The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1907-11-14
(CopyrIght, bY Joseph B. Bowles.l }

(CopyriSht, by Joseph Is. BoWleS.)
CMrs. Schuyler Crowninsheld. wife OF
Rear Admiral Crowninshield, by reason
Of her talents. is quite as well kpHyr. to
Che public as - the distinguish =
officer whose name she bears. Following
the success of her earlier books Mrs.
Crowninsheld has won still wider recog-
milton in the literary field by her The
Archbishop and the Lady" and its at
tractive sequel, ''Valencias Garden.O
When you said, Sir, you'd like to
have me spin ye yarn | really
couldn't believe my ears. That any
one should want to hear the maun-
derings Of an old salt like me would
never have entered into my calcula-
tions.
You asked ne what heroic deeds
I'd done, and if | couldn't tell you
some of EN-, an I've been layin'
awake nights since that and ponderin'
and ruminatin' in the daytime as |
smoked my pipe, and wonderin' what
| could tell you, but Lord bless your
soul! never did heroic decd in
my whole life! AS | was tryin to
that l would like to please you, it
suddenly came to my mind that |
could tell you of a heroic deed of
somebody else's, and that would be
much better worth hearin' about than
anythin' l ever done. And if you'll
listen, sir, guess when | get through
you'll say that nothin' that l could
tell would prove more for mans dash,
courage or love of adventure.
The man l speak of was Lieut.. Will
liam Cushing. God forgive me for
calling him just a man. A gentle
man. every inch Of him! An officer,
every inch of him! And a daredevil,
flesh, blood, mind, heart and soul!
Now. happened to be shipmates with
Lieut. Cushing when he commanded
the Monticello in 1864. Shipmates? ?
You think he wouldn't like me saying
so? Bless your soul! An officer and
q gentleman's never too high and
mighty to speak to an old sailor who's
weathered danger with him, nor to
call him old shipmate' when he meets
AT sea it's a different matter; dis
eipline must be maintained, and I'd
know better than even to hint that an
officer should treat me familiarly,
while we were actin in our relative
positions of officer and man. Why,
met the lieutenant after the last
fight we was in together and he
matted me on the back as friendly as
YOU please, and he handed me the
loan / asked of him, just as if he
owed it to me, though, God forgive
me, the debt was on the other side of
the pair of us.
well, sir, to get down to my story,
Lieut.. Gushing was commanding the
Monticello in February, ga, and, of
course, he was her cap'n. l won't go
into the hackneyed talk of how we all
loved him Do you know how old he
was? Just "a. as I'm Twin sinner.
For some time we hadn't found
anything to do, and the days had hung
rather heavy on our hands. We was
always loohlns ou1 Iol SoneCnln 10
turn up, but though we were under
way and at anchor, going in close
and drawing off again, lodging around
Frying Pan shoals and steaming up
and down off Fort Fisher and New
inlet, those wretched blockade run
ners would douse the glim and slip
by us in the night, over and over.
The Monticello was not a very big
boat, but she was plucky, and her
commander was match for her One
day I noticed there seemed to be
something going on. Preparations
saemed 10 be making for landing
carty.