Custer County Republican. (Broken Bow, Neb.) 1882-1921, 1903-06-25
OLD,
FAvORITES


well,
Brief is the glory that hero earns,
Briefer is the story of poor John Burns;
He was the fellow who won .renown-
The only man who didn't back down
When the rebels rode through his native
town;
But held his own in the fight next day,
When all his townsfolk ran away.
That was in July, siXty-three,
The very day that General Lee,
Flower of Southern chivalry,
Bafiied and beaten, backward reeled
From a stubborn Meade and a barren
field.
| might tell you how, but the day before,
John Burns stood at his cottage door,
Looking down the village street,
Where. in the shade of his peaceful vine,
He heard the low of his gathered kline,
And felt their breath with incense sweet;
Or l might say, when the sunset burned
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk, that fell in q babbling food
Into the milk pail, red as blood,
Or how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing among the trees,
But all such fancifuI thoughts as these
Were strange to g practical man like
Burns,
Who minded only his own concerns,
Troubled no more by fancies fine
Than one of his calm eyed, long tailed
kline
Quite old-fashioned and matteroffact,
Slow to argue but quick to act.
That was the reason, as some folks say,
lie fought SO well on that terrible day.
And it was terrible. On the right
Ragged for hours the heady fight,
Thundered the battery's double bass
Difficult music for men to face;
While on the left--where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves
That all that day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the rebels kept
Round-shot plowed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there
Tossed their splinters in the air;
The very trees were stripped and bare;
The barns that once held yellow grain
Were heaped with harvest of the slain;
The cattle beloved on the plain
The turkeys screamed with might and
main,
And brooding barn-fowl left their rest
With strange shells bursting in each nest
Just where the tide of battle turns,
Erect and lonely stood old John Burns.
How do you think the man was dressed?
He wore an ancient long buff vest,
Yellow as saffron-but his best;
And, buttoued over his manly breast,
Was a bright-blue coat, with a rolling
collar,
And large gilt buttons-size of a dollar
With tails that the countryfolk called
'swaller."
IJa yuora a broad hrir o6 ad
hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.
Never had such sight been seen
For forty years on the village green,
Since old John Burns was a country
beau,
And went to the cuttings" long ago.
Close at his elbows all that day
Veterans of the Peninsula,
Sunburnt and bearded, charged away;
And striplings, downy of lip and chin
Clerks that the Home Guard mustered
wore,
Then at the rifle his right hand bore;
And hailed him, from out their youthful
lore,
With scraps of a slangy repertoire:
IlOW YOU, w ute llul Ut hCl
through"
your heads level" and Bully for
your
Called him Daddy; begged he'd dis.
close
The name of the tailor who made his
clothes,
And what was the value he set on those
While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff
I'll. tIn nLa1. Of
With his long brown rifle, and bell-crown
hat,
And the swallow tails they were laugh.
ing at
Twas but for a moment, for that re-
spect
| Which clothes all courage their voices
checked,
| And something the widest could under
stand
| Spake in the old mans strong right hand
And his corded throat. and the lurking
frown
| OF his eyebrows under his old bell-crown
| Until, as they gazed there crept an awe
| Through the ranks in whispers, and some
men saw
In the antique vestments and long white
hair
| Inc asst VI the NdllOu III Ddltle NHtTti
And some of the soldiers since declare
That the CLEAN of his old white hat afar
Like the crested plume of the brave Ma
varre,
That day was the orifamme of war.
So ragged the battle. You know The
rest:
How the rebels, beaten and backward
pressed,
Broke at the final charge and ran.
At which John Burns-a practical man
Shouldered his rife, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows
This is the story of old John Burns.
This is the moral the reader learns:
In fighting the battle, the question,
whether
You'll show a hat that's white, or
feather!
Bret Harte.