The Red Cloud chief. [volume] (Red Cloud, Webster Co., Neb.) 1873-1923, 1914-02-12

was a binding blizzard and II was 80 bitter cold
that the chief loss on the American side was of
the men who though Injured to pioneer hardships
froze to death that awful night
Did General Washington stand in his boat In
that dangerous current during driving storm
and stare pompously at the opposite shore? Not
he Instead OF that, he sat tight and cajoled
the men. using every device that might make them
forget their terrible situation; even telling them
facetious story, which. coming from him. star
tied them set their blood tingling and made them
obvious to the cold and dangers around them.
That was the grandest deed In the military STRAIT
agem which made Frederick the Great OF Prussia.
and indeed the whole world. wonder at the
genius Of Washington
Nearly every knows the outside Of the
story OF the siege OF Boston by the new
mander-in chief. who had come to the continental
congress as a wealthy Virginia colonel and his
nondescript crowd OF raw recruits. wholly unused
not only to military discipline. but to mill
tary forms hut few know of the transcendent
blum General Washington had to put up when he
discovered that there were but a few rounds of
gunpowder In the possession of the whole Amer
can army. while the british were amply supplied
with ammunition and might sally forth any hour
against the American "irregulars"
Some one had Numbered" Many CON-
mander would have shown up the improvident
ofncers who had that matter in chavge and pee
vishly thrown up the command as rdiculously i'm
possible. But General Washington did not tell his
most trusted officers of the excruciatlng dilemma
he found himself in. He knew the awful secret
would spread II known to a few and the great
cause of justice might be lost He began quietly
TO scour the country for gunpowder lie soon
FOUND that the nearest place at which any guam
tity could be had was in a magazine on the island
OF Bermuda. To get that required secret expe
dition much hazard and many weeks; but Wash
ingtons nerve was equal to the fearful strain.
During that long, tense interval the American
troops were working away upon the Notifications
preparing for grand attack. Meanwhile the
young commander.inchief was entertaining
Hospitality at his headquarters. the Craige man.
sion. now best known "l.ongfellow's Home" In
Cambridge. AS pleasant diversion, Lady"
Washington. then one Of the wealthiest women in
America came to visit the general, and all the
countryside was agog over her coacha nd.four with
six black positions In white and scarlet livery
Even the British, cooped up in Boston. we're i'm
pressed by the resources and apparent confidence
OF the American generalissimo
While one expedition was gone to Bermuda
for powder, General Knox, with a small force
succeeded In bringing number Of cannon sew.
eral hundred miles on sleds in midwinter
from Fort Ticonderoga. In those times that
tried mems souls It was Washngton's iron
nerve supported by his broad sense OF humor
sometimes scntatng with radiance worthy
OF a Franklin Lincoln, which saved the day
This was only of many occasions on which
Washington had to fight out the revolution alone
presidents laugh is his life-preserver." This was
truer OF Washington than any to have
realized in day when strict gravity without
levity, was expected OF public characters. To
laugh or to see the humorous side OF an incident
was considered the sign Of frivolous disposi-
ton.
! Washingtons early biographers were solemn
men. To have told In their books how much their
hero laughed would have been in their opinion
wantoniy exposing his weakness to public gaze.
Men like "Parson" Weems renegade preacher and
tramp fiddler though he was. had been brought
up to think that laughing was worse than wick.
edit was vulgar!" In straining to make their
nero appear to have been Il demigod, those pedan-
tic bographers related not what George Wash.
ington really did but what they imagined such a
boy or man ought 10 have done under given con-
ditions.
Washington would have laughed heartily at
Weems' hatchetand .cherrytree story II he had
ever heard (which he never did. for 1t was not
invented till later edition OF the erring rector's
juvenile history. six years after Washington's
death. Yet the real hero OF the cherry-tree fc.
ton would have found 1t the occasion Of gravity
well as mirth. In the stted story Of Little
George and His Pa" Weems was only carrying
out the idea Of his time to tell not what the small
boy actually did. but what the consummate little
prig he conceived little George Washington to
have been would have done II he had cut down his
fathers favorite cherry tree.
II little George Washington had been the insult.
ferable little prig described by Mr.. Weems. his
half-brothers would not have loved him better
than their own brothers. their own children
for that matter. His early life was fuller OF
citing experiences than any fiction. Yet the life
OF young Washington Is yet to be told as an ad
venture story. Even in his quaint little diaries
he early dlscloses lively sense OF humor--sav
age humor sometimes. but broad and boyish. He
showed this by telling only the jokes against him
self. When he lad Of sixteen ne led sur
veying party TO lay out the lands OF his old friend
Lord Fairfax. in the wilderness OF the Shenan
doah Here Is one OF his own experiences q
"tenderfoot," recorded Tuesday March 15
l747S:
We got our Suppers was lighted into a
Room. and ], not being good a Woodsman az
ye rest OF my company, stripped myself very or
derby, a. went into ye Bed, they called It
when to my surprise found 1t to be nothing but
little straw-matted together without sheets oil
anything else but one threadbare blanket, with
double its weight of Vermn, such as Lice, Fleas