The Caldwell watchman. (Columbia, La.) 1885-1946, 1913-02-14
From Far-OH Honolulu to Sc.
attic Miss Priscilla ElIicott
Came on Cruiser Maryland.
NAVAL RED TAPE SET ASIDE
Wfsh Mrs. Phiander Knox, Wife OF
the Secretary of State, Whose
Guest She Was, She Crossed the
Ocean as the Idol of Every Man
on Board Uncle Sans Crack
Cruiser.

slender girl was silhouetted
against the vivid blue Of the Pacific
sky. Beneath her around her were
all the paraphernalia Of war. Sail
ors polishing brass on the warships
deck looked up at her adoringly. Off
GERS in blue and gold uniforms linger-
ed at her side. The gray-haired ad-
miral We'd with the callow smooth
checked lieute1ants in homage to her.
She seemed as much at home on
board the lead-coiored cruiser as she
would have been in a rose drawing
room.
A girl on warship in midocean!
Was ever ships crew so privileged
before? Mascots there have been
aplenty, and few are the cruisers that
cannot boast goat, cat or dog.
But girl! A real, live, fluffy-haired,
blue-eyed girl in a white lawn frock,
fsto go ana come Us sfiA p1eased an
over the floating fortress, to loll in
a steamer chair in the shadow of the
turrets, to use the big guns as q
perch! Those gallant sailormen look
ed on the cannon as the throne of
their princess.
1t Is true there was another wom-
an on board, but the other was differ
ent in a way-no less charming, no
less entitled to a sailors alteration,
but just a little more remote. The
other woman was Mrs. Philander
Knox, wife of the secretary Of state,
and those sailors looked upon her
with certain amount of awe; the
girl was Miss Priscilla Ellicott, the
eighteen-year-old daughter of Capt.
John Morris Ellicott commander Of
the U. S. S. Maryland, and there was
not a man on that ship who would
not have gone overheard in full uni
form to pick up her glove.
True Daughter of the Navy.
For Miss Priscilla was in a way
one Of themselves. A daughter OF
the navy, many of these officers had
known her from childhood. She had
come on board her fathers ship al
almost every port of the Pacific ocean
from Panama to Behring straits. But
this was the first time in the mem
DRY of anyof them that she or any Other
girl had actually lived on board, dining
in the admiraPs cabin, sleeping in 6
white stateroom of her own dancing
on the quarterback under the moon
light, darning stockings on her perct
upon the long barrel of cannon
one of the ships company. Truly
they were privileged crew, and vel
they knew 1t!
And when some wag of a sailor, IL
a bos'ns chair, painting over the side
would lift his voice and sing tn
song from "Pinafore" about gallan
captains daughter, a ripple of girlisl
laughter would be waited out to tn
dolphins playing leap-frog under tn
bows.
, How 1t happened that the armore,
, cruiser Maryland had a girl on boar
on her voyage from Honolulu to Sc
attic last fall Is a charming stor
, Of how a woman's scissors may b
= more potent than sailors cutlas
j. to cut Gordian knot of naval re
+ tape.
9 Take me home with you, father,
!. pleaded Miss Priscilla Ellicott to Cap
a ,Ellicott of the Maryland at Hone
l lulu in the first days of October.
: Navy Regulations Explicit.
81 cannot. my GIRL" replied the cal
:, tain, 1T Is contrary to the rules"
|. "Oh, bother the old rules!" erie
a his daughter. Here you are wit
your ship and all this party on boar
3 just going to sail back home: VIII
a can't you take me with you instead {
a leaving me to sail On passenge
a steamer aione?"
7. Captain Ellicott smiled at the on
burst of rebellion On the part
n his pet daughter. He pulled th
= Navy Regulations out Of his desl