The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1914-02-14

was binding blizzard and it bitter cold
that the chief loss the American side was OF
the men who. though Injured to pioneer hardshlps
froze to death that awful night
Did General Washington stand in his boat in
that dangerous current during a driving storm
and stare pompously at the opposite shore? Not
he Instead of that, he sat tight and caloled
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
oblivous to the cold and dangers around them
That was the grandest deed in the military stra-
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 com
mander in chief who had come to the continental
congress a wealthy Virginia colonel, and his
nondescript crowd of raw recruits, wholly unused
not only to military discipline but even to mill
tary forms. But few know of the transcenden
bluff General Washington had to put up when he
discovered that there were but few rounds Of
gunpowder in the possession of the whole Ameri-
can army. while the British were amply supplied
with ammunition and might sally forth any hour
against the American "irregulars."
Some had blundered." Many a com
mander would have shown up the improvident
officers who had that matter in charge and pee
vishy thrown up the command ridiculously i'm
possible. But General Washington did not tell his
most trusted officers of the excruciating dilemma
he found himself in He knew the awful secret
would spread if known to few, and the great
cause of justice might be lost. He began quietly
to scour the country for gunpowder. He soon
found that the nearest place at which any quan-
tity could be had was in magazine the island
of Bermuda To get that required secret expe-
dition. much hazard and many weeks: but Wash
ingtons nerve equal to the fearful strain.
During that long. tense interval the American
troops working away upon the fortfcations,
preparing for grand attack Meanwhile the
young commander-in-chief entertaining
Hospitality at his headquarters the Craige man
sion. now best known as "Longfellows Home in
Cambridge. AS a pleasant diversion. Lady
Washington, then one of the wealthiest women in
America, to visit the general, and all the
countryside was agog over her coachand-four with
six black positions in white and scarlet livery.
Even the British cooped up in Boston, were i'm
pressed by the resources and apparent confidence
of the American generalissimo
While one expedition gone to Bermuda
for powder, General Knox, with small force,
succeeded in bringing a number of cannon sew
eral hundred miles sleds in md"nter
from Fort Tconderoga In those times that
tried mems souls" 1t Washington iron
nerve, supported by his broad sense OF humor.
sometimes scintillating with radiance worthy
OF Franklin Lincoln which saved the day
This only of many occasions which
Washington had to fight out the revolution alone.
A friend OF Lincoln's said of him TIE
presidents laugh is his life-preserver-" This was
truer of Washington than any one seems to have
realized in day when strict gravity without
levity. expected Of public characters. To
laugh or to see the humorous side of an incident
considered the sign of frivolous dsposi-
ton.
Washingtons early biographe-s solemn
To have told in their books how much their
hero laughed would have been, in their opinion,
wantonly 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 worse than wick
edit vugar!' In straning to make their
hero appear to have been d demigod. those pedan-
tic biographers related not what George Wash
ington really did but what they imagined such a
boy man ought to have done under given con-
ditions.
Washington would have laughed heartily at
Weems' Observation-Disclosures story if he had
ever heard (which he never did for 1t not
invented till later edition of the erring rectors
Juvenile history. six years after Washington s
death Yet the real hero OF the cherry-tree fic-
tion would have found ft the occasion of gravity
as well as mirth. In the stflted story of Little
George and His Pa Weems was only carrying
out the idea of his time; tell what the small
boy actually did, but what the consummate little
prig he conceived little George Washington to
have been would have done if 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 have loved him better
than their brothers, their children,
for that matter. His early life was fuller of ex,
citing experiences than any fiction. Yet the life
Of young Washington is yet to be told an ad-
venture story. Even in his quaint little diaries
he early discloses lively sense of humor-sav-
age humor sometimes, but broad and boysh. He
showed this by telling only the jokes against him
self. When he was lad of sixteen he 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 experiences as a
'tenderfoot, recorded on Tuesday. March 10,
l747-S:
I'VE got Suppers & was lighted into a
Room and l. not being good a Woodsman as
ye rest of my company, stripped myself very or
derly. & went into ye Bed, they called It,
when to my surprise found it to be nothing but
Q little stiaw-matted together without sheets or