The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-11-10
AN ANCIENT BARD.

~N"4AiSAiStNSFSll OCLl y EplC 0pOlI lll'
 Great Fire on the Long Wharf, Oc-
 tober 28, 1920.
 The presentation to Old Mortality
 Jr., of a reproduction of an old time
 Barlow knife, made by an ancient
 comrade Charles $. Shaw, Esq, from the wood of the Franklin (Beecher) Elm planted upon the day of the
 death of Benny the Wise" 1790 (the
 location designated by an ancestor of
 Lieutenant Ed. c. Beecher of the inn
 mortal Bunker Hill Feeters, and in
 whose blue veins frolic strenuously the
 vital fluid of all the Beechers from the original Colonial Planter, (Beecher,) )
 Who was himself planted during the
 winter of 1887 and 1638 upon the wooded
 bluff-present site of George and Mead- oW streets junction overlooking the apocryphal "Hiddekel," recalls to the mind of the writer the unique comico-
 tragico character, who for one quart of
 New England rum ((worth at that day
 f1fty cents per gallon) Backward turn,
 backward oh! time in thy flight to the good old Precornerite days just once more) furnished and planted the sap ling-bough" that in time became the green queen of New Haven Green. How much good quart of rum may
 do if it is only put where it will do the most good So thought "old Mog"
 (the last of the Momauguins) to whom our grandma had given pewter por~ renger of hot rum to rub on his rheu-
 mticz.
 Good outside. Heap mo good in- side. Mog no fool 1ngin. He rub where he do the most good,' so down
 he gulped it, but it was the last of
 Mog's hot rum, as our grandma did not approve of inside rubbing. Great has
 been thy power for better or for worser lOh! thou imp of New England's S birth and lineage, NTreacle Rum"
 I This weeping elm had for over one hundred years sheltered our sombrous lbut life-gushing "Old Town Lass" l who for generations has without money land without price ever ''stood treat" i ready at nudge of her wooden arm to respond with most copious gush of Laughing, sparkling water that fairly giggled with joy at its escape from the idark, dank tarn below, only to be Isgulped in the open mOouthed cavern of ldenaturalized Quadrunana (Darwin's- sires, scion), the old story of life, from | Darkness into Light from Light into Darkness" What next? Echo what next. With the jolly face of good-na- ! tured Aquarius our Old Town Pumps device might well read, Come ye, All ye, who are athirst, Come ye to the un- fbrewed, unfermented, undistilled, un- fizzed, unbo--saed Free treat" and drink hearty. For since our free to |alP' air has become rotten" (no other vile word will fill the bilD with the ex- halations of the outo-viles, let us have at least one element in it's natural state free and undefiled, if We have to bore Mother Earth to her innermost hearts core, even if we tap the water supply of our antipodal celestials, "Dood Washie" John Studs.
 If this thing goes one, one of these days the flavor of good, pure air will be as unknown as is now (to the pres ent born too late generation) the taste of pure food Do not Dominic Daggett's old boys remember how they rushed at recess for the Aqueous Nee tar that gushed all sparkling and bright in it's liquid light from the old pumps wooden nipple into their (make shift) cup-shaped hand water by the an old-time Jehovah drink. | He holdeth the waters in the hollow of His hand" Not even the overflow 1 ing "Old Oaken Bucket" all dripping with coolness, could surpass it for en- bosomed joys and pleasant memories. Drink when the matin halls another |
 glorious day,
 Drink while old Sol cheers us with it's
 golden ray,
 Drink when sweet vespers softly chlde
 the waning day,
 Drink from Dam Natures gushing
 breast throughout the livelong
 day"
 This tree must have grown with most wonderful rapidity for fifty years after its reputed New Hs zen birth, it's gracefully weeping branches spread from the Lyeeum winders of the Ex- change building to the Armory of the Iron Greys" and Daggett's school windows in the Glebe building, from hence was thrown ((soaked with the color of the ink on hand, black or blue) Curly Red headed Shel C's Hair SealI Cap, which he had used as a dye-pot for the boys upon cold mornings, would Insist upon warming their fingers in his a ip nh I,t sEz- r spirit and distraction of curls. The cap lodged on limb the rest of the winter, the targ0t of thousands of 5now-balls Hereby hangs a tale" For 1t was "git-tins hav-ins" and scores were the broken windows and most dire the denunciatory Biblical colloquies caused by that Dye1Cap, un- il the mighty climber "Cat-Stew Bath e. (hereby hangs a tale of many tails), this tantalizing source of great local rancor Then silence set- led with grimace grim from Toddy-al- ey to the classic Hill Even at that time this elm had lole in it's trunk near the ground large enough for hookey-boy to hide away rom 'old Daddy Goodwin" the dread )f us old time "hookey-coots," who ioted to Natures school, but hated the Jerry, the tree-planter's sto- nachic intelligence. would at times communicate to its comrade, the brain. ts yearnings for ardent and immediate iWeet spirit communion with his chum, John Treacle." So the brain being in like sweet accord a willin' Barkis) would start Jerry's ledal powers upon a tramn from inc