The Mena weekly star., 1919-12-11
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"AGIN THE GUVMENT'
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By C. NJ. Morrison.

oJaJeS Dack dOOuI Llic Llfue 0l Jilc pdll- ic of 1873. He got the idea that the old U. s. A. had cold-decked him some how, or other, so he sort of began to live by himself over on his old place that was mostly grown up with briars and unpruned apple trees.
 He had fought in an Illinois regi- ment in the Civil War. But for 40 years he had been pointed out as a sort of a neighborhood curiosity, 'the man who wouldn't apply for a pen sion" He used to froth at the mouth every time he saw a tax collector and it grew to be one battle to get dime out of him for the fuses and purposes of the state"
 He stood off every "war driver" that came along during the late un- pleasantness and they finally let him alone. He staid holed up right along. He actually didn't know when the war began or when it ended. He used to come out of that tangle of an old place that he called home and go back in without saying a dozen words to any and what he did say was mostly grunts.
 Nobody knows when he first learn ed that one of his sisters boys had been lover there" and had come back with medal or two, one from the War Department of the United States and another one that the French general pinned on him one frosty morning over in the Meuse-Argonne sector where so many Americans lost their lives.
 And nobody knows when old Billy Gilligan got hold of that lad and car ried him off to the old rattletrap of house back of the apple trees and the brush and sat there all night by the old fireplace learning that there had been about the biggest war that the stars ever looked down on.
 It was long about Christmas when old Billy rounded up the lad, seeming ly. He kept him up there for day or so, just naturally soaking in every thing that the boy told him. It must have been an awful jolt to get the full story and the full horror and the un- derstanding of all those anxious days that the rest of the world had been trying to stand up under day at a time for the full four years.
 1t is a fair guess that the danger that the one lad had gone through, the horror of the U-boats, the land ing in a strange country, the desper ate pushes against a desperate and a strange enemy who fought with fire and poison must have stirred the old man out of his calloused shell that the years had built around him.
 Seemingly it stirred something in his old heart and brain that had been slowly dying since the days of 1865. He had been a man without country all these years. And while he had been holed up there, the nation, the same nation for which he had fought full half century ago, had been go- ing ahead and growing and extending it's power and it's principles.
 He must have done a lot of mighty solemnly serious thinking for a day or so. The boy had gone back to his mothers home and old Billy had been left alone to sit before the ancient fireplace and meditate on what had come to pass.
 . His thinking took strange turn. 1t happened to be Christmas Eve when he came into town. That was not a habit of his. It is doubtful if the old est inhabitant recalled seeing old Billy on the streets at that particular time.
 He came like a man in hurry and with his mind made up and came up the post office steps. There was a big crowd there and he hesitated a minute and crossed over to the bank.
 Have you got any blanks for me to take out Liberty Bonds?" he said when he had reached the window. The assistant cashier rubbed his eyes and stared.
 "Why no, Mir. Gilligan" he said, "the loans are all over long time ago. Didn't you know that ?" "No-o", faltered the old man at the window. l didn't. You see-well have been fool. I didn't understand about this war and wouldn't let any body tell me. Now, if it ain't too late I want to help. You see 1 have heard lot of things recently.
 That boy, George, he is back and he has been telling me about this whole thing. simply didn't know that was all And now the old Gov ernment has made a man and a sol dier and better American than l am out of him. And it put a medal on him, medal that he deserves.
 "I tell you, sir, that it is a square government and the best that there is on this earth. It came in and it stop ped the Kaiser and now men can go on living and having a chance at happi- ness. I fought against slavery--that boy and other boys have been fighting against the same thing, The govern ment hadn't changed. It was me And now, sir, isn't there something where a few dollars will help?"
 The cashier thought a minute and brought from the safe an engraved slip of paper. "Ill tell you, "said he, There is a Treasury Savings Certifi- cate. The government will sell you this for about $500 and it will be worth $l ,000 one of these days. Do you want that much?"
 The. old man fumbled a minute counted out a roll of bills and took the certificate. Pm no longer agin the government, he said as he turned to go I'm an American, and don't care who knows it."
 GERMS AND WARS.