The Oakley herald. [volume] (Oakley, Idaho) 1908-1961, 1917-06-29
SECOND iNSTALLMENT.

OF this paper, there would De no break
In the beginning of my sketch of this
story For Captain Shaw, if it was he,
handed it to his successor in the
charge, and he to his.
The rule adopted on board the ships
on which | have met 1.-The Man without
a Country" was, l think, transmitted
from the beginning. No mess liked to
have him permanently. because his
presence cut off all talk of home or of
the prospect of return, of politics or
letters of peace or of war-cut off
more than half the talk men like to
have at sea. But it was always
thought too hard that he should never
meet the rest of us, except to touch |
hats, and we finally sank into one sys-
TEN. He was not permitted to talk |
with the men unless an officer was by |
| With officers he had unrestrained in
tercourse, as far as they and he chose.
But he grew shy, though he had favor
| ites I was one. Then the captain
always asked him to dinner on Mon
day. Every mess In succession took
up the invitation in its turn. Accord
ing to the size of the ship. you had him
at your mess more or less often at
dinner His breakfast he ate in his
own stateroom he always had state
room, which was where sentinel, or
| somebody on the watch, could see the
door. And whatever else he ate or
drank he ate or drank alone. Some
times, when the marines or sailors had
any special jollifcation, they were per-
|
they called him. Then Nolan was sent
with some officer. and the men were
forbidden to speak of home while he
was there. They called him "Plain-
Buttons" because, while he always
chose to wear a regulation army uni
form, he was not permitted to wear
the army button. for the reason that
1t bore either the initials or the in
sigma of the country he had disowned.
I remember, soon after I Joined the
navy, | was on shore with some of the
older officers from our ship and from
the Brandywine, which we had met at
Alexandria. We had leave to make a
party and go up to Cairo and the Pyra-
mids. AS we logged along some of
the gentlemen fell to talking about No
Ian, and someone told the system
which was adopted from the first about
his books and other reading. AS he
was almost never permitted to go on
shore, even though the vessel lay in port
for months. his time, at the best,
hung heavy; and everybody was per-
mitted to lend him books, If they were
not published in America and made NO
allusion to 1t. These were common
enough in the old days, when people
. in the other hemisphere talked of the
United States as little as we do OF
Paraguay He had almost all the for
eign papers that came into the ship
sooner or later; only somebody mus
go over them first, and cut out any
= advertisement or stray paragraph thai
: alluded to America. Right in the
u midst of one of Napoleon's battles, OF
one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolar
would find great hole, because on the
{ back of the page of that paper there
y had been an advertisement of a packe
for New York, or a scrap from The
Il presidents message. / say this was
the first time l ever heard of this plan
l. which afterwards 1 had enough, ant
l. more than enough, to do with. / re
: member it, because poor Phillips, whit
was of the party, as soon as the allu
= sion to reading was made, told stor.
s of something which happened at thu
IT Cape of Good Hope on Nolan's frs
e. voyage; and it is the only thing eve
st knew of that voyage. They hat
a touched at the Cape, and had done TIN
3 civil thing with the English admira
and the fleet, and then, leaving for
long cruise up the Indian ocean, Phil
lips had borrowed a lot of Englisl
books from an officer, which, in thos
u days, as indeed in these, was quite
windfall Among them, as the Dew
is would order, was the Lay of the Las
he Minstrel" which they had all of ther
heard Of, but which most of them ha
never seen. l think it could not hav
been published long. Well, nobod
thought there could be any risk of any
" thing national in that, though Phillip
!. swore old Shaw had cut out tn
Tempest" from Shakespeare befor
ID he let Nolan have 1t, because he sale
lie 1.-THE Bermudas ought to be ours ant
10 Ian was permitted to join the eircl
70 one afternoon when a lot of them SO
AZ on deck smoking and reading aleu'
e. People do not do such things so ofte
k now, but when l was young we sc
r. rid of great deal Of time So Wei
so it happened that in his turn Nola
took the book and read to the Others
and he read very well, as know. M
To body in the circle knew line OF til
poem, only it was all magic and bo
s. der chivalry, and was ten thousan
r. years ago. Poor Nolan read steadil
through the fifth canto, stopped mil
ute and drank something. and then b
IL gan, without q thought of what wi
coming
Breatfes there the man, with soul
dead
Who never to himself hath said