The Clio messenger. (Clio, Mich.) 1907-current, 1914-02-20

scene. His men ragged-half
naked BESIDES the running ice in the river, there
binding blizzard, and il so bitter cold
that the chief loss the American side was OF
the men who though Injured to pioneer hardshps,
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 caJoled
the men, using every device that might make them
forget their terrible situation even telling them
a facetous story, which, coming from him. star
tied them, set their blood tingling and made them
oblivious to the cold and dangers around them.
That was the grandest deed in the military STRAIT
agem which ma Frederick the Great of Prussia,
and, indeed, tfs whole world, wonder at the
Nearly eve one knows the outside OF the
story OF tho fsiege of Boston by the new com
mander-inchlef. who had come to the continental
congress wealthy Virginia colonel and his
nondescript crowd of recruits, wholly unused
not only to military discipline, but even to mill
tary forms. But few know of the transcendent
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 amply supplied
with ammunition and might sally forth any hour
against the American "irreguars.'
Some had Numbered Many
mander would have shown up the improvident
officers who had that matter in charge and pee
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 il 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 guam
tity could be had was in a magazine the island
or bermuda. To get that required secret expe-
dition, much hazard and many weeks but Wash
ington's nerve was equal to the fearful strain.
Dftrfxae that 0.~x s04Ar 49,
troops were working away upon the Notifications.
preparing for grand attack. Meanwhile the
young commanderin-chief entertaining
Hospitality at his headquarters, the Craige man
sion, now best known "Longfellow's Home" in
Cambridge. AS a pleasant diversion, Lady"
Washington then one of the wealthest women Ia
America, came to visit the general, and Ill the
countryside was agog over her coach-andfour 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 enc expedition gone to Bermuda
for powder. General Knox, with small force,
succeeded in bringing number of cannon sew
eral hundred miles on OK sleds in midwinter
from Fort Ticonderoga. In those times that
tried mems souls" it was Washington's iron
nerve, supported by his broad sense of humor,
sometimes scintillating with a radiance worthy
of a Franklin a Lincoln, which saved the day
This only of many occasions which
A friend Of Lincoln's once said of him, The
presidents laugh is his fe-preserver.' This was
truer Of Washington than any one seems to have
realized in day when strict gravity without
levity. was expected of public characters. To
laugh to the humorous side OF an incident
was considered the sign of frivolous disposi
1ion
Washingtons early biographers solemn
ra--.. To have told in their books how much their
hero laughed would have BEEN in their opinion
tntIrr Me alyrnAn YNtth1
Men like "Parson" Weems renegade preacher and
tramp fiddler though he was, had been brought
UP 10 think that laughing was worse than wick
edit vulgar" In straning to make their
hero appear to have been demigod, those pedan
tic biographers related not what George Wash
ington really did, but what they agned such
boy or man ought to have done under given
dtions
Washington would have laughed heartily at
Weems' Observation-Disclosures story If lie had
ever heard (which he never did, for II was not
invented till later edition of the erring rectors
juvenile history, six years after Washington's
death Yet the real hero of the chcrrytree fic
tion would have found il the occasion Of gravity
as well mirth In the stited story of Little
George and His Pa Weems 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 if he had cut down his
fathers favorite cherry tree.
If little George Washington had been the insult
fcrable little prig described by Mr.. Weems, his
halfbrothers would not have loved him better
than their own brothers, their own children
for that matter. His early life fuller of eX
citing experiences than any fiction Yet the life
of young Washington is yet to be told as an adj
venture story. Even in his quaint little diaries
he early discloses lively 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 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
"tenderfoot" recorded Tuesday, March Is,
1747-8:
I'VE got our Suppers & was lighted into
Room and ], not being good Woodsman
We rest OF my company, stripped myself very or
derby, e. went into ye Bed, they called it,
when to my surprise found 1t to be nothing but
a little straw--matted together without sheets or