Clearwater Republican. [volume] (Orofino, Idaho) 1912-1922, 1920-12-17
CHAPTER l.
The NIGHT Of the eeacons.

It is strange to me, Jack Calder OF
West Inch. to feel that though now,
in the very center of the nineteenth
century, l am but five-and-fifty years
Of age, and though 1t Is only once a
week, perhaps. that my wife can
pluck out O little gray bristle from
over my ear, yet have lived in time
when the thoughts and the ways of
men were as different as though it
we're another planet from this. For
when l walk In my fields l can see,
down Berwick way, the little fuffs of
white smoke which tell me of this
strange, new, hundred-legged beast
with Goals for food and thousand
men in its belly, forever crawling over
the border. On a shiny day can see
the CLINT OF the brass work as 1t takes
the curve near Corriemuir. And then.
as l look out to sea, there Is the same
beast again, or dozen of them, may
be, leaving a trail Of black In the air
and of white In the water, and swim
ming in the face Of the wind as cas-
lily as a salmon up the Tweed. Such
a sight as that would have struck my
good old father speechless with wrath
as well as surprise, for he was so
stricken with the fear Of offending the
Creator that he was chary Of contra
dieting Nature. and always held the
new thing to be nearly akin to the
blasphemOus. AS long as God made
the horse, and a man, down Blrming-
ham way, the engine, my good old dad
would have stuck by the saddle and
the spurs.
When he died we had been fighting
with scarce break, save for two short
years, for very nearly quarter of a
century. Babies who were born in the
war grew to be bearded men with ba-
bes OF their own, and still the war
continued. Those who had served and
fought in their stalwart prime grew
stiff and bent, and yet the ships and
the armies were struggling. During
that long time we fought the Dutch,
we fought the Danes, we fought the
Spanish. we fought the Turks, we
fought the Americans, we fought the
Montevideans, until 1t seemed that In
this universal struggle no race was
roo near Of kin or too far away to be
drawn into the quarrel. But most Of
al 1t was the French whom we fought,
and the man whom Of all others we
Ioathed and feared and admired was
the great captain who ruled them.
1t was very well to draw pictures of
aim. and sing songs about him, and
make as though he were an impostOr,
man hung like black shadow over
all Europe, and that there was time
when the CLINT of q fire at night upon
the coast would set every woman
upon her knees and every man grip
Ding for his musket. He had always
won. That was the terror of 1t. The
fates seemed to be behind him And
now we know that he lay upon the
northern coast with hundred and
tifty thousand veterans, and the boats
for their passage. But 1t Is an old
story how a third of the grown folk
of our country took up arms, and how
our little one-eyed, one-armed man
crushed their fleet. There was still
to be land Of free thinking and free
speaking in Europe.
There was great beacon ready on
the hill by TweedmOuth. built up Of
logs and tar barrels, and ! can well
remember how night after night
strained my eyes to see If It were
ablaze. l was only eight at the time.
but 1t is an age when one takes
grief to heart, and felt as though
the fate of the country hung In some
fashion upon me and my vigilance.
And then one night as looked l sud
denly saw a little flicker on the bea-