The sun., 1918-07-25
HOT TIME CURES
HORSES AMNESIA
Chief Baldwin's Oceanus. Lost
90 Years, Hears Stirring
Strains.
BREAKS UP HIS WAGON
Affecting Reunion Of Souls
Follows at Tournament of
Nassau Namps.

At the fourteenth annual tournament
OF the Nassau County Volunteer Fire
mems Association at Woodmere. L. L.
yesterday. glance convinced young
| Howla nd1'hipps- Pearsall Pearsall-Phipps
of the unbeaten Live oaks company of
Rockville Centre that 1t would be sheer
cruelty for their lot TO go in.
For while a good dozen events on the
card seemed to promise worthwhile
afternoon, and while there were present
engine and ladder companies from all
| the local houses and from as far away
as Glen Cove and Westbury. Phpps-
Pearsan Pearsall-Phipps pointed out in
stantly to dear old Regis Dial Molin
| that the ranks OF the contestants were
SO obviously hlled in with slow going
| middle aged men in the places of all the
youths at the front that any notion of
the Live oaks going in would be about
as sportsmanlike as for a machine gun
company 10 open up on man with two
! cork legs and glass eye, or, looked at
| in another way, would be a good deal
like Harvard's varsity accepting the
challenge of the Enterprise Shorthand
and Typewriting College of Peoria. ILL.,
| And so the Live Oaks was thrown into
| gear and headed away from there, and
| Rowland and Regis missed the amaz-
| ing drama Of the reunion after twenty
years OF the great and gifted fire horse
| Oceanus and his old owner Frank Bald
win, the best chief of fire volunteers
, Rockaway Beach ever had.
BaIdwin's Twenty Lonely Years.
1t happened in the sight and amid the
deafening applause. of thousands, and
| while County Clerk Tom Cheshire from
the arch above the tournament course
was announcing that-but a word here
upon the grim past OF Fire Chief Frank
Baldwin and the sorrow which has
darkened his life these twenty com
panionless years
! Students OF fire fighting history will
recall that a score of years ago Aliens
Blue Museum at Rockaway took fire
and went up in smoke and flames The
chief of the fire fighting forces>was not
present personally. This not because OF
bodily illness or Indifference to the sum-
mons of duty. but because his new
chiefs wagon, brought In by the back
moor of his carriage house and too wide
entrance, caught fast upon the unyield-
ing door posts and the horse Oceanus
| went to the fire alone.
His neighs awoke all Rockaway as
careered down the boulevard. his shod
hoofs spurning the cobble stones in a
shower OF sparks. He arrived at the
fire with the shafts still fastened TO him,
but in the urgency OF duty no one
thought to, anchor him to a hitch post
and soon afterward he disa ppea red
utterly 1t was as though the Rockaway
sands had received him in sepuiture
TIE Chief had never been the same
man since. The horse cost $500
Franks professional reputation hung in
the balance until his valor at later
conha grafton redeemed II. Too. his wife
has relentless memory, and the mira Sc
OF Louis Magnolia. who as leading edi-
torial writer OF the Rockaway Argus,
wrote his screed under the caption.
True Baldwinian Inept!tude." touched
the popular imagination and has been
n burr in the Baldwin SIDE from that
day to tits
But the ghost has been laid now and
Chief Frank is his own man once again
Conquering Hero Comes.
For as County Clerk Tom Cheshire
course was announcing that Glen Cove
H. and l.. Company No. would now
his words were lost In the sudden crash
OF brass music. The band had mistaken
its cue. And fate surely dictated that
it's selection must be "A Hot Time I'm the
Old Town Tonight" No band abreast
OF modern thought renders that tune any
more hut this band was from Valley
Stream and eXcusable. But the multi
tude rose with roar. For Frank Bald
win was deserted just ten descending
to the pavement from his motor car and
all the old timers recognized that "a
Hot Time in the Old Town" was twenty
years ago the invariahle greeting given
Frank as he came up the middle aisle
And then the incredible happened
An old horse, hooked to a vegetable
wagon and left standing a quarter mile
down the road, lifted his head from
the ground and neighed shril!y With
swing of his head he was free OF
his hitch rope AS he leaped into his
collar the vegetable wagon was wrecked
against post and the animal came
dasAing down the course with only the
| shafts fastened to him. He arrived
with the suddenness of an apparition
ten feet from where Baldwin was stand.
ing Then he lay down carefully
played dead. rolled over and sitting on
| MS naunCntS, oUefed Cnlef Baldwin his
off forefoot to shake.
Frank was nonplusSed for a mo.
u ment, hut caught his self-con;roI as
Assemblyman Tom McWhinney Cwhc
has served four terms in Albany and
recognizes capable handshaking when
he sees it, yelled for Frank to buy
the horse IL he could prevail on the
owner to sell, and not hesitate AT any
price within reason,
; Commune Soul to Soul.
But Frank had personally taught
Oceanus all his pleasing tricks and did
not fail to know him at a second
J glance. As the venerable animal spread
his length on the ground, spent with
the stress of his emotion. his old owner
gathered his head into his lap and the
crowd observed silence while the man
and beast Communed soul to soul
Later when Frank had summoned Dr.
Decker. the vet" from Far Rockaway.
and had paid him Sc, the man OF
science explained that undoubt eddy