
"Would-wouldn't you rather have
your legs?' he asked wonderingly.
20, l dunno" the crippled soldier re-
piled. II never had no trade nor eddi-
cation. S'posin' I'd kept my legs, I'd
never ave been nothin' but big buck
private anyway, and died or been shot
in line of duty Now I'm fixed for life
an I'll get around, never fret"
Its so,' said the corporal reflective
ly "An' not bein responsible charakter
We might have been bobtailed and gone
on the bum, having as you say no trade
an too old to larn. Ye're in luck. But
/ bet ye'd die. BY rights, because the
doctor said 1t, We ought to have died"
1.-The worst of it," said the GONZALES
cent, lis the pain in my toes
"Your toes?" cried the recruit.
"They always feels it," said the cor
roral more or less. 1t depends on
how they buried your legs. I'll look
yours up, and have them buried right,
There was old Mahoney, who went rail-
reading and got smashed up by an en-
CINE, with his leg cut off. He suffered
terrible from his toes, an his son had
the buryin' of the leg. It's buried prop
er, dad, says he, but the old man
doubted It and got a friend to look it up.
Sure enough, the boy had just put it in
the ground, and the earth was pressing
hard and heavy down on 1t. Mahoney's
friend put 1t in box where 1t had room
an the pain left Mahoney. I knew,
says he, the boy hadn't buried it prop
er: it hurt So /"
The recruit laughed, but the cripple
said. anxiously:
Look mine up, Corp, will you? I'm
thinkin mine amt put away right
'Ye're tough said the corporal, harp
ing on the subject of the soldiers vital
ity. Most fellers would have died Some
fellers is mighty hard to kill. There is
Buck Bill. He's with the 22d now.
mind when we blew taps over his grave
down on the Washita."
How" said the recruit, II thought
you said he was with the ed doughboys?"
"An' so he is. I'll tell you how it
was. See, in them days, the boys WAS
havin' hot times with the CONS inches
and the Kiowas down in the old south
western frontier. 1t was in them times
when / was enjoying myself like rookie
for fair, and all things was new to me
and | never thought but what I'd wind
up as major anyhow. Like him there.
You amt SO old as me, but you know how
it is"
The convalescent nodded grmly. He
wore two service stripes on his sleeve.
The recruit looked dreamily out of the
farther door of the hospital tent. He
was very young, and-some day there
might be war worth calling war, not
a campaign. He had hopes.
I'VE was all bucks, of course" the
corporal went on, but this Teller Bill
was called Buck Bill poor-purr-there's
a foreign word, rookie?'
Par example?" the recruit suggested
timidly.
Fright, guess. In matters Of the
United States language l don't take no
corrections from no one, but in foreign
talk, my rookie, you may know more'n
me. He was Buck Bill always. He had