The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1903-07-04
l.a.s,i
John Burns of Get.-.,,..

Eonn burns stood at his cottage door.
Looking down the village street,
mere in the shade of his peaceful vine.
nc heard the low of his gathered kline.
ana lett their breath with incense sweet.
Or might say, when the sunset burned
-; Inc OLD farm gable, he thought it turned
1he milk, that fell in a babbling flood
into the milk pail, red as blood,
W now he fancied the hum of bees
were bullets buzzing among the trees,
6ut all such fanciful thoughts as these
were strange to a practical man like
Burns,
VINO minded only his own concerns,
troubled no more by fancies fine
IMAM one of his calm-eyed, lonR-tailed
Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
lhat was the reason, as some folks saw.
ne tought SO well on that terrible day.
ana 1t was terrible. On the right
Ragged for hours the heady fight,
numbered the battery's double bass
Difficult music for men to face;
W ME on the left-where now the graves
Ondulate like the living waves
That all that day unceasing swept
UP to the pits the rebels kept
hound-shot plowed the upland glades,
sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there
Tossed their splinters in the air;
Inc 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, buttoned over his manly breast,
Was a bright-blue coat, with a rolling
collar,
With tails that the country-folk called
''swaller."
He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned
hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.
Never had such a sight been seen
For forty years on the village green,
Since old John Burns was country
beau,
And went to the "quilGngs" 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
in
Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he
wore,
Then at the rife his right hand bore;
And hailed him, from out their youthful
lore,
With scraps of a slangy repertoire:
"How are you, White HAITI" Put her
through"
"Your heads level" and Bully for
you"
Called him Daddy; begged he'd dis
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,
Stood there picking the rebels off
With his long brown rife, 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
the ranks in whispers. and some
men saw
In the antique vestments and long white
hair
The Past of the Nation in battle there;
And some of the soldiers since declare
That the CLEAN of his old white hat affair."
Like the crested plume of the brave Ma
varre,
That day was the oriflamme of war.
So ragged the battle. You know the
rest:
How the rebels, beaten and backward |
pressed,
Broke at the final charge and ran.
1t which John Burns-a practical man
,houldered his rife, unbent his brows,
md then went back to his bees and cows.
This is the story of old John Burns.
1his is the moral the reader learns:
n fighting the battle, the questions
whether
you'n show a hat that's white, 81 a
feather!
Bret Harte.