Part 24 (1/2)

”My friends, fellow-citizens and Republicans, you have this week acted n.o.bly.”

Cries from the crowd, ”_We hev_! _we hev_!”

”You, when smitten on the right cheek, turned unto the oppressor the left.”

”We did! we _did_!”

”You are beyond all question models--I may say with truth, paragons of patience, long-suffering, and humility. You are--Christian gentlemen!”

”We air! we _air_!”

While this was pa.s.sing, a great gloomy thundercloud of the Democratic enemy gathered on the opposite sidewalk, and as the Colonel lifted his voice again, there came a cry--

”Shut up, you d---d old Republican dead-duck!”

That word was a spell to raise the devil withal. Bang! bang! bang! went the revolvers of the Union men in a volley, and the Democrats fled for their lives down Seventh Street, pursued by the meek, lowly, and long- suffering Christians--like rabbits before wolves.

The enemy at last resolved to attack the _Press_ and burn the building.

Then we had one hundred and fifty policemen sent to garrison and guard.

There was a surging, howling mob outside, and much guerilla-shooting, but all I can remember is my vexation at having so much to disturb me in making up the paper.

I never went armed in my life when I could help it, for I hate _impedimenta_ in my pockets. All of us in the office hung up our coats in a dark place outside. Whenever I sent an a.s.sistant to get some papers from mine, he said that he always knew my coat because there was no pistol in it.

Scenes such as these, and quite as amusing, were of constant occurrence in those days in Philadelphia. ”All night long in that sweet little village was heard the soft note of the pistol and the dying scream of the victim.” Now, be it noted, that a stuffed dead duck had become the _gonfalon_ or banner of the Republicans, and where it swung there the battle was fiercest. There was a young fellow from South Carolina, who had become a zealous Union man, and who made up for a sinful lack of sense by a stupendous stock of courage. One morning there came into the office an object--and such an object! His face was all swathed and hidden in b.l.o.o.d.y bandages; he was tattered, and limped, and had his arm in a sling.

”In the name of Heaven, who and what are you?” I exclaimed. ”And who has been pa.s.sing you through a bark-mill that you look so ground-up?”

In a sepulchral voice he replied, ”I'm ---, and last night _I carried the dead duck_!”

Till I came on the _Press_ there was, it may be said, almost no community between the Germans of North Philadelphia and the Americans in our line.

But I had become intimate with Von Tronk, a Hanoverian of good family, a lawyer, and editor, I believe, of the _Freie Presse_. I even went once or twice to speak at German meetings. In fact, I was getting to be considered ”almost as all de same so goot ash Deutsch,” and very ”bopular.” One day Von Tronk came with a request. There was to be an immense German Republican _Ma.s.senversammlung_ or ma.s.s-meeting in a great beer-garden. ”If Colonel Forney could only be induced to address them!”

I undertook to do it. It was an entirely new field to him, but one wondrous rich in votes. Now Colonel Forney, though from Lancaster County and of German-Swiss extraction, knew not a word of the language, and I undertook to coach him.

”You will only need one phrase of three words,” I said, ”to pull you through; but you must p.r.o.nounce them perfectly and easily. They are _Freiheit und Gleichheit_, 'freedom and equality.' Now, if you _please_, _fry-height_.”

The Colonel went at his lesson, and being naturally clever, with a fine, deep voice, in a quarter of an hour could roar out _Freiheit und Gleichheit_ with an intonation which would have raised a revolution in Berlin. We came to the garden, and there was an immense sensation. The Colonel had winning manners, with a manly mien, and he was duly introduced. When he rose to speak there was dead silence. He began--

”Friends and German Fellow-citizens:--Yet why should I distinguish the words, since to me every German is a friend. I am myself, as you all know, of unmingled German extraction, and I am very, very proud of it.

But there is one German sentiment which from a child has been ever in my heart, and from infancy ever on my lips, and that sentiment, my friends, is _Freiheit und Gleichheit_!”

If ever audience was astonished in this world it was that of the _Ma.s.senversammlung_ when this burst on their ears. They hurrahed and roared and banged the tables in such a mad storm of delight as even Colonel Forney had never seen surpa.s.sed. Rising to the occasion, he thundered on, and as he reached the end of every sentence he repeated, with great skill and aptness, _Freiheit und Gleichheit_.

”You have made two thousand votes by that speech, Colonel,” I said, as we returned. ”Von Tronk will manage it at this crisis.” After that, when the Colonel jested, he would called me ”the Dutch vote-maker.” This was during the Grant campaign.

Droll incidents were of constant occurrence in this life. Out of a myriad I will note a few. One day there came into our office an Indian agent from the West, who had brought with him a Winnebago who claimed to be the rightful chief of his tribe. They were going to Was.h.i.+ngton to enforce the claim. While the agent conversed with some one the Indian was turned over to me. He was a magnificent specimen, six feet high, clad in a long trailing scarlet blanket, with a scarlet straight feather in his hair which continued him up _ad infinitum_, and he was straight as a lightning rod. He was handsome, and very dignified and grave; but I understood _that_. I can come it indifferent well myself when I am ”out of my plate,” as the French, say, in strange society. He spoke no English, but, as the agent said, knew six Indian languages. He was evidently a chief by blood, ”all the way down to his moccasins.”

What with a few words of Kaw (I had learned about a hundred words of it with great labour) and a few other phrases of other tongues, I succeeded in interesting him. But I could not make him smile, and I swore unto myself that I would.

Being thirsty, the Indian, seeing a cooler of ice-water, with the daring peculiar to a great brave, went and took a gla.s.s and turned on the _spicket_. He filled his gla.s.s--it was brim-full--but he did not know how to _turn it off_. Then I had him. As it ran over he turned to me an appealing helpless glance. I said ”_Neosho_.” This in Pottawattamie means an inundation or overflowing of the banks, and is generally applied to the inundation of the Mississippi. There is a town on the latter so called. This was too much for the Indian, and he laughed aloud.

”Great G.o.d! what have you been saying to that Indian?” cried the agent, amazed. ”It is the first time he has laughed since he left home.”