Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1911-05-25
AFRICANUs, THE MORGAN.
How the Brnve Horse snved His Sol
der hoy Owner.

| II It ever happens that time In heavy
Upon your hands and you have become
| tired of the scenes around tho hugo
brickcry In which YOU 1.-Two, wlshins to
avoid tho inceasAnt rattle OF trafhc.
longing TO I'll your lungs win pure.
wholesome air, you may tHko trim al
most any hour Of the day from tho Grand
Central depot in tho hoart of tho worlds
,netronolis and In few hours find your
self winding in and around n beautiful
river, whllo on either sldo OF wide val
| 10y can be seen In tho distance tho blue
| tops of a long line OF hills; as you
continue your way UP tho valley of the
| Connecticut the scene before you be-
| comes more and more enhancing while
the valley itself becomes narrower and
| the hills closer TO the waters edge.
watching tho ever changing scene, !
| thought Of the time when the earth was
young and keeping holiday, how she
was wont to skip about. playfully HIT
| ing little hills and cosy valleys, or
wrathfully tearing deep fissures and
| gorgee, the concomitants of mountains.
and mcthnlts she delighted most TO spend
her time In that part Of the old world
| for geologlcally America is the old
world not tho now which now COM
prises the State of Vermont. leaving her
playground in such an upheaval that 1t
has become proverblal bird cannot find
an alghting place there.
| I sat and noted the sinuous course of
the railway, looking upon familiar hills,
my mind relieved from the tension Of
years iucessant labor (for ] felt that
ecstasy one always feels when return
| ing to his hoyhood home), permitted me
! to onjoy those places which | had seen
! annually for 80 many years. which the
remorseless hand of time has not dis
| turbed one iot or one TITLE. This noun
| tain country never changes. the trees,
| the rocks, the hills are identcally as
they were 50 years ago. but the faces
and the forms of 80 years ago are gone,
and the homesteads occupied by others.
] yearned to bring back the mon who
once walked those fields. who I knew
and loved in the long ago. to talk again
with them Of tho days we wandered to-
gethor up and down the hills of the
world, when the cup of gladness was
indeed running overland then in saddeT
tones to talk of the dark days and the
still darker nights we spent side by side
in tho valley of the Cumberland. ! then
remembered the terrible night Of Friday.
| third of July, at Gettysburg.
But let mo go back a little a scene is
before me and I am boy again in Il
! Vermont village going to n country
school week days and on Sunday to n
| country church, then one by one faces
! como from beyond the vale and az quick
" dsappear-faces Of those old patri-
archs who 7 even to this day associate
with all that is good and righteous, but
who are now residents of a better coun-
! try Then younger faces. Joe Lindsey,
| Asa Crandall. Frank Sweet and David
Corbin and others. shall ! ever forget
them? Tho days in the field. the daily
swim in the Ottaquechee, tho Juvenile
horse races between the store and Fast
mans and the foGging we got when it
reached our fathers ears. As q dream
were those days spent-we had hardly
grown TO be men when We heard the roar
Of the first gun at Sumter which was
heard round the world, and when Yer
mont called for volunteers we counted
IL high nonor TO go-three Of us with our
own horses-and offer ourselves for cav
! airy service.
could fill many pages telling Of the
valor of the men who made UP the ranks
of tho Green Mountain Boys. of the in
dividual heroism by her sons during that
dreadful three days-of the tender care
with which those boys looked after each
other and tho sickeninS horrors of the
battlefield, with the wounded and dy-
ing. but my purpose is to toll not Of
| the heroism of men but Of horses, ana
without which the Union forces would
have that day gone down to ignomin-
| Ions defeat