^^/^ Lr^is.^ :::^>LAf3 ^^.»-/'-w^1gf-fe: r=5&.: w. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS Cliap.Ap. Copyright Jyo..... Slielf...V>LS.g F? ?1^^^a)^; (y '^.y-.'^Ll /c// 4e/'f'c//(?, COPYRIGHT BY GEO. A. WALLACE, APRIL, 1895. ^-^ FROM^ TftPS TIIili REVEIliIiE. BY (iEOKGE A. WALLACE. Th, ln;i.r>< irnn, lln M nrl . Ami in ll>, Jinli,lhr.< rmhhj (jh„r. I'hr ij>n; in hr'^^.* — >:• 9 -K — C^-^-^" HOWIJNG GREEN, KV.; FkOM Till-. PRKSS ..F THK PARK ClTV DAILV Tj-Ml iU-^' T5 7.^ Among the women of the world is one who bears my name. I have, under the laws of mv state and country, stolen the title that distin- guished her before the theft was committed. To Lucy, who loved me in prosperity and stood by me in adversity, in whose arms Leona, an artist's dream in flesh and blood, that Gotl loaned us for .i* little while, fought with death, in whose love I live, and on whose faith I rest, this book is dedicated. L(K'lsviLl.K, Kv., March, i!^g;. m CONTENTS. The Grand Army of the Republic PAGE. DiCDICATION Preface From Taps Till Reveille • 14 Lenihan's Ride I Stood Alone Grandpa Barnes " Some Facts About Women "^ P,n,, 35 The Massacre 40 42 Jess Scold Her Every Day ■*' Iron Bull, The Crow Chief ^ Smoothing The Wrinkles Out .* 5^ When The Daylight Conquers Night 54 Why One Drummer Fell 5 64 The Reunion ,, ,, 67 Salute ^ouR Chief The Poodle and the Noodle "9 Declaration of Principles 7' The Modern Rule " The Mother's Answer " ^ Martyrdom and Monuments "9 Q-, Mamie JOS,K 't Charley and Luella Make Up ^^ Ethel and the Alligator ^^ Before and After *5"^ Some Famous Woman Suffragists 97 , . ,.„^ ,, 105 Charley s Appeal rOXTEXTS. Some Christmas Thoughts About Giving 107 Robert and the Star 113 Gene 114 Some Famous Fat Women 116 How TO Behave at a Hotel 118 Fm Coming, Never Fear 123 Growing Old 125 The Little Maiden's Prayer 128 Business Rules 127 The Call 131 The Priest and The Mad Cap 133 Little Ben Tread 137 An Appeal for Abstinence 140 When Life's Last Battle Lost 147 An Old Story 148 Duncan— A Tale of '61 150 The Summer Girl 156 Grover • ■ 158 Be Sweetheart Vet to Me 161 In Dreams She Comes to Me 162 Woman's Rights 164 Pump or Drown 169 Behold the Man? 171 Fragments , 173 Charley's Girl Graduates 179 Charley's \'acati()n 182 What Charley Said 184 What the Angel Said 185 Some Sacred Mountains 187 Liberty and Development 188 Lutie's Lutle Banc; 192 Charley in the Shadows 193 How Jlmmie Went Home • .196 'p)pcfae c, When my first booklet, " Songs Of A Weary Pilgrim," was given to the public, to which I now submit " From Taps Till Reveille," I did not expect it would receive so cordial a recep- tion. As a wise father knows the imperfections of his children, and knows that others know them, I recognize the defects of my mental offspring, and know that others sec them. I full}' appreciate the generous criticisms of those who find some merit in what I have written. Competent critics ha\-e passed judgment; and their endorsements are very dear to me. Many intelligent people, with neither time nor inclina- tion for continuous and \'aried reading, have derived pleas- ure from my writings. We belong to different intellect- ual worlds but I can say, without egotism, that I am like Richter in one respect, I love God and little children. I cherish, most of all, the approval of the embryonic men and women who read and enjoyed and told me so. The uribought love of a little child outweighs the friendship of a king; and praise from its lips is sweeter than the gratulations of a prince. I move in the ranks of those who bear the burdens and fight the battles of the world — the common people, and do not pos- 4 FROM TAI'S rif.L nKVElLl.i:. .sess the culture of ;i tinislicd scholar. The; critics will doubtless remember that I \oice the sentiments of a common man. antl that 1 am not an aspirant for literar}- fame. It may be that some, who will pass b\' the immc-irtal lines of master- thinkers and sentence-l)uilders. will read m)- tleetiiif^ x'erses and sketches and be happier and bettei' for doiuL^^ so. If what I write helps and pleases those who reatl I shall Ije satisfied. \\ hile artificial distinctions in societ}- are sometimes neces- sar}', the}' are, almost without exception, the results of pride and selfishness. There are wron<4"s to rit^ht; there are barriers to break down; there are inequalities to remo\e; there are factions to unite; there are prejudices to o\ercome. Men and women are made for lo\e and service, and are mutually dejoendent. The\' belong-, not only to home circles, but to the masses, not only to the State, but to the world, and an}- man who can add to the sum of human happiness is bound to contribute. In ni}- limited sphere I ha\'e labored with tongue and pen to unit}' people alienated b}- prejudice or on account of se.v. I ha\"e fout^ht, in [)ublic antl in private, at^^ainst those whose assumptions of superiorit}' are offensi\-e, whose arl)itrary exercise of power and exclusixeness eml)itter the li\'es of others and arouse [)opular discontent. Kindred spirits ma}' tlnd somethins^" in " i^rom Taps Till l\.e\eille" to cheer them in their efforts to l)ring' lii^ht to those w ho sit in darkness and jo}' to those whose cups of sorrow are overrtowinLT. F/;nM I'AI'S TILL IIFAIULLF. Ihc war is oxer and w.e have an indissoluble union which thouohtful men pronounce the crownino- miracle of modern times. Men who are lo\al, and women who are patriotic, should forg'et as rapidly as possible the sectional differences that pre- cipitated tlie war between the States, and unite their prayers, their influence, and their efforts, ac^ainst the forces that threaten our national life. The title of this book is militar}-. I wore the blue and ha\e no ajiologies to offer for so doing, Ijut recognize the sterling qualities of mj^ kinsman who wore the gra)'. I would not, if I could, sa\' an}'thing to array tlie men who marched to the music of the Laiion against those who threw contesting battle lines before their advancing columns. Vital questions were submitted to the people and decided by the arbitrament of war. The decision is generally accepted as final and satis- factor\'. The rightness or wrongness of the men who fought for or against the I'nion is not discussed in these pages. We, in whose faxor the decision was made, have no doubt about the justness of our cause, Init we are not unmindful that those who opposed us, whether the)' were right or wrong, were brave and generous, conscientious and self-sacrificing. We, while holding iiu'iolate the principles for which we fought, are dis- posed to forget the past with its chambers of horrors, full of tears, and sighs, and dead men's bones, and to unite w ith them in perpetuating the re])ublic and defending it against internal and external foes; to stand on the vantaee ground of the FIIOM TA/'S TILL l! F.V L:I LLll. present and look forward, where lo\'e signals, and not back- ward, where hate beckons. Durint;- the winter of 1S67. in the depths of the mountains, be\ond the boundaries of civilization, a detail from my regi- ment and some teamsters and prospectors gathered around the same camp fires. .Some of the soldiers had served in the regular army from the beginning of the ci\il war until its close, and still wore its uniform. Some of the citizens had fought with thfc Confederate army from the bombardment of Fort .Sumpter imtil its standards were lowered at Appomattox. We had no quarrels, no recriminations, no misunderstandings; we were welded together b}' common dangers and common sufferings ; were surrounded l)y lynx-e)'etl enemies and exposed to the pitiless fur\^ of chilling winds and blinding storms, and our safety anci comfort depended upon unit}' of thought, i)urpose, and action. Like causes demand that a similar sentiment i)re\ail, and from the Atlantic to the I'acific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf. As fellow citizens we ha\e mutual interests and mutual dangers, and should be united against our mutual foes. It is impossible for all men to thiid< and believe alike, and, recognizing this fact, we should grant to others the rights that we so strenuously insist upon for ourselves. The success of one is the success of all. The failure of one is the failure of all. We are to determine whether a "government of the peo- ple, by the people, and for the people," is possible. The FA'O.l/ 7M/'.s TILL liFA'EILi.E. rcsponsibilit}- is on us and \vc cannot shift it. The present, and n(jt the past, requires our I^est thou;^"hts. and our actions now will determine the future of the Nation and of the indi- viduals composing it. Those who reap in peace where others sowed in war should not forget the men whose fame has girdled the globe- -the grizzled veterans, who are patiently waiting for taps to sound. Their ranks are thinning fast and in a little while the earth, like a gentle mother, will carr\' in her bosom the last of the \-olunteers. In the soil their blood enriches will lie side by side the sons of Puritans and caxaliers until reveille is sounded from heavenly hills and the\- pass out of sleep into life eternal, "Where the war drum throbs no longer, And the l:>attle tlao-s are furled." F/.'O.U TAPS TILL T?EVELLLE. prom fpaps fpill ^qOqWIq. W'c iirc rcsliiiL;- now; the fiL,^ht is over and soldiers <^rather around the camp fires and discuss the da\- that has been o\-er- full of dangers and hartlships. Not all who answered the call to arms in the earU' morning are in the groujos that wait for taps to sound. Some, who rode with us into the ranks of the enem}-. lie scalped and mangled in the rax'ines and on the mountain side, where they went down before the merciless .Sioux. The ca\'otes' shaip Ijark and the wolves' hoarse howl beget horror and chill the blood of men who fronted death with smiling faces a few hours before. We know, that before we can gi\;e them decent burial, the mutilated bodies of our dead comrades will be torn into fragments b)- raxenous beasts that are, e\en now, fighting oxer them. To-morrow will dawn but not for them. The}- ha\e seen their last sunrise and heard their last roll-call on earth. We will watch a new dax' come from the East and think- of their scattered bones that its sun will warm ami its night will chill. Men who face danger withcjut displaxing an_\- signs of fear stand aghast when the skeletons of their lo\ed and honored tlead pass before them. Though night has fallen, and the\' are far awa\', we can see them as distiucll\- as if ihe sun were shining and we were FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. standing where they fell: — Imagination is not fettered by night. * * * -;ic- * * * Taps, the drum-throbs, die a\va}\ Fires are extinguished, lights are out, voices arc hushed. Men who march must rest, and men who fight must sleep. The awful stillness is oppressive and almost unbroken. As we lie in silence we hear nothing but the rhythmic footfalls of the wild beasts that prowl around the camp and call to each other; the measured tread of the sleepless guards as the}- pace to and fro, and the sent- ries calling the hours. The old campaigners, who have fought under many flags, in many countries, are asleep on their arms; but sleep comes not to a young soldier. In the earh' watches of the night he lies like one in a trance. Long after the sentinels have called the mitlnight hour he is awake and thinking o\er the exents of the day. He, a slender, brown-haired boy of si.vtecn, enlisted more than a \-ear before, has passed through his first baptism of fire. The excitement of the conflict no longer sustains, and conscience troubles and fears haunt him. We had run into an ambuscade and had fought with the \alor of desperation against fearful odds. In the running fight that followed his horse stoi)ped suddenly and he found himself face to face with a mounted warrior who chantetl his war song as he placed an arrow against his bow string, and while he was bringing it to a level with his breast, bo\' as he was, he saw the importance of immediate action, and lowerinu' his ritle fired before the arrow 10 FROM TA/'S TILL HKVKn.LK. sped. The shot went home and the warrior fell from his pony. He was glad that he had escaped with his life and the duel was over, but somehow the dead man drove sleep away and brought fears to torment him. Glittering, bead-like eyes peered at him out of the darkness, and a cruel, malignant face touched his own as he lay under his blankets and heard, over and over again, the song tliat leaped from the throat of the falling warrior, that would never sing again. His thoughts turned eastward, and memory reproduced an old farm house in which he was born and where he lived in peace with those who loved him. He thought, too, of the hours that he had spent by his mother's knee reading in her big lettered I^ible. He recalled some passages that troubled him. " Thou shalt not kill," the book said, and a man lay dead on the mountain side slain b)' his own hand. "Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed," it declared, it seemed to him, in tones of thunder. Was he a murderer? Would savage men avenge? He was dazed and could not answer. One thing he knew the blood of a man was on him and he could not shake it off. His hands were red with blood and he could hear it drip, drip, drip, from his finger tips. How could he. if the avenger should come and take life for life, stand in judgment before one who died for his enemies? Would the avenger come, and when? W'ould he come that night? He thought of a gray-haired sire and a sweet-faced mother counting the slowly passing days and waiting for a runaway's return. Would FIIOM TAI'S TILL IIFA'KILLK. he ever return? Would he ever see them again, and place his bloody hands on their snowy heads? He thought, too, of the warrior lying on the mountain side, where he fell, battling against the enemies of his race, with his face turned upward so that God and the avenger of blood could see it, and of those who would watch and wait in vain for his home coming. If he could have returned life, as he had taken it, he would have breathed it into the prostrate form of his dead foeman and sent him unharmed to the squaw that loved him. in her savage way, and the little i)appooses that played about his wigwam. He would have gladdened the heart of an old chief, who rode no more with his tribe, and an old woman whose race was almost run, by bringing to life the stalwart son in whom their loves and hopes centered. He thought— but sleep came at last, and after sleep came reveille. In the morning he was free from fear and his conscience was at rest. While he slept, God wrought. Although he felt that .-:elf-preserva- tion was the first law of ^nature, and that he was guiltless, he prayed that war might pass away and peace reign undisturbed forever. ******* The few veterans of the civil war that remain have made their last march and fought their last battle. Their swords are sheathed, their flags are furled, their arms are stacked. They are growing old and are waiting for taps to sound, know- ing that after taps comes sleep, and after sleep reveille. They FROM TAJ'S TJf/L liEVFALLE. belie\'e in immortalit\-, that after the night of death comes the morning of resurrection. As the}- wait, they talk about their marches and counter-marches, their \ictories and defeats, of the men who marched, and bixouacked, and fought with them, and their faded qvcs, brigiiten as they recall the historic fields their heroism made immortal. In softer tones the\' s|)eak of those who fell out of ranks — -whose generous deeds are unfor- gotten and whose bones hallow the soil that hides them from human siuht. Taps, an invisible drum, is throbbing now. Old men who answered "here," when the\' heard the call for volunteers in sixty-one hear and understand. Lights are out, fires are extinguished, voices are hushed. The heroes .of the republic are entering into their last sleep. The\' are not sinless, these \'eterans of Manassas, and Shiloh, and Cold Harbor. They are few and feeble, but faith abides and courage remains, and they are not afraid. The voice of duty is the voice of God. When it called the}' answered, and He will remember. They felt the uplifting power of great principles and offered them- sel\-es as sacrifices on the altars of their country. They are not withou.t regret, for " war is barbarism and you can't refine it," said one who led his conquering army from Atlanta to the sea, and their li\'es on tented fields and battle plains were not stainless, but they fought, and suffered, and left the conse- FROM TM'S TILL LKVEILLE. V.\ quences with God — the only being to whom they bend the "supple hinges of the knee." They are worn, and withered, and bent, and some are battle scarred. Whether they fought with Grant or Lee, with Sheridan or Forrest, with Farragut or Semmes, they are proud of the past made glorious by their courage and constancy. The)- settled questions that disturbed a Nation's peace and threatened a Nation's life. Some were wrong, no doubt, but the}- were brave. The laurel and the bay are for the brows of men who place their lives in peril for a principle, and suffer for conscience sake Oncoming genera- tions will make due allowance for biased judgments and sec- tional prejudices, and crown all who dared and suffered, whether the)- won or lost. They are strangel)- uniformed, who lie in the darkness wait- ing for sleep to come. Some are in citizens' clothes, some wear blue blouses from Gettysburg, some wear grey coats from Appomattox, and some (be it said to the everlasting shame of an ungrateful people), are clothed in rags, # * * * -* -* * Sleep conquers the last of the volunteers. The drama is finished and the curtain falls. It will rise again when God's buglers sound reveille and the mighty host rises, rank on rank, to salute the Prince of Peace, and there breaks over earth, and sea, and skv, the eternal morning. FliOM TAI'S Tll.L l!i:\'i:iLLK l9enil7an's I^ide. Lenihan, a comrade of mine in the T\vent}--.se\enth United States Infant!-}' and the Indian war of '66 and '67, in tiie Big Horn countr}-, was a handsome young fellow with man\' graces of mind and bod}% although he came from the slums of New York. He was intelligent but illiterate. I have sometimes thought that the ride he made from the hay fields to Fort C. F. Smith, which was a race for life from the starting point until he approached the fort, was one of the most daring ever made voluntarily, and worth}- of honorable mention. The soldiers and teamsters in the hay field made a gallant fight against overwhelming odds and would have been massacred if rein- forcements, brought through Lcnihan's ride, had not reached them before night fully fell. By the Big Horn's sullen flow, Where the Indians hunt and row, . .Soldiers t^aiard the gathered hay; (Quickly, as the lightnings flash. FIIOM TAPS TILL REVFALLL:. At the guards red warriors dash, Hurling death, one autumn day. Ride, Lenihan, ride! Tlie Sioux's war song, From savage throats swells fierce and strong, As they ritle on unmoved by fear, While flows the hated white man's blood, And falls the sunset's golden flood, They chant their death song loud and clear. Ride, Lenihan, ridel Brave men at duty's jiosts. Fight face to face with ])ead-eyed hosts, That swiftly charge and (|uickly disappear. Then come again with harsh, resounding cry. That chills hot blood, while fallen watchers die. And brings to swarthy cheeks the hues of fear. Ride, Lenihan, ride ! The ranks are thinning fast, And some sleej) on though calls the bugle blast, And night and death are drawing nigh; On snowy peaks the yellow sun hangs low. While shadows gather on the plains below, Where wandering night winds soon will sigh. Ride, Lenihan, ridel If falls a starless night, Red, sinewy forms, in its uncertain light. Will glide like serpents o'er the broken wall. FROyr TAPS TILL REVEILLE. That shelters men from love and home away, For whom will never break an earthly day, Above the broodin<' mountains bald anti tall. An Irish boy uncrowned by wealth or lame, Sat like a yod the steed with eyes atiame, That bore him safely on a winding way, With sure, untiring- feet and lightning speed. As if he knew the soldiers' pressing need, Who held, unhelped, the swarming Sioux at bay. From river's brink and yawning, dark ravine. Moved chanting on, with hideous garb and mien, The matchless riders of a fearless race, To intersect where woodlanil yields to plain, They urge their steeds with stinging spur and rein While passion plows each cruel, crafty face. To the same place, where woodland yields to plain, He gallops on and looks not back again, Beyond that point the old fort lifts its walls. Above the clang of hoofs on earth and rock. And cries of men, who join in battle shock. He hears his comrades ringing calls. Unharmed he rides, though arrows cleave the air That fans his cheek and rifts his flowing hair. And leaves behind the vengeful sons of hate; FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLi:. Where dark walls frown he sees a flag afloat, And hears through guarded gate a bugle note, Yet faster rides lest he should be too late. On snowy peaks tlie yellow sun liung low, Wliile shadows gathered on tlie plain below, ( )n river's l)reast and rock-strewn mountain side, When troopers came, where men crouched low. To drive away their fast triumphing foe, And backward turn the battle's moving tide. In border legends of the brave, Live the boy who rode to save, On that fateful autumn day; Live the messenger that brought tleip to hopeless men who fought, While relief was far awav. ^^ FROM TAPS TILL UEVFALLK. §1-ood oAlon^. We stood alone and watched the gleaming sun Sink in its fleecy bed of blue and gold, And felt a blended life had just begun, Whose wealth of joy could not be told. About my yielding neck were fast entwined Her shapely arms, as white as mountain snow, And to my breast, where purest love was shrined I pressed her golden head, long, long ago. We stood alone till darkness veiled the land. And lowering clouds obscured the leaden sky. Hut in the gloom she pressed my brawny hand, As if to say, "Why, sweetheart, you are nigh. On you, so true and strong, I'll ever call, When danger looms and skies are overcast; We're partners now, and you, so brave and tall, W'ili shelter nic till dangers all are past." We stood alone outside the door ajar. One sultry, starlit night in leafy June, And talked of surging hosts on fields afar. Where men must struggle hard and soon. FROM TA1'.S TILL REVEILLE. I, too, had heard the trumpet's angry cry, Had caught the rhythmic sound of marching feet. And must leave her, with courage bounding high, To fight on fields where hostile armies meet. W'c stood alone until tlie trumpet's peal. Borne clear and strong upon the midnight air, Called me to go, come woe or weal. From all that made my young life fair. She pressed her ripe, red lips to mine, Held my bronzed cheeks in her white hands, Then bade me go join the waiting line And march to war with freedom's moving bands. 1 lay alone on many a crimsoned field, Whose furrows, overfull of human blood. Bespoke the stubborn foes that would not yieUl, Until their blood run like a raging flood. Full long I lay among the gallant dead. And heard the wailing cries of stricken men. Who made the pitying earth their dying bed. Afar from homes they would not see again. I lay alone on blood red fields afar From her whose love enriched my lonely life, Who stood without our cottage door ajar And bade me go into the deadlv strife. I'ltOM TM'S TILL nFAKILLK I l)ravely fouji;"ht for home and nati\c land, Till victory came and battle flags were furled. Till God held back war's vengeful hand And sent His peace into a battlint^ world. I stood alone outside the door ajar, One sultry, starlit night in leafy June, And called to her: Come, see my battle scar; Come sing with me some old war tune. Vou heard, with me, the trumpet's angry cry, And caught the rhythmic sound of marching feet, Vou sent me forth, with courage bounding high, To fight on fields where liostile armies meet. I stood alone while light that softly strayed Above her door fought shadows in the hall, I gently called, lest she should be afraid, And smiling, waited for her answering call. It never came -enwrapped in robes of snow, She, whom I called, lay in untroubled sleep. How could she hear my pleading call so low, Or see mc bend my aching head and weep? I stood alone within the little room. Her dear, dead hands had fashioned into life, With her who fought amidst the gathering gloom. With none to help in the unequal strife. IliOM TAPS TILL nEVFJLLE. Whose pilj^rim feet had touched a peaceful land And trod its sunny paths with faultless grace, Somehow, I felt, she blessed the mangled hand That lingered on her pallid, upturned face. FROM TAI'S TILJ. liEVElLJ.E (SrandtDa ISarr\es. Grandpa Barnes sat under a spreading maple one summer afternoon with half shut eyes and compressed lips, scarcely conscious of his surroundings. Me was li\ing in the past, and memory was reproducing the sights and scenes of its hallowed years. He had been a man of commanding presence in his prime, and in his decline looked like a hercules in ruins. His massive brow was crowned with snow}' hair that was once, like his shaggy eyebrows, as black as a raven's wing. His broad back, that had borne burdens for more than an ordinar}- life time, was bent b\- age, and his thin, white hands were folded on his bosom. He was alone. Within calling distance merry children were playing and older people were attending to their affairs or exchanging the courtesies and gossip of the day, but the}' were not in his thoughts. He was an alien, in the world but not of it, a stranger in a strange land. The hurrx'ing throngs on the public streets and the little crowds that gathered under the shadow of his ancestral home were as strangers to him and sj)oke in unknown tongues. The little children who sat around his table and about his fireside lived in the future and knew nothin"' of the FROM TAPS TILL HEVFJLLE precious world in which he dwelt -the shadowless past. Their elders lived in the present and their language was meaningless to him. There was between him and them an imj^assable gulf over which neither could come nor go. Lallie.the onh" woman he had ever loved Lai, he called her, in the dear old daws when she answered back ever}' time he called — was dead. For a score of winters the snow had blanketed her narrow bed under the pines, and for as many summers the birds had sung in the rose tree that shed its fragance and lifted its crimson head above her grave. He thought of her and recalled, one after another, the events that rounded out their lives, Init thought most tenderh" of the time when he sat, with aching- heart and throbbing temples and tear-dimmed e)'es beside the bed from which she was borne away forever; of the words of faith and tenderness that came from dying lips, and how, when she could not speak, she fixed her gaze on him and placed her hand on his bowed head as if to proclaim by look and touch a loxe that was stronger than death. Grandpa had been a soldier, and no bra\'er man e\-cr led a charge or resisted an advance. On a hotly contested field he had snatched a flag from a falling standard bearer, planted it within the enemies' lines and rallied his comrades about it. The broken sword and tarnished epaulettes in the big cedar trunk, in his upper room, were fairly earned and worthil\- worn. The men who touched elbows with him, when martial hosts were gathering, and marched under the same battle 24 FROM TAPS TILL IlEVKLLLE. flags had passed out of ranks. The\- had heard an invisible captain calling their names, and like soldiers who were never absent when the roll was called, had answered " Here." He thought of them and, as he thought, the cords wo\en on bixouacs and battle-fields bound them closer together. The pioneer parson, who went to his appointment with a rilTe in one hand and a Bible in the other, had gone to join the silent majority. The parson had heard the vows when he and Lallie were married, and had kissed, once only, the lips that ever afterward belonged to him. He and the parson were good friends for more than half a centur}'. The\' sle])t many times under the same roof and worked " In His Name" before the parson had heard a voice saying: "Vour work is done; come up higher!" \'es, he thought of the parson, as he sat under the shelter- ing maple, and of his first born, who went into battle and never came out again, who found a grave with the unknown, on the field where the\- bowed to death and will sleep in peace until re\eille is sounded by God's trumpeters and the}' awake in a warless world. He firmly believes that they, like enchant- ed warriors, are bountl for a season; but someday, escaping from the power that holds them, will pass from dreamless sleep into unfailing life and live forever. Grandpa was almost asleep. He was wear\', oh. so w ear\-, and God sent sleep, sometimes when the sun was shining, to gi\e him strength for the morrow. He needed rest and comradeship and pra)X'd FIIOM TAJ'S TJLI. liFAKIl.LK. that his pili];-riniai^e,amoii<;- those who did not li\e in his world, niii^ht be short. Somehow he felt that his force was spent and that he was in the wa\' of N'ouni^er people who could not understand, and did not lo\e him, like Lallie and the parson did. Voy four score years he hid been a ]nl^rim with his face set toward Jerusa- lem. As he mo\ed from milestone to milestone his j)ath was often obscured, and sometimes hidden b\- hjwering clouds, but faith pierced them and he pressed on, guided by the beckon- im;, imdimmetl lig^hts of the eternal cit}' which t^rew stron<^er and brighter as he neared the mysterious line where the biu'- dens of life roll off and age takes on perpetual youth. Grandpa was nexer hopeless or des[)airing. When he was a little bo}' his mother gave him a Bible for a Christmas gift, which he read xery carefulU'. I le coukl not understand ever}'- thing in it, but he thought a great deal about the promises, and when he was a man, whether in the depths or on the heights, he belie\ed in and rested on them. Grandpa fell asleep and his chin rested heavih' upon his breast, while his head rolled uneasil}' from side to side. A fair young girl, forsaking her companions on the pla\' ground, ran to him and gentl\- awakened him from his slumbers. .She sat lightly upon his trembling knees; and as she plowed his snowy hair with her slender fingers, called him a laz\', old rascal told him to wake up and be sociable while she was around, and when he smiled she threw her arms around his \ielding neck. FROM TAPS TILT. REVEILLE. pillowed her sunny head upon his bosom, and kissini^ his bloodless lips again and again, called him her dear, naught}- old grandpa. Grand[)a was transformed. His face was lumin- ous, and his eyes borrowed a light that was not of earth. God's promises are sure. He had lost much, but love was left and love is heaven. Grandpa must wait awhile, but not long, for the tide which carried him out is ebbing now. Some day heaven will open to receive him, and one will come to guide him through chilly waters across its shining portals, and in that far-off land, untouched by sorrow and unclouded by care, Lallie and the parson with his comrades who so promptly answered " here" when their names were called, and the boy who made his grax'e with the unknown, will bid him good morn- ing. The)' will look earthward and talk, I doubt not, as the}' walk on streets of gold and beside cr}'stal waters of the fair }'oung girl who brought the smiles to grandpa's face one summer afternoon. ^:h FUOM TAJ'S TILL liKVEILLE. §omG Pacts aAboat (/9omen. While I have al\va\-s advocated the rights of women and expect to do so until ni}' lips are scaled by one who silences whom He will, I regret to see a tendencx- among some of our modern advocates of ecjual rights to malign the Christian church. With all its faults and its inabilit)' or unwillingness to recognize and act upon the broad principles laid down b\- its founder, it has been, in past ages, and is now, the friend of women and has done more to exalt them than any other organization on earth. While the church, theoretically and practically, places women in a subordinate position and denies them the equality to which they are clearly entitled, christ- ian men are adopting more liberal views about women, and con- tinualU' adding to their rights and enlarging their privileges, and the time will come in which the church will be what Jesus Christ intended it should be— a pure republic. .Sacred and profane histor\' establish the fact that the man of Galilee was the unwavering friend of women when he was upon the earth, and tradition adds its testimon\- to the same fact. I'liOM TM'S TILL nLVLILLK. I can understand how a sensualist, who re^^ards sensual pleasure as the chief end of life, and, regarding women as pleasure producers craxes unlimited power over them, can speak contemptuously of Him and the s\-stem of religion He came to establish; but I cannot understand how any enlight- ened woman, who knows how many blessings He brought to her sex, when it was degraded, can do so. The man who talked with the woman at the well and wrote in the sand was the avowed enem}' of the social system which made the unre- strained sensualist a possibility, and I am not surprised when I hear him taking up the cry started in the streets of Jerusalem nineteen centuries ago, "Away with Him," "Crucify Him," "Crucify Him." I gi\e below some facts concerning the condition of women in lands where the influence of Christianity was not felt that I ha\e gathered from \'arious authentic sources: I'nder the Roman law, w hich underlies and is embodied in our modern laws, the women were always discriminated against, not excepting the period when free marriages were allowed. The father was the center of authorit}' in the famil}-. The mother had no e.xclusixe authority oxer her own children. The husband had absolute confrol ox'cr his wife's propert}'. B}- marriage a woman lost her famil\' rights and could bequeath nothing to her relatixes. She was consideretl a sister to her own children and the adopted daughter of her husband, who had ox'er her the power of life and death, (iaius imputed /•V.'O.l/ T.II'S TILL ni'.VEILLE. 2!) to woman " levity of mind"; Cicero "infirmity of purpose," and Seneca characterized her as "a foolish, wild creature, incapa- ble of self control." B\' the old Teutonic Tribes she was assigned a secondar\- place. A husband could be an absolute t\'rant and could put out the eyes and break the limbs of his wife. A wife was purchased like any other piece of property b}' a husband who had the unquestioned right to sell, punish or kill her. Among the Greeks women were perpetual infants, and a public woman, however talented, was considered immoral. In japan her condition was but little better, and in China and India it was worse. Confucius pronounced a woman no better than a slave, and hard to manage. He said: "Ten daughters do not equal one son. When she is }'oung she must obe}' her father or elder brother, when married she must obey the husband, when a widow she must obey her son; she must not come to any conclusion of her own deliberation." While in China \-ou couldn't bu)' a bo\' at an}' price you could bu\' a girl for a dime. Girl babies were slaughtered by thous- ands because the}' were not wanted and were regarded as curses rather than blessings. Budtlha, who believed in the transmigration of souls held out one hope to woman — one onl}- the possibilit\- that she might sometime or other become a man. The Brahmin would not permit a woman to read the Veda. .She nas con- sidered soulless without a man. .She was commanded to obey ;50 FllOM TAJ'S TILL liKVFJLLE. her husband without questioning, when he was living, and to be burned on his funeral pyre when he was dead. ]\Ioliammed treated women with contempt. When a son was born to a Moslem his friends congratulated him, when a daughter came the}- consoled him the best they could. The Arab sayings, " trust neither a king, nor a horse, ijor a woman," and that "women are whips of the de\'il" are not meaningless. In the beginning of the race the struggle for existence was terrific, and physical strength was esteemed the most valuable possession. Women being ph\'sically weak had to be pro- tected and were classed with children and despised accord- ingly. The)' were good for nothing in particular but to act as servants, bear children and gratify the lusts of men. The qualities which distinguish refined womanhood now were then unrevealed, or if revealed were imappreciated by men who acknowledged the reign of lust and felt the greed of power. A man's wife was his slave without any rights that he was bound to respect. Tennyson apth' expresses the relation a wife of that day sustained to her husband after the marriage was full}' consummated: "He shall hold thee wjien liis passicjn shall have spent its novel force, Somethincr better than his doi,^ a little dearer than his horse." China boasts of a ci\'ilization as old as the race. In that country women were counted inferior to men in cx'ery way. Confucius taught that the female se.x was created for the con- venience of the male. Pol)'gamy was practiced. A man's FHOM TAJ'S TILL UFA' TULLE. '6\ first wife was usually chosen from a family of equal rank. The inferior wives were usually purchased. Marital unfaithfulness was recog.nizeci as a sin only on the part of a wife, and a hus- band had the right to kill a wife who committed adulter}-. He, however treacherous he may have been, did not commit adultery except with a married woman, when some other man's possession was interfered with. In Japan a man could ordinarily have but one wife but as many concubines as he desired. Although Japanese women were essentialh' low in the social scale the}' were more fortu- nate than their sisters in man}- other barbarous or imchristian nations. Women were regarded as inferior by Buddhists and Brahmins alike, and lightly esteemed. Says the Hetopadera: "A woman is chaste when there is neither place, time nor person to afford her an opportunit}' to be immoral." A poem widely cjuoted in Ceylon sa}-s: I've seen the adum'Dra tree in flower, wiiite plumage on the crow, And fishes footsteps in the tleep have traced through el^h and How. If man it is who thus asserts his word you may beheve, But all that woman says distrust, she speaks hut to deceive. Mrs. DiUTo}' says: In (Oriental cotmtries and among Mo- hammedans particularl}-, women are recognized as haxing been created but for one purpose to gratify sensual passion, and as presenting but one predominant attribute, that of sen- SLialit}'. Among the wandering tribes of Central, Western and Northern Asia a wife was generall}- regarded as a thinjj \nw- FliOM TAPS Til J. nilVEILLi: chased and the property of her husband. Pol3'gann- was not exceptional. '.Submission on the part of the wife was s}-ni- bolized in some way when the nuptials were celebrated. One tribe required the bride to pull off her husband's boots as a si-oung may die, the old must." As age ad\'ances the Liospel of peace and good will take on a more enchanting sound and thrills them as it has never done before It is like the ripple of cooling waters to th(xse who leave the rainless desert behind them. They remember the weaknesses, but reverence the memor\', of those who have passed out of ranks into the land of shadows. They can not forget their comrades who, wrapped in their bloodx- shirts, rest on the fields where they met death with honor. .Somehow the\- belie\e and sing They wear tlie deathles-S crowns their vah»r won And tread with tircle.ss feet the shiniiii,'^ way lleyond the y;ates ajar. FROM TAPS TILL HEVEILLIJ. ^ess. You rave about Ellen so youiij; and fair, Her l)lushes and dini])les and sunnv hair; You envy the breezes that (hmce and play With her tempting tresses the livelong day. You sing of her ])outing and rul)v lips, The thrill they send to your linger tijis, Of the clinging arms and the melting kiss. That makes your soul a sea of bliss. She is i.retty and vvin.sonie, but I confess, She can't comjiare with mv statelv Jess, Wliose raven crown ])Uts night to shame, Whose dauntless spirit none can tame; Who stands erect with cpieenlv grace, And shows tiie world a fearless face, Where coui^age nestles and power sleejis, Wliere beautv lingers ami passion weejis. Her \'oice ri:ig"^ like a trumpet's blare. When tempe-ts rage in her bosom fair. But softly woos when storms subside, Like the soothing song of an t'bbing tide; Love haunts the depths of hei- taunting eye; Fh'OM TAPS TILL ItllV FJ LLE. But fears comniiiiLj^le with tears and siLi,lis, Wlien 1 see her .uo, witli willing; feet, To the trystint; |ihice where she will meet, A liaiulsonier man tliaii I. She is cold and i,M-ave, Init tj:raei()iis tod. Whenever I call to "bill and co," l)Ut the toss of her head unner\es me so, I ran not unfold mv "tale of woe;" I can't sav, "Sweetheart, hear nie now, My vows beliex'e, my |ira\ers allow," Dut sit and stammer, while ill at ease. And shi'ink from one who is sure to jdease — A liandsomer' man than I. She is |)ious and |iroud, and jieople say. She is t,n-ace itself when she kneels to |>ray, She reads rare hooks and ])a|)ers, too, And knows the tricks that cliarmers do; She plays the flute and the violin. In her cosy home as "neat as a jiin," Her cheeks are rosy, hut not with jiaint. And the dinner she cooks will tempt a saint. And a handsomer man than I. I love her madly and yet I know She tlunks me a la.^Kard, 1 dally so, I am .uoiui^: to make a ^^allant tiL,dit, And win or lose her this \erv ni>;ht; FllOM TAPS TILL IIFA'EU.LK. She is w'ortli the winninij, \es, I ween, Nauj,rlit fairer or purer on eartli is seen — \\m vvill marry v.air Kllen, well I ,i,aies.s, 1 won't surrender uiy stately Jess, To a handsomer man than i. 1-S^^5«^- FIIOM TAJ'S TILL IIEVEILI.E. §Cold l+er Gv)Gry Da^. 'ARODY ON "KISS HER F.VI'.KV DAY, Says a charmintj sin,arried. Scold her e\er\- dav. Tell her you will ne\er miss hei, If she u'oes awav. That you'll flirt with Gene and kiss ker Forty times a dav. Tell her she is not your crown. Always lea\e her with a frown. Never keeji your temper down, Scold her everv dav. Winter, sunnner, rain or shine, Always sulk and blame. Spring or autumn, alwavs wliine She's a shrew to tame. Tell her she is cross and cold. Common, siirunken, urowinLj old, Other wives are j^^ood as ,ijold, Scold her everv dav. When there's somethint: vvrons;- with l>aby, Scold her e\ery day, She is sick and tired, maybe. Scold lier any way. Scold her when hrr soul is sad, FROM TAPS TILL REVEfLLF. Scold Ikt wIk-ii her lieart is ,!j:1;i<1, Be yourlu.me life ,^^(...(1 ..r bad, Scold her every day. If she coyly comes behind \-ou, Like a child at play, C.ently throws her arms around you, Dasli them off, I pray; Tell lier that her touch disturbs you, When she comes, as if to woo l^ack the love that once was true. Scold her e\ery day. If you see her tear drops rise, \\'i|)e them not away. If she weeps siiow no surprise. It is woman's wa\. Tell her when .she sobs and si^lis, She is ULjIy when she cries. Crying wives all men despise. Scold her everv dav. If she begs you for a kiss, Scowl and turn away, Though she does not ask amiss, Scold her anyway. Do not think of other days, ( )f \i)Ui' old-time tender ways, (jive not words of lo\ e or praise. Scold her everv dav. 48 FJiOM TAI'S TILL J! KVJJJ LLK lror\ Bull, ft]G (;roW ^l^ief. Among the Indians who visited our fort on the Hig Horn river were Iron Bull and his squaw. He was a superb speci- men of physical manhood and had won renown by his prowess and feats of valor in many hard fought battles. .She was an attracti\e woman in man\' wa>'s, and superior to her dusky sisters in every respect. Poets and writers of thrilling ro- mances have raved about pretty Imlian women, but they are extremely scarce, as every one who has li\-ed among our Western tribes well knows. Iron Bull was a malignant enem_\' but a faithful friend, and had shown himself to be a sterling friend and ally of the whites. At one time he, with some other chiefs, had gone to Washington to see and confer with the great "White l^\ather," and was greatly impressed w ith the wonderful sights he saw and awed by the numbers and superior intelligence of the pale faces. .After this visit he opposed war with the whites, and having plighted his faith, resisted all the efforts of the \'ounger bucks to \iolate the treat)' and go on the war path. Tall, muscular and graceful, he was fierce but majestic in his bear- ing. No imperial pt)tentate e\er sat upon a throne or trod FIIOM TAJ'S TILL REVEILLE. 49 the earth with more dignity, or greater pride, than this moc- casined and befeathered Chief of the Crows. He had achieved distinction by bravery and skill in battle and was as proud of his conquests as Napoleon could have been of his \ictories, and would never tire of describing the blood}' conflicts in which he had engaged with alien tribes, and the trophies he had won from the Sioux and Blackfeet. He was very vain of his showy apparel and gorgeous trappings. Half barbarian as he was, he had too much respect for the whites to display the scalps he had torn from the heads of his victims, for before he had come in contact with civilization he was as cruel and blood-thirsty as any other savage in that great hunting ground, "The home of the Crows." His wife had taken on man\' of the graces and refinements of christian people, and the writer remembers many delight- ful visits made b}- him and his comrades to her tent, and pleasant conversations with her and her husband. She had obtained a number of pictures, photographs of army ofificers, and little souvenirs from the few whites she had met, and she prized them very highly. When any of our men visited her she brought out her little "keep-sakes" and curiosities and exhibited them, giving in her broken English explanations about each article, not unlike an ingenuous country woman in her simplicity and desire to entertain, showing her guests her latest calico dress or the crazy quilt she has just completed. She was f|uite hospitable and desired to please her callers and FROM TAPS TTLL UFA'KILLE. win words of commendation from them. No society queen in any of the social circles of our i,n-eat cities could have displayed greater tact as a hostess than this untutored, semi-civilized, woman. This sketch is written to show how savagery yields to civili- zation and christian principle exalts the barbarous. Iron Bull was brave. No man dared, except at the peril of his life, to question his courage; but, like all warriors who live by the hunt and the chase and go to war, he was, so far as work was concerned, lazy, and would smoke or sleep while his wife carried wood and built fires upon which the venison he brought in was broiled or roasted. The country was a hunt- er's paradise, overrun by buffalo, bear, deer, elk, antelope and jack rabbits, and he was a mighty Nimrod— with his arrows he had slain many of the wild beasts that roamed in the valleys or prowled in the mountains. We. who were "pilgrims in a strange land" will never wholly forget the rugged warrior and his kind-hearted squaw. For months at a time we never heard the voice, or looked into the face, of a white woman and the hours spent by us in their wigwam, nestling in the shadow of the great mountain, will abide with us as long as memory reproduces the sights and scenes of our vanished years. It ma\' be that the place that knew these noble descend- ants of a dying, but heroic race, knows them no more. It is not improbable that the\- have gone to the "happy hunting FROM TAI'S TJI.L IIEVKILLE. grounds," reserved by the Great Spirit for good Indians. Somehow we believe it is well with them, whether they walk together in the evening of life, or have passed out of its hurl\'-burly, into the land of shadows. They were rude and uncultured, but, when they saw the light they moved toward it, and our scriptures surely teach that at the end of every searcher's path stands Jesus, the great Revealer. We, who shared their generous hospitality, de\outly hope that they li\'e in peace or tread the highways of a fairer world, where the death song never floats on the startled air and the war cry is never heard calling the braves to battle and to death. FROM TAJ'S TILL IIKVEILLE §moo+l7in^ \\iq 09rint^les ®uf. Wliy! what are you s To smoothe his furrowed brow. He is battered and old, oh babv m And weary of pain and strife, The last to fight, of a noble line, On the battle fields of life. FROM TAI'S TILL liFAEILLE All gone are the comrades of long ago, Who answered the trumjiets call, When the clouds of war were hanging 1 O'er valley and mountain tall. \'(iu ha\e winged your way, oh hahy m From a realm of changeless light. To brighten the way of one. in time. Who threads his way l)y night; To lay on the withered breast of age, Your masses of sunny hair, And dri\'e from a he;irt, where ])assioiis The phantoms of dark despair. You have brought the light, oh babv mi Tograndjia's troubled face. As I watch it softly beam and sliine. Like a star agleam in space. I bless the sweet \oice, soft and low. And the girl that turned about. To say. "I love my grand|)a so I'm smoothing the wrinkles out.' FIIOM TM'S TILL IIEVKILLE. C/9l7Gr\ tl7G Daylight (;onqaers \[\<^\. She sat on my kiu-c, in the loni,r atjo, A pratthnjj,- child of tlirco, And voiced, in sweet tones soft and low, Her l)oundless lo\ e for me. She .stroked mv hair and touched my face With her dimjiled hn,i.,^ers white; Then niakin.i,^ my arms her resting; place, She waited the cominL,'^ nis,dit. As it slowly fell we sat and dreamed 'Neath the .sheltering- maple tree, While floods of li^ht that l)ri,u:htly beamed Rolled downward into the sea. The zephvrs fanned my sun-browned face, Stirred .irently her locks of ^old — And we fell asleeji in our trystint,^ jilace, While the banner of ni.srht unrolled. I tlreamed that a reai)er, yaunt and ^rim Came searching; for golden i;rain. That rii)ened in fields detiled by sin, In a gruesome valley of pain. FROM TAPS TTLL REVETLLE. I shrank from his fateful (lee]>-set eyes- His withered l)ir(l-like liaiul Wliile chiuds ()l)scured the starless kies And darkness veiled the land. He swept, with his eyes, my startled face. My shrunken form, and old. But chose one fairer, and full of grace. For the Shepherd's upper fold. When he waved his wand, a sunny head Found a jiillow snowy white, .\iul I crietl aloud for my baby dead, 'Till the daylight conquered night. I will see in hea\en, now bending Icjw, My |)rattling child of three. Who voiced in sweet tones, soft and low Her lioundless love for me. .She will stroke my hair and touch my face With her dimjiled fingers white. And make my arms her resting place. When the daylight coiujuers niglit. FROM TAI'S TILL TiEVElLLE. C/9t?y ®ne Drummer pell. Arthur started on his trial trip without realizing- what it meant to him and what deplorable results would follow his de- parture. His home was a little heaven, where love reigned and its daily ministrations made life worth living His bright- eyed, sunny haired, wife was loving and resourceful, and he never knew when some new rcx'elation would show how she planned for his happiness. lie always accepted and returned kisses and caresses, but did not appreciate them full}' until he reached the outsitle world, where the\- were for others and not for him. The children that came one by one into his heart and life never grew weary of showing their childish faith and love in touching and tender wa\'s, and the young folks in his neighborhood seemed tireless in their efforts to show him how much he was to them. When he went awa\- he found that faith and love and tokens of appreciation, that make the sum total of human bliss, had a great deal to do with the happiness of former days before he went out into the world to conquer fortune. He had kissed his wife and chiUlrcn and the tearful lasses who came to see him off, and with man)' protestation of affec- tion, sjone to the train. When he nas seated in the smoker. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. where he went, because he was slightly unnerved, and drum- mers were in the habit of doing so, he began to feel that some- thing had gone out of his life, but he was determined to show clear grit and dismissed, as unmanly or inconvenient, many little heart-suggestions abou.t home-life being the best life, and pre- pared for his battle royal, his first attack on a hard-headed, miserly old customer who was to be talked into bu}-ing some- thing he didn't want, or to drive him ingloriously from the field. One thing seemed strange to him. His life had been lived in pleasant places and women entered into every day's doings, but in the future they were to be ruled out. The hackman that hauled him to the depot was a man; the manager that gave him instructions was a man; the clerk that furnished him his price list was a man; the agent that sold him his railroad ticket was a man; the conductor that punched it was a man; the news agent that sold him the paper, that he read with the assurance of one widely traveled, while he puffed the cigar that a man had sold him, was a man; when he left the omnibus, driven by a man, at the door of a hotel kept by a man; the clerk that si/x-d him up, while he registered, was a man; a man showed him to his room, and his breakfast was served by a man; after breakfast he went to the postofflce with a man, and received his mail from a man; desiring to send a telegram, the oi)erator, a man, received his message; a man shaved him while another man shined his shoes, and then he went up town to see a man. This was to be his life and the thought chilled him, FROM TAPS TILL liEVEILLE. but he was not undone. Sunday was not far off and there would be some change, he thought. Sunday came and a man at the hotel, where he was stopping asked him to go to Sunday school. The invitation was accept- ed and he was soon in the place where sex distinctions are not so closely drawn. The hand-shaker, a man, met him at the door and introduced him to another man. The superintendent, a man, invited him to go into the men's Bible class, taught by a man. After the exercises were over he went up stairs, into the audience room, and heard a man preach a powerful sermon about a man. Nausea breeds discontent, and sameness wear- ies. Arthur was a domestic man; one of the rare creatures God sends into the world once in a while, that delights in lov- ing and being loved, and in ninety days of enforced abstinence and heart starvation he li\'ed a century, so he felt. He loved women, as all good men, whether drummers or not, do, and was sick unto death of the whole man business. With him anything in petticoats was above par and he would have appre- ciated a tctc-a-tctr with a woman. though she was ignorant and uncann)', more than he would have enjoyed an interview with the greatest wit that ever wore breeches. He was filled to the brim with natural affection and there was no one within reach upon whom he could lavish it. If he courtesied to some ancient maiden lady she withered him with a frown or called a policeman. If he asked some prett\' maiden the way to some place, he knew all about before asking, she seemed to FROM TAl'S TILL REVEILLE. divine his purpose and gave some flippant answer or passed him in silence with her nose out of balance. He received let- ters from home, in which the whole neighborhood sent kisses, but the envelopes were not big enough to hold veK'ct lips to touch his own and snowy hands to press his red brawn. As time passed on he felt that love, apart from its object, was not what it ought to be, and that its intensity and perma- nence depended largely on personal contact. He could love his wife of course — though she was far away — and she could love him, but the caresses that love gives could not scale mountains and swim rivers, and such love was a very tame thing after all. While waiting for trains time hung heavily on his hands, and he learned to play poker as a pastime, but soon disco\'ered that playing for small sums made the game much more excit- ing. He had been an abstainer from boyhood, and his wife would have cried until her eyes were as red as the necktie he wore when she first met him at a country picnic, if she had detected the smell of liquor on his breath, and the dear girls in his Sunday school class would have been shocked if they had seen him enter a saloon, but somehow he felt that virtues were for simple-mindegl folks, and vices for men and women of the world, who require something exhilerating to make them enjoy life that the homely virtues, well enough in common peo- ple, could not give. He felt that an occasional drink with the boys would do no harm, and the desire for comradeship being very strong he disposed of an}' scruples that may have obtruded (iO FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. themselves, and being in Rome did as the Romans did. At home he has a choice library of carefully selected books and magazines and he and his wife grew nearer and dearer to each other as they read and discussed their favorite authors and poets. He noticed that very few of his associates read religious, scientific, or historical works, and concluded to while avva>' a rainy afternoon and get abreast of the times by reading one of Ouidas' most sensational stories. He found it very interest- ing, not so much because her language was rich and her sen- tences beautifulh' rounded, but because there was so much in it about women, not unapproachable, prudish, proper women, but women who never had an\' scruples about meeting strangers without the formalitx' of an introduction. He laid aside the wholesome works he once enjoyed and revelled in the unadul- terated nastiness of French and American realists of the baser sort. By doing so he surel\\ but unconsciously, lowered his moral standard and cheapened his estimate of the lowly vir- tues that distinguish the pure in heart. When a trio of old campaigners, who had dallied with him o\cr their social cups, suggested that they call on some ladies, not overly nice but decidedly chic, he was prepared to go and went with them. The river was crossed that rolled between the cleaner world with its happy homes and stalwart \'irtues and the other world where vice disrupts and sensuality degrades. He did not see the end from the beginning, but simply intended to vary the monotony of his life by playing with a temptress and seeing FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. something of the underworld, and as many another fool before him had done, rushed, like an unthinking horse, into danger. He did not realize that he had made a mistake and over- estimated his strength until it was too late. Living, as he had so long, a pure life among simple minded people who loved God and each other, he did not understand the resistless power of wine and women. A man inflamed by wine and scourged by passion, is powerless when assailed by a designing woman, with sensuous grace and beauty, who has caught the gleam of his gold and simulates a passion she does not feel to fill her purse. A man, however brave and talented, who places himself in the power of an abandoned woman is hopelessly involved unless he is willing to defy public opinion and flaunt his depravit}' in its face, no matter how much he may loathe himself and the life he leads. He dare not reveal his sin to the woman he has so cruelly wronged and the friends whose confidence he has abused, and so his life becomes a perpetual lie. He dare not neglect to feed the avarice of the woman who knows his secret and can expose him at any time. Heaven has ordained that there shall be two parties to every sin against chastity, and no guilty man is safe until death removes the participant in his debauch. From city to city, and from continent to continent, drift the lost women of the world, carrying with them the names and faces of those whose passions they have fed, and their conquests are published from lip to lip. The fear of exposure makes him a coward. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. and cowardice is the prolific mother of hypocrites. With self- respect not wholly gone he is ashamed to associate with pure women, as he once did, on terms of equality, but cannot, on account of those he loves, withdraw from good society alto- gether. The desire for companionship remains, and the spell of the woman whose feet take hold on hell is upon him. Though he knows that the love that monc)- buys is spurious and a general commodity for sale to the highest bidder, he feeds upon the unwholesome remnant she offers him in exchange for the gold that he filches from his wife and chil- dren. He naturally seeks his level and selects for boon com- panions those who care little or nothing for the decencies of life. Arthur is not a happy man. He feels unfit for the com- pany of the pure and has too much of the divine in him to be satisfied in the society of the impure. He is a citizen of neither world, and like a man without a country, is a victim of unrest and disappointment. The apples of Sodom were beautiful, but they did not satisfy. The desire to love some- thing goaded him. The desire to be loved became a con- suming passion. Step by step he trod the downward wa}', and evil associations, vicious literature, and strong drink helped to stimulate the desires that drove him down. Memory goads and conscience whips and self-loathing embitters his life. Having lost confidence in himself, his faith in others is shaken. In his better moods he hates the double life he is compelled FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. to lead but hasn't the courage to give it up. Men say that he ought to abandon his e\il ways; and he ought, but the knowl- edge that he has fallen and played the hypocrite makes him fearful, irresolute and unbelieving. FROM TM'S TILL UEVKITJ.E. ^\lQ I^Gunior\. When the "boys in blue" broke ranks thirty years ago the largest volunteer arnu' ever marshalled in the Western world was permanently disbanded. Death has o\ercome many who were victors then and only a remnant remains to enjoy the peace their valor won. Those who have been mustered out forexer were not fault- less, but their fame will grow brighter as the wt)rld grows older, and they will li\-e, in histor}' and song, as long as men are moved b\' heroic deeds and wonien exalt courage and con- stanc}'. Those who are waiting for their final discharge will soon join their fallen comrailes and ".Sleep the sleej) that knows no wakin^^" until God orders the unixersal roll call. When namni-- caniiuii hiirie.l tlieir shot aiid shell 'C.ainst Siinipter's walls the stainless flasj; unfurled .\l)()\e her hei^ius receixed their leaden rain. Our country called. l'"roin e\ery nook and dell In this broad land the smoke from cani|i tires curled, .And marcduui;" men caught uji the ^lad I'cfrain; "The star spangled bamiei' in triumph shall wave O'er the lan.l of the free and tlie home of the brave." FROM TM'S TILL UFA' ElLLll From |.e:uffiil hills and vallt-ys smiliiiK- fair. She hadt us K(i int.) tlic- deadly strife Where Titans ,L,M-a|.|»liu,Lr stood. 'Ihe war drum's throb boi-ne on the startled ai The trum])et's cry and scream of an.^ry rife Inspired our martial brotherhood. We southward marched. ( )ur concjuerint,^ columns stront,^ Faced serried hosts 'neath Southern sun and star With battle flame and lines of ,i,ditterins steel Fought storm and flood, on liurried marches loni;, And raL,Mn,L; thirst from coolint; draughts afar Heard hun,t,rer call above the cannon's peal. Four years we fouL(ht an ever chani,nn^- right, Sometimes we raised the victor's ringing shout Sometimes our bugles called retreat; Our watchword this: "Our Ood will sjiced the right, Put freedom'-s foes to sure unrallying rout, And send them sore defeat." Not all who marched with us in sixty-one Are marching neath our tattered flags tc^-day— They watch us from afar; They wear the deathless crowns their valor woi And tread with tireless feet the shining way I?eyond the gates ajar. 06 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. No braver men e'er trod the quivering earth Than those who met us on ensanguined fields 'Neath sunny Southland sky; Some were plebeian born and some of gentle birth, They periled all and lost and now their shields In broken fragments lie. The men who followed Sherman to the sea, And fought with Grant till victory was won. Salute the men in gray; The broken ranks of Jackson and of Lee, Who bravely fought until tlie tight was done. Then cast their arms away. Above the stars shall march in coming years The blended hosts of our heroic dead. Clothed with immortal youth; The Prince of Peace shall calm their rising fears. Drive thrist away and feed with living ])read The stalwart sons of truth. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Salufe ^our (;l7ief, SUGGESTED PA' THE DEATH OF \V. B. WYLIE. Salute your chief ! Bend low each youthful head, While passes by your loved but fallen chief. He ruled you long, but with the conciuered dead Now calmly sleeps despite your poignant grief. No war drum's throb leads on his funeral train, No scream of hfe cleaves through the air, To join, with trumpet cries, in martial strain, No flags enshroud his stalwart form so fair. Salute your chief ! Bend low each youthful head. He, helpless now, moves with the cortege on, To the bleak house where rest the waiting dead, And darkness broods until the breaking dawn; The gloom dispelling dawn, that hunts the graves Where dead men wait the coming of their King, Who slays in love, and conquers whom he saves. Then calls them forth with angel's trumpet ring. Salute your chief I Bend low each youthful head. And mourn for him who will not come again G8 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. And lead your blended ranks, as once he led, Through fields of Ifght that dot a sombre plain; Help scale the heights where knowledge sways And wisdom's floods in ceaseless torrents pour, Where tempters never lure from learning's ways, And myriad minds, enriched, unfettered, soar. Salute your chief! Rend low each youthful head, And weejj for him, who, forceful, firm and kind. Loved well the youth his broader knowledge fed. Revealing truths they, searching, could not find. You felt no tyrant's harsh, unreasoning sway, Ikit ever saw the hantl, outstretched in love, That helped you gain, each swiftly passing day, A greater good — a thought gleam from above. Salute your chief ! Bend low each youthful head To him who passes on, and out, forevermore. And soon will lie with the unanswering dead Whose teet do never touch this mortal shore. Xo war drum's throb leads on his funeral train, No scream of fife clea\es through the air, To join, with trumpet cries, in martial strain; No flags enshroud his stalwart form so fair, But strong men sob and women gently wee]), While childhood wails its loving, last good-bye. And o'er the form love could not always keep The children's tear laved wreaths caressing lie. FllOM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. ^\lQ Poodle and \\iq )s[oodle. AN EPISODE IN CHARLIE S CHECKERED LIFE. See sweet Mary's smitten noodle, Kneeling at her slippered feet, See her jealous, whiskered poodle, Fiercely tear liis tender meat. See sweet Mary's weeping noodle, Sjjrawl upon the parlor floor, See the shaggy, savage poodle, Rend the stunning clothes he wore. See sweet Mary's vanquished noodle. Standing by the mantel tall, And her vicious, warlike poodle, Crouching low beside the wall. See sweet Mary's blushing noodle. Moving backwards to the door. While the noodle-eating poodle, Smacks his lips and calls for more. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. See sweet Mary's wounded noodle, Lying on his troubled face, Hear him swear at Mary's poodle. And the scars he can't efface, See sweet Mary hug^ the poodle. That has fed on noodle meat, While she laughs about the noodle. And his trousers incomplete. Love sick noodles, watch the poodles, If you want to rise cominete. For the poodles hate the noodles. When they kneel at Mary's feet. FROM TM'S TILL REVEILLE. DGclara+ior\ of principles. "In introducing- nn^ machines", says a Texas sewing machine agent, "to an ignorant and unthinking, but intelligent and dis- criminating public, I beg the privilege of sa}ing: "They are the best, and will remain so, until I arrange to handle an entirely new line. I have sold every reputable and disreputable machine introduced into Texas, in the last decade, and have contributed to the happiness of my customers by alwa}'s recommending every machine sold as unapproachable in merit and strictly first-class in every particular. "By buying in large quantities and ne\'er paying for the goods, I am enabled to offer exceptional inducements to buy- ers, and being legally irresponsible and absolutely conscience- less, I cheerfully warrant every machine I sell for an\' length of time the customer may desire. "My opinions are fixed, but flexible; firm, but \arying. I recognize and comment with great earnestness on the enor- mities of the liquor traffic when in the society of total ab- stainers and prohibitionists and insist that State and National prohibition is necessary to sustain the life of the republic, perpetuate its institutions, and promote the peace and pros- perity of its sons and daughters. We are in imminent, deadly FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. peril, and the saloon must go. However, I can not refrain from expressing my profound sympathy for all saloonists who are contending with more than Spartan courage against the merciless and destructixe hosts of temperance and fanati- cism in defense of personal liberties and constitutional rights. I am ready and willing to aid them in their heroic struggles. "As occasion demands I identif}' myself with the Baptist, Methodist, Presb\terian or Christian church, and affiliate, if necessary, with the Catholic. Episcopal and independent and dissenting religious bodies. Although I unequivocally en- dorse the principles of these organizations, I am an atheist, infidel, agnostic and free thinker. "I bclive in and practice monogamy, but adx'ocate polyga m\' within certain geographical limits. "While I recognize the right of the goxernment to punish crimes against society and suppress lawlessness by prohibiting and punishing whatexer is \icious and hurtful, though it may occur under the sanction and in the name of religion, I hold that every man has a right, as a religionist, to do as he i^leases, and that no power has a right to interfere with him in the exercise of his God given righis. " .Vlthough I am a Democrat, one of the unwashed, unterri- fied kind, unreconstructed and unreconstructible, for reasons satisfactory to mj'self, I \ote with the Republican party and endorse its principles. While I do this I am in perfect accord with the Mugwumps and f^opulists. I believe in a single and FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. double money standard and the single tax theory as advocated by Henry George. "I do not hesitate to invoke the wrath of God upon the migra- tory and irrepressible Jews, whose ancestors made the greatest tragedy, mentioned in sacred or profane history, possible. They are aliens who amass colossal fortunes by questionable methods. They know that suckers are born every minute and deceive the people, with whom they affiliate, for gain. They live in luxury, without labor, while those whose hard earned money they acquire by their subtle arts are reduced to poverty; but my soul revolts at the causeless and malignant persecution of these wards of the Almighty, who are peaceable men and good citizens, and have done so much, in their quiet and unsel- fish way, to promote the intellectual, moral, and commercial, interests of America and the world. "Like Herr Most, I am an anarchist, but believe in corpora- tions, combines, and trust. I believe that capitalists should be protected in the ownership and control of their property, but am a communist pure and simple. "I am for the Union and its unquestioned supremacy over the .States and Territories composing it, but believe that the doctrine of States Rights as enunciated by Calhoun and others was born in heaven. While I am willing to die for the Union, right or wrong, I am equally willing to imperil my life and propert)' in defense of the State against the aggressions and exactions of the national government. 74 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. "I believe this should be a government of the whites, by the whites, and for the whites, although I supported with my voice and vote the advocates of the Force Bill, The negro, whether pure or hybrid, is not entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship. He is an exotic and should be transplanted. He is a cancerous growth on the body politic, a conglomerate of ignorance and depravity, and is unfit to exercise the functions of a citizen; but is chaste, temperate, and industrious, and, as a useful member of society, should be granted and protected in the exercise of all the rights the constitution guarantees him. "I believe in capital punishment and that the death penalty should be abolished. "I believe that secret societies are born in councils infernal. They are a standing menace to the church, the state, and the home, but I have shown my approval of them by joining every one across whose mysterious portals I have been permitted to go, and around whose sacred altars I have touched elbows and crossed palms with the purest and best of men. "I believe that women, though superior, are unequal to men, whether considered as animals that perish, or beings instinct with immortal life. "Although I consider their clamor for rights and privileges hitherto ungranted, as baseless, vulgar, and arbitrary, I am in favor of enfranchising them and giving them everything they can, as equals with men, rightfully insist upon. The wrongs of ages ought to be righted. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. "Woman is the savior and destroyer of our race. She exalts and casts down, purifies and corrupts, and leads to loftier heights and lures to lower depths, than any other creature God has made. "My mother-in-law, who never tires of telling me how many wise and wealthy men coveted the prize I drew and how unworthy I am of the treasure she gave me, is a woman. My landlady, who so delicately compliments her prompt-paying tenants while reminding me that my rent is overdue, and so patiently details the stoiy of her daily and hourly needs, is a woman. My cook, who sometimes passes me on the street without dunning me and protests that I am a " might}' good feller but a pore pervider," is a woman. In fact, all of my intimate female relatives and friends are women, and, knowing them as I do, I will cheerfully endure martyrdom for their sake. "Women are peerless in every way and have lifted us from the lowest depths of barbarism to the highest heights of civilization. They are the purest and sweetest things divinity every fashioned, but are evangels of discord whose venomtipped tongues pierce like damascus blades, and are chronic disturbers of the public peace. Their malicious loquacity and repellant angularities of temper a:nd disposition make this world of ours, that, but for them, would be resonant with song and the abode of unchanging peace, a veritable babel, a perpetual battlefield. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. "I know their mental poverty and moral incompleteness- and proclaim their physical inferiority with absolute fearless- ness. While I love women I love truth better. I sprang from a chivalrous and unfearing line and resent their assumptions of equality with undisguised contempt, as every self-respect- ing man is bound to do. "Women, despite the fierceness of their gentle natures and their changeless but variable dispositions, are excellent judges of machines, when they buy of me and accept without ques- tioning the marvelous tales I tell. If one is captivated by some other slick tongued deceiver and induced to buy some- thing inferior at a fancy price, she simply exhibits the womanly weakness that has precij^itated mental ruin and financial dis- aster upon so many confiding and indulgent fathers, husbands and sweethearts, and should be pinioned aloft as an awful example, upon which others can look and be saved. "I have endeavored to state clearly and simply the views I entertain on important subjects, so that the public, I delight to serve, may know that I am made of sterling stuff and can be depended on in an emergency. "Those who know mc best will testify that I have never abandoned a friend as long as he could be used to advance my interests or I could make a dollar out of him." ******* In the foregoing declaration of principles I have endeav- ored to collect into one article the various statements made FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. by the Texas agent under different circumstances and among different kinds of people. I need not add that, while he is recognized as the best all-round liar in his section, he is not a bright particular star in the local Four Hundred, and will soon be compelled to leave for some other field of operation, where, by being all things to all men and on all sides of all questions, he can add something to his depleted treasury. -J^^- ■ ^l7e Moderr\ I^ule. Hear you the rule our Teacher gave of old, Say those who preach a gospel strange but true, You earnest men, who teach and toil for gold. You taskless ones, who neither think nor do; His golden rule, through age on age, shall stand. And millions know its silent, forceful sway. The pure and wise of every race and land Shall own its power till dawns no earthly day. Hear you the rule of a more modern sage. Say those who scorn the Man of Galilee, His rule won't work in this self-seeking age. When faith lies dead and truth does error flee; Go vaunt your own with subtle, truthless tongue, And hold, where blessings flow, your failing cup, Spare not the old, ensnare the guileless young, " Do other men or they will do you up." 78 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. (^\lQ tAo\\}Qfs ©Answer. Two little eyes that laugh alway, Two little lips that pout for me; Two little feet that sometimes stray, Two little hands that restless be, And is that all? Two little eyes are closed to-day, Two little lips no speech allow; Two little feet find rest from play, Two little hands are folded now. And is that all? Two little eyes shall see the King, Two little lips His praises sing; Two little feet His errands run, Two little hands caress the Son — And is that all? Two little eyes shall watch for me. Two little lips shout, "Welcome Home;" Two little feet my guides shall be. Two little hands shall clasp my own — And that is all FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Marfyi'dom and Monuments. The world sometimes crucifies its benefactors and atones for its ingratitude by erecting colossal monuments to com- memorate their virtues, while its historians and poets embalm their glorious deeds in history and song after they have passed beyond the reach of praise or blame. Somehow, when his career is ended and his protesting voice is hushed, it recog- nizes divinity in the man who dares to live in advance of his generation and endure persecution for humanity's sake, although it hates and persecutes him for arraying himself against its cherished theories and traditions. The martyrs of one age are the demi-gods of the next, and the crown of mar- tyrdom presages a crown of glory. If men ever learn that God loves those who have intelligent convictions and the courage to express them, and that honest thinkers and doers are the saviors of the race, persecution will cease and the cross and guillotine be banished from the earth. The man who knows and believes, and knowing and believ- ing, does something to disturb conditions that are created and fostered by ignorance and prejudice, is made of sterling stuff and deserves honorable recognition by thoughtful and consid- 80 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. erate people. Every man should entertain and manifest a reasonable regard for public opinion, but it is argus-eyed and hydra-headed, despotic and unreasoning, imperious and fickle, and no man can captivate its fancy or comply with its require- ments continuously without dishonoring his sense of right and justice and adapting himself, without protest, to his environ- ments. No trimmer can expect posthumus fame, for he who moulds his opinions and shapes his life to harmonize with public opinion, whether it be right or wrong, is devoid of prin- ciple and as variable as the wind. If he changes his views every time he changes his location, without adequate cause, he is destitute of all the characteristics of real manhood and utterly unreliable in any of the emergencies of life and "weighed and found wanting" will be inscribed upon his monument, if he has one, when he has left the world he was too ignoble to serve. He may occasionally be wrong in his conclusions, and sometimes harsh and ungenerous in his judg- ments, but the man who lives for others and acts upon his con- victions at the peril of personal popularity and with the assur- ance that he will incur social ostracism and financial disaster has the distinguishing merits of honesty and courage, and should be regarded by friend and foe alike, as not faultless, but "every inch a man." Beautiful in its simplicity is the comment of Joaquin Miller on the forty-niners, the daring men who, searching for gold, turned their faces toward the sunset to meet death on the FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. desert, or in the mines, or to sleep " on the mountain tops nearer the gates of God" their eternal sleep: "They were rough, maybe, but they did their level best." He who loves his fellevvs, and in the fear of God does his level best, is cast in a heroic mould, and will rest in peace, whether after "life's fitful fever," he sleeps with princes in hallowed ground, or with paupers in a potter's field. 82 FRO}f TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Mamie. Our Mamie is singing night and day Of lovers present, and lovers away, And sweethearts lea' and true; Well, hills rejoice and rivers sing. And angel choirs make Heaven ring. With anthem? old and new. Our Mamie is playing night and day, The "devil's dance" and " pilgrims gray," And marches and galops, too; Well, harpers are harping above the stars. While oceans swell despite the bars That fetter their waters blue. Our Mamie is merry night and day. And seldom thinks to weep or pray, Or fathom the depths of life; Well, waves are dancing on every sea, And stars are twinkling o'er every lea. Unthinking of woe or strife. Our Mamie is loving, night and day, Her friends and sweethearts, grave and gay, And loves with all her might; FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Well, love is older than Adam's race, And those who love shall see God's face. In a world without a nig^ht. The rivers sing as they onward flow The praises of one who loves men so, He lifts their feet with song; The mighty surge of the fettered deep. Where death abides and tempests sweep. Proclaims him great and strong. The harpers strike their harps of gold. To One whose love can not be told, That walked with fallen men; The waves will dance on every sea, And stars will twinkle o'er every lea, Till He shall come again. Love sways alone the cloudless world. Where saints salute her flag unfurled, And sing the old, old song; Whose sons shall come from many lands. To rule, with bright and shining bands, The conquered hosts of wrong. 84 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. (^osie IN MEMORIAM. I find among my pictures this drear day, The shadow of a friend now far away, Who walked in peace, if arching skies were bright. Or when the world was veiled from human sight; No limner's art can trace her matchless grace, Nor catch the radiance of her sunny face. It can not show, what life alone revealed. Nor open tuneful lips that death has sealed. Beyond the point where counter currents meet. She safely passed on sure, unfaltering feet. And smiling moved, despite all mocking fate. From girlhood's dreams to woman's proud estate; Her slender hands, that fed the hungry poor. Had often knocked at sorrow's humble door. And lingered long in loving, fond caress. Upon a mother's head to soothe and bless. What limner's art is helpless to portray. Her hands had wrought each passing day. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 85 The light of truth shone in the earnest eyes That saw, beside her path, no tempter's prize, To lure her from the narrow, upward way, That ends at last in an eternal day ; She saw the good, enshrined in fallen man, That upward tends since Adam's race began, On far off hills beheld a shining light, To guide each way-worn traveler aright; No limner's art can show the stainless soul. That showed despairmg men a heavenly goal. She sung no songs devoid of hope or cheer, Breathed out no sad refrain of doubt or fear. Her silvern voice brought gladness in the home, And called in luring tones to all aroam; Brave, soothing words, instinct with faith and love. Fell from her lips like raindrops from above, And aching hearts forgot their secret pain, And darkened souls felt light and warmth again. No limner's art can show the soul aglow. That drove from failing hearts despair and woe. She treads no more the way of mortal life, But safe forever from its heat and strife. Will go no more on swift, untiring feet. To joyless homes where want and failure meet; Nor help the waifs upon a barren plain. The outcast poor, who thread their way in pain. Nor sing of love, that love may come again. Sfi FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Nor lift, with song, the feet of weary men. Can limner's art portray the mystic power, That works and wins though tempests lower? We wait outside a world that looms atar, She calls to us, through gates of pearl ajar. To come to her upon the higher height, That lifts its head in pure, unfailing light; While harjiers strike their answering harj)S of gold, She sings a song forever new, yet old. Of changeless love, whose banner Christ unfurled Above the ramparts of a fallen world. Can limner's art the hope of triumph trace, In speaking lines upon a pictured face. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. (;l7arlGy c\nd buella Mal^e Of). Luella dropped the poodle and, springing to her feet, stood with eyes distended and mouth wide open, while Charlie an- nounced his determination to join the Senators and play with t.'iem against the Chickadaws of Ouinceville. Although she seemed wary and indifferent at times, she loved him with a tenderness and tenacity that human language can not describe. They had met the preceding week and were fast friends from the beginning, even before their engagement which quickly followed their first meeting. Charlie had met several girls in his short, eventful life and had some doubts about the grip Luella's affections had on him, and, in order to test the matter satisfactorily, paved the way for his dramatic declaration by reciting numerous harrowing tales of which the dead and mangled heroes of the gridiron were the subjects. One of his most intimate friends, a splendid stripling, had left the field minus an eye and with a severed finger in his pocket. Another fine fellow had gone home on a dray carry- ing his broken leg with him. Still another, who was overproud of his superb ivories, had left most of them in the mud where the decisive struggle took place in a match game and lumber- ing Lowman's mammoth foot hit his mouth instead of the ball. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. And Felix Flippen, his bosom friend and boon companion, with elongated neck and colossal feet, had broken his collar bone and died when a misdirected kick by a companion had struck him in the middle, bringing his feet up and his head down. Luella admired his courage, but was shocked by his decision. His thrilling description of the dangers that followed the play- ers as closely as a jealous woman trails her faithless lover, though rivers roll between, had a telling effect, and when he told her, calmly and deliberately, that he intended to enlist and serve until the foot ball war was over, unless death or disability met him on the gory field, she reeled like a ship at sea when the storm king troubles the waste of waters, and, with a piercing scream, fell upon his neck and wept bitterly, while the pug looked the astonishment it could not express. "Oh, Charlie," she cried, while her tears rolled in torrents dawn his unbent back and soaked the stiffness out of his E. & W. collar, "my life; do not join that horrid team. Do not defy death on his own territory. You are everything to me — the only man I ever loved, and I will not have it so. You know I love you better than anything on earth; better even than Jacques, the finest imported pug in America. Listen to me. Do not enlist; stop this side of the danger line; let the awful butchery go on, if it must, but remember the dreadful fate of Lady Macbeth and do not stain your hands with inno- cent blood or enrich the earth with yours. Persist in }'our FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 89 course and my life is hopelessly wrecked. I shall go into hysterics and my father will call in that ghoulish old doctor who always collects his bills in advance when he practices his killing art in our family. Oh, Charlie, fairest and bravest among men, hear my prayer and answer it now. Christmas is almost here and I want to save my money to buy, for you, a pair of embroidered slippers and a collar button. For your sobbing half-crazed Luella's sake let the whole beastly business alone." "Luella, you rave like a weakling and not like one who expects to rest for life in the brawny arms of a man whose courage is only equaled by his speed and muscle. I have spoken and my word is law. The unbreakable laws of the Medes and Persians are as plaster paris compared with my decisions. Danger tempts me as wine tempts the tippler, and I can laugh at death as the child laughs at the scorpion that stings it. I will join the Senators though your pin money goes to the miserly old doctor. Yes, though your heart break and your tears fall like summer rain. I love you much, but I love foot ball more." Luella unwound her arms, shut up her fountain of tears and replied angrily, while scorn turned up the corner of one rosy lip: "Your insults are more than I can bear. Go hence, a stranger, and never stand in my presence again. You are a heartless man, a soulless monstrositv', incarnated for some inscrutable purpose that God ma)' understand if he ever thinks 90 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. about disagreeable things. My love has turned to hate and I see you now, as mamma said I would see you some day, a cold, self-willed, cruel man. Go," she exclaimed, flinging the glitter- ing diamond ring, that he had traded his bicycle for and placed on her finger a few minutes before, contemptuously at his feet, "and get glory by shedding blood if you will, but never profane my name by letting it linger on your unhallowed lips again." Then hugging the pug tightly to her throbbing bosom, Luella moved proudly away and left Charlie wondering what on earth would happen next. * * *- * * ****** The financial manager of the Senators saluted Charlie and and called for a contribution from him for current expenses as a condition preceding membership. Charlie grasped convul- sively at the silver dollar in his pocket and thought the situa- tion over. His laundry was in the hands of a man who would keep it until the bill was paid, and he would not have another dollar until his mother's monthly boarder settled her account. So rather than wear soiled linen a fortnight, he declined to contribute and did not become a Senator. *********** He hunted Luella aud falling upon his knees begged for mercy. He could not be a player without money, but he could be a lover and get embroidered slippers and a collar button, too. He vainly attempted' to grasp her elusive hand and cried piteously: "Forgive me, dearest; throw away the pug and take FROM TAPS 7 ILL REVEILLE. me to your arms again. I have sinned but I have suffered, and, proud as I am, I beg for forgiveness. I did not know what I was. doing. I am cast in an heroic mould and the blood of mighty warriors courses through my veins. The thirst for glory and adventure was in me and I would have startled the world by fearless deeds but for your moving appeals. I have flung ambition to the winds, for your sake, and here I am, at your feet, where I will stay until I am forgiven. Luella, hold me in your arms again and press your unpainted lips to mine like you did before we quarreled — before I drove you to madness by my stinging words. Call me your own precious Charlie again and I will be as happy as you are beautiful." Luella was as calm as an uptown office when the proprietor steps in unexpectedly, and a look of triumph rested on her face. She cast the pug aside, rose to her feet and bade Charlie unbend his knees and stand face to face with her. The calm, triumphant look passed away and a smile of ineffable sweet- nest overspread her countenance, while love danced, in the depths of her big, blue eyes. The displaced pug was discon- certed, but made no demonstrations of joy or sorrow. He was crestfallen, sad and thoughtful, but being very young and unacquainted with the whims of American girls, could not understand. The moon was wiser. It saw what was coming and stepped behind a cloud, while all nature, sympathizing with lovers reconciled, fell asleep till Charlie and Luella finished making up. 92 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. &\}q\ and \\}Q eAlli(§afor. Tiny, mirthful, star-eyed Ethel played beside the noisome marsh, Watches the flowers clamber upward, heard the frog's weird song so harsh Though her dainty head was hatless, and her small white feet were bare, Sweetest songs were outward flowing like her soft, dishevelled hair. She had southward gone, with papa, from the hills of old Kentuck, And was having fun a plenty, and the very best of luck, Never thinking as she scampered freely, madly here and there, Of the home she left behind her and the happy times that were, Saw no fearful fate impending, heard no danger signal's call, But unknowing, and unthinking, went, unwitting, to her fall. All unseen an alligator slyly winked, and thus did say: "I will fill my empty stomach with Kentucky girl to-day. She, so very young and tender, will be easy to digest. And to wisely snare and get her I will do my level best; The Kentucky girls are wary and are very hard to fool. And I'll never, never, eat one, if I'm not discreet and cool; Oh, if she were not so restless, so disposed to skip and play, I could quickly catch and eat her and enjoy myself to-day. "Mercy, how she taunts and tempts me, with her flesh so gleaming white. She will make a toothsome dessert or a Sunday supper light; Now she nimblv frisks and frolics close beside the noisome marsh, FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 93 Where the flowers clamber upward and the frog's weird song is harsh, And comes closer, closer, closer, as her new born fears depart. Bringing joy and expectation to my wildly throbbing heart, If she stoops to pluck a flower on the marsh's deadly brink, I can surely, safely house her, in my vacuum, I think. I have fed on common niggers, with protesting cries and tears, And insipid, tanned Floridians a score or more of years, I need a change of diet, something wholesome, fresh, and young. To cure my indigestion and restore my nerves unstrung; I see the little rambler swiftly heading down this way. To pluck an opening flower, now fragrant, bright and gay, I'll shut my eyes and lie inert, just like a log decayed, And soon will hide, from human sight, a trusting girl betrayed; I'll never have a finer meal— have never had before, Than one, I think, I'm going to have in twenty seconds more." She stoops beside the marsh's brink, unmoved by doubts or fears. He opens wide his monstrous mouth and — Ethel disappears. 94 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Before and ©After. BEFORE THE BUKIAL. How Still he lies; how calm his massive brow. It's old-time shadows all have passed away, And jjcace is resting in its furrows deep; He rests, I know, from care and sorrow now, Where doubt ne'er comes and love ne'er goes astray. Yet, knowing all, I cry aloud and weep. I saw the shadows gathering on his brow, While he, so patient, wrought and toiled tor me, From dawn 'till noon, from noon 'till eventide. But kissed them not away. They haunt me now, While he, unknowing lies, and 1 can see The peace an angel brought on him abide. I press, with mine, the pale, unanswering, lips That were unsought when red with lusty life. And bathe with tears his white, untroubled, face; He does not heed, though trembling finger tips Press sunken cheeks with death's own pallor rife. And touch the lines my tears cannot efface. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. God help him see my loneliness and woe, Who bore, unhelped by me, life's crushing ills, While I, uncaring, trod a thornless way; God hear my prayer that he may surely know How memory goads and conscience never stills, For, if he knows, he will forgive to-day. If, by God's grace, I get another man To bear for me the ills or human life And blaze a way for my uncertain feet; My love, that by the dead began, Will make of me a wise, indulgent, wife. Till death and I in hnal combat meet. ONE WEEK LATER. The dead heard not, a love-lorn bumpkin did. He watched her bend above a shrouded form. With piercing cries and swiftly falling tears; And told her soon that purest love lay hid In his heart's depths, unfettered, strong, and warm. That should be her's adown the coming years. TWO WEEKS LATER. Don't plead my vows you silly, brazen fool. And fret the bonds that fetter you for life. Whife I move on my own, unquestioned way; 90 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Don't talk of love that wearied and grew cool, Then passed away. Serve me, your queenly wife, Whom wiser men obeyed before your day. This lesson learn, oh, bumpkins, young and old, The greed of power is mightier than love, In loveless wives, who loudly wail and weep Above the wronged their arms did once enfold; Their tears flow not from healing springs above, But from the nether springs, impure and deep. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 97 §ome famous C/9oman §uffra^isfs. Those who believe in univ^ersal suffrage need not be ashamed to advocate principles that are unpopular in many sections of our country. They may be regarded as dreamers and denounced as fanatics, but their position is impregnable and their argu- ments unanswerable. The truths they hold arc self-evident and will some day be universally accepted by thoughtful and justice-loving people. Many of the leaders of thought in England and America have insisted that in a republic woman suffrage is not only inevitable but necessary and desirable. To encourage suffragists who endure contempt for conscience sake and contend with unfailing courage against fearful odds I mention a few men and women, of national reputation or world-wide fame, who have advocated or do advocate suffrage for women. Those whose names are given have been distin- guished as soldiers, statesmen, lecturers, writers, i)hilosophcrs or philanthropists. The list is necessarily incomplete, The majority on our roll of honor are christians living, or christians dead, worthy disciples of the Galilean commoner and emanci- pator. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Abraham Lincoln, Wendell Phillips, Gen. Neal Dow, Bishop Simpson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, Henry Wilson, William H. Seward, Chief Justice Chase, Benjamin F. Wade, Ur. Wm. T. Harris, Joseph Cook, Senator Hoar, Senator l^lair. Dr. R. S. Storrs, T. DeWitt Talmage, John Stuart Mill, l^ishop H. C. Potter, Bishop Spaulding, T. W. Higginson, Charles Kingsle}^ Herbert Spen- cer, Prof. Huxley, James P^-ecman Clark, Bishop Gilbert Haven, W. E. Gladstone, Charles Sumner, Wm. Lloyd Garri- son, Dr. Blackwell, ex-Governor W'arren, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Nathaniel Hawthorne, P^-ed Douglass, Theodore Til- ton, Samuel G. Howe, Rutherford B. Hayes. Gov. Banks, Gov. Boutwell, Gov. Claflin, Gov. W^ashburn, Gov. Talbot, Gov. Ames, Gov. Long, Senator Plenry L. Dawes, John M. P'orbes, Rev. Robert Collyer, Bishop P)Owman, Rev. Phillips Brooks, Rev. A. J. Gordon, George William Curtis, Amanda Way, Florence Nightingale, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frances Power Cobbe, Zerelda G. Wallace (mother of Ben Hurr), PLlizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, Louisa A. Alcott, Lydia Maria Childs, Harriet Martineau, Mrs. James, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Frances E. Willard, Mrs. A. J. Gordon, Alice Stone Blackwell, Mrs. Charles, (author of "The Schonburg Cotta P'amily,") Mar- garet Fuller, Frances D. Gage, Lucrctia Mott, Julia Ward Howe, Lady Somerset, J. Pollen Foster, Rev. Anna Shaw, Mary A. Livermore, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stan- ton, Helen Gougar, Josephine K. Henry, Laura B. Clay, Clara FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Barton, Abbie W. May, Lucy Stone, Mary F. Eastman, Mar)- Clemmer, Victoria C. Woodhull, Harriett Prcscott Spofford, and Mrs. Susan S. Fessenden. The daughters of John D. Rockafeller, the multi-millionaire, are among the }'oung suf- ragists of New York. Wise men neither overestimate their strength nor underesti- mate the strength of their enemies. The universal suffragists know that they have character, intelligence and respectability, but they want numbers, and are trying to secure them. A minority, however select it may be, can not cope with a majority when vital issues are determined by the votes of the people. Multitudes hav^e joined their ranks, and their growth in num- bers and influence since the war has been phenomenal, but they need more converts, and the work of proselyting goes steadily on. Alice Stone Blackwell, in a recent article says: "Sixty years ago women could not vote anywhere. In 1845 Kentucky gave school suffrage to widows. In 1861 Kansas gave it to all women. In 1869 England gave municipal suffrage to single women and widows, and Wyoming gave full suffrage to all women. School suffrage was granted in 1875 by Michigan and Minnesota, in 1876 by Colorado, in 1878 by New Hamp- shire and Oregon, in 1879 by Massachusetts, in 1880 by New York and Vermont. In 1881 municipal suffrage was granted to the single women and widows of Scotland. Nebraska granted school suffrage in 1883, and Wisconsin in 1885. In 100 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 1886 school suffrage was given in Washington, and municipal suffrage to single women and widows in Ontario and New Brunswick. In 1887 municipal suffrage was extended to all women in Kansas, and school suffrage in North and South Dakota, Montana, Arizona and New Jersey. In 1891 school suffrage was granted in Illinois. In 1892 municipal suffrage was extended to single women and widows in the Province of Quebec. In 1893 school suffrage was granted in Connecti- cut, and full suffrage in Colorado and New Zealand. In 1894 school suffrage was granted in Ohio, a limited municipal suf- frage in Iowa, and parish and district suffrage in England to women, both married and single. In 1895 ^"11 suffrage has been extended in South Australia to women, both married and single. The world is evidently moving in the direction of equal rights for women. It is better to help draw the car of progress than to be dragged ignominiously at its wheels." Their most uncompromising enemies are saloon keepers, but they encounter opposition from all kindsof people. A Kentucky Doctor of Divinity says: "The masses, and the classes, and the asses, are against the preachers." It can be said, truthfully, that these diverse fragments of society, with occasional exceptions, are in many States a unit in opposition to the new evangels, who proclaim the gospel of equality and plead for the enfran- chisement of women. I cheerfully admit, without argument, that millions of the wisest and best people in the United States are opposed to giving the ballot to women. They are FR03{ TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 101 earnest, honest and conscientious, and are as clearly entitled to their opinions as are those who entertain contrary views. Equal suffragists can not consistently claim infallibility or a monopoly of truth. Fallible should be written across the creeds of Christendom, the political platforms that men build, and the published utterances of theorists, philosophers and historians, until human imperfections pass away and the undis- puted reign of the perfect man is ushered in, for behind every creed, platform, philosophy, history, and opinion is a biased or imperfect man or a combination of biased or imper- fect men. They should patiently appeal to the sense of justice in fair-minded men and women and convince the judg- ments of doubting Thomases and inquiring unbelievers by marshalling facts and disclosing principles that command assent. God reigns. If they are right they will succeed; if they are wrong they will fail. When John Wesley called slavery the sum of all villainies and Wm. Lloyd Garrison pronounced- it a league with death and a covenant with hell, thousands of christians whose ability and piety could not be questioned rallied to its defense and quoted texts of scripture to show that God sanctioned it. So, now, when modern iconoclasts declare the subjection of women to be unjust, ungenerous and unchristian those who magnify the letter and minify the spirit of the law invoke Moses and Paul to prove that woman is man's subject and not his equal. Those who assaulted slavery and led the crusade against it. 102 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. were regarded as agitators, fanatics and disturbers of the pub- lic peace, not only in the slave States but in every part of the Union. History repeats itself, and those who advocate the cause of women now, as Phillips and Garrison championed the cause of the enslaved then, are sowing to the wind and will reap the whirlwind of popular indignation. The public will regard them as enemies of social order and good government, and ease-loving people, who love peace better than they love principle, will denounce them as meddling busybodies or pes- tilent fellows. Phillips and Garrison lived long enough to hear shackles falling from a fettered race, and many of those who are despised and rejected now, like their elder brother, who stood for the weak against the strong, will live to hear the trium- phant songs of an emancipated sex. Until wrong is driven from the throne that it has usurped, and right ascends it, they expect opposition from the church and the saloon, society and the rabble, the good and the bad, but the\' are neither intimi- dated nor discouraged. They believe in their cause. They have faith in themselves and their God, and are not standing like plumed knights with lances at rest waiting for the hosts of oppression to appear, but are marching to meet them and offer battle. Many of their foemen are their equals in courage and constancy, their peers in intelligence, kindness and morals, but many of them are cowardly and inconstant, ignorant, cruel and immoral. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. It is reasonably certain that the heroes of the christian faith, from Abraham to Jesus, wore long hair. There are causes which compel some women to cut off the flowing tresses that add so much to their physical beauty, nevertheless there are men unable to state a proposition or recognize an argument, who imagine that they are prodigiously funny when they talk facetiously about long-haired men and short-haired women, and laugh immoderately, at their borrowed wit, as they ridicule the demands and pretensions of those who insist upon larger liberty for proscribed classes and, in their opinion, make much ado about nothing. Nearly all of our modern reformers wear their hair as custom requires, whether custom has the right to dictate to them or not. It is a matter of surprise that the feeble-minded contingent, with its battle cry, long-haired men and short-haired women still cumbers the earth, but it does, and none but God knows why. It is possible that fools are social necessities and that idiots are proofs of depravity that will exist, as object lessons for those who proclaim the fall through Adam and redemption through Christ, until the curse is lifted and the race begins a higher life in which character and not hair will make people respectable. In His own time the light of the world, panoplied with power, will come to dethrone the prince of darkness and hurl him into the depths from whence he came. When his reign is fully established the regime in which Americans, by withhold- ing the right of suffrage, class their mothers, wives, sisters 104 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. and sweethearts with the irresponsible and dangerous elements of society, minors, criminals, and idiots, will pass away. It is possible, if not probable, that in the new kingdom the equality of the sexes will be recognized and the inequalities existing in man-made governments will be unknown. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 105 ^l7arlG^'s ©AjolDGal. Oh, lay my head upon your bosom fair, Oh, plow, with slender hands, my yellow hair, Oh, kiss me once again; Why laugh in scorn, despite the swelling sigh Wrung from white lips, too proud to cry, Though in the throes of pain. If you could know that in my stainless soul, I deem your love my chiefest earthly goal. Your cup of bliss would surely overflow. If you could know my dream of coming joy Is your dear self, your love without alloy. Your spirits would not droop so low. If you could see, beneath my towering pride, The love that runs to meet an answering tide And knows no changing ebb and flow; If you could know the burden of my song In social whirl, or sleepless hours so long, You would not fear and doubt me so. I, from loves thralldom, nevermore am free, But cannot bend, too oft, the suople knee. 106 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. And pour denials in the ear of doubt. Why can't you see that in my inner soul, There bides a changeless love, intense and whole. That puts all other loves to rout? You know me well, 'tis strange you can not see, That my imperious love, so proud and free, Will backward flow, when wrongly scourged and fought, And will not bear a doubter's stinging lash. Doubt ever tends, when baseless, cruel, rash. To breed contempt, where purest love has wrought. With lowering brow you hear me chide and pray, Your doubts have won; so turn in wrath away, Uncaring that I pray in vain; " Oh, lay my head upon your bosom fair. Oh, plow, with slender hands, my yellow hair, Oh, kiss me once again." The girl who held my helpless hands to-night. In the full glare of the electric light. And, though I struggled, kissed me too. Was Cousin Gene just home from boarding school You'll learn, I think, when warring passions cool, That what she wills she finds a way to do. FROM TAPS TILL REVELLLE. 107 Some (^l^risimcis ^l70u^l7fs eAbouf @i\)in^. Christmas is here and hearts are heavy or light according to circumstances. I hope our christian people will enjoy the day and imitate one who went about doing good in whose honor it is named. Men who don't feel liberal when Christ- mas comes are sure enough misers and beyond redemption. Somehow the desire to give dominates christianized men on Christmas Day, as on no other, and the inclination to love and be helpful is very strong in those who are not wholly selfish. There is something in the day which broadens men and opens closed, ungenerous, hearts. The custom of giving is a beauti- ful one where the motives are worthy, but it may be, and often is, abused by people who are not experts. A gift, where love animates the giver, is a sacred thing, and is never given with the expectation of receiving an equivalent. The man who gives, in that spirit, does not give, he simply makes an investment. Those who receive real gifts, however insignificant, should appreciate them for the sake of the givers. Many gifts are either worthless or inconvenient, but where they are given in the right manner are highly prized by those who receive them. The offerings of the poor are often value- less, in a money sense, but they represent love and sacrifice, 108 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. and are weightier than the gifts of princes that are prompted by the love of display or the hope of reward. The gifts of children, often grotesque and inappropriate and seldom valuable, are evidences of childhood's simple faith and the will to manifest, by giving, the love that desires to bestow favors. It is unkind, if not vulgar and unchristian, for those who have received many or costly presents to display them vaunt- ingly to those who have been neglected. Somehow a sensi- tive woman or child — even a man, with his masterful contempt for trifles — feels neglect keenly and does not like to be over- looked by the queer looking old gentleman, who drives the reindeers, when he makes his annual distribution, and their hearts are heavy when they see others receiving so many expressions of love while they receive none. It is not so much the lack of gifts that troubles sensitive people as the fact that they are not in the thoughts of others. The children of the rich or liberal should say very little, about what they have received, before the children of the poor or illiberal who have received nothing. Oh, how many eyes are red; how many voices are tremulous; how many hearts are aching, in our land to-day because little hands are empty. The unremembered or neglected women and children whose stockings have been overlooked and hang unfilled on the walls — where they were hung in hope — appeal very strongly to my sympathy. I may be in error, but I believe that while FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 109 men, who are so poor that they cannot give, are excusable, men who have well-filled purses and the ability to gladden their wives and children by bestowing little proofs of love and remembrance upon them, but do not do so, are either thought- less or cruel, or both, and justly fall in the estimation of those they are honor-bound to make happy in every proper way. I am not authority on hell, but incline to the opinion that it is a place where love never comes with its gentle ministrations, and where selflessness is unknown. The heart of a selfish man, who never considers the needs and pleasures of others, is such a place, and I would sound a note of warning to those who never take other people into their lives or calculations, who, if they would, fly from the wrath to come, must make room in their hearts for love and its offspring. The knowledge that somebody loves and remembers makes gifts precious, and, when none are received, it seems to the average mortal that he is not in the thoughts or affections of others. There are some good men who are opposed to observing Christmas. These, of course, are not expected to observe the customs that give the day its distinctive character. There are many fathers and husbands who have no money to buy presents and feel genuine sorrow because those they love must be passed by. For the generous poor, who have nothing but the will, there is a valid excuse, but for the stingy rich and well-to-do, who have everything but the will, there is 110 FECm TAPS TILL REVEILLE. no excuse, unless they have conscientious scruples about giv- ing on special days. I know no more about the actual date of Christ's birth than a hippopotamus does about Calvin's Institutes, and this fact ought to be explained, over and over again, as there is a tendency to give Christmas an importance and sacredness that docs not belong to it. I can approximate very nearly the nativity, but the exact day of the advent is unknown. While I do not know the precise time that God's best gift to man reached the earth, I do know that, wherever Christian civiliza- tion has gone, Christmas is a perpetual witness of one who exalted the humble, raised the fallen, and gave Himself for others. Men can not give direct to Him, for He walks no more among men as he did centuries ago, but the poor are always with them and they can give to them, and by so doing give to Him. When the rich and proud rejected Him the poor and the humble received Him. When palace doors were shut against Him he sat as a loved and honored guest in the homes of the common people. The Christ who knew hunger, weari- ness and thirst, remembers those who, in their poverty, did what they could for Him, and has committed the poor as a sacred charge to His representatives, and woe unutterable will come to those who neglect them or refuse to help them bear the burdens that are pressing them down. If all, who can, will give something rivers of delight will flow. FB03I TAPS TILL REVEILLE. HI with ever-increasing volume, through the arid plains of our storm-beaten world and songs of hope will drown the cries of despair. If the fault-finding, unsentimental husbands, who have nothing that gleams like gold, will kiss the furrowed brows and withered lips of the wives who have grown old and hag- gard in faithful service as they did before age blighted the roses of youth, faded faces will freshen again. If fretful, care- worn wives will give old-time caresses and words of faith and tenderness to the husbands that, unthought of and uncared for, have toiled, fruitlessly it may be, for them through long and weary years, dead loves will come to life, and harmony build up what discord has torn down. Jesus Christ is loVe and love is heaven. The unfailing test of love is giving. Somehow I believe that when the unending Christmas dawns upon the earth, that before it breaks will feel His transforming power, men will be like Him, Darkness and contention will disappear from their abodes and sunshine will pour its golden floods into homes where peace reigns undis- turbed and across whose portals the twin devils of doubt and despair wi-11 pass outward forevermore. Love, radiant as the sun, will drive dark browed hate into the nether depths, from whence he came, and out of the scattered fragment of a war- ring race create a common brotherhood in which each will serve his brother rather than himself. The day is fast approaching when men will give, not gold 112 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. alone, but love and sympathy, like the princely giver, whose advent we this day celebrate. I wish the old men, who lean heavily upon their staffs as they approach the boundary of shadow land; the old women, who are patiently waiting for the clouds to rift and the gates to open; the stalwart men and strong women, who seldom think of the line that divides mortal and immortal worlds, over which all must pass, or of the clouds that hide from home- bound pilgrims the gates of gold; the sanguine boys and girls, so full of life, love, and hope, who see, far in advance, a cloud- less noon and a night aflame with stars; the unfortunate, the misunderstood and the unhappy, with those who face disaster, endure contempt and fight pain, "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." I surely wish, though I dare not hope, that every stocking, big or little, patched or unpatched, that hangs on the wall of a wayside cabin, or an urban palace, may be filled to overflowing. If some who have enough, and to spare, will go in Christ's name, among the outcasts and into the haunts of the vicious, where debauched men and shameless women indulge in ruin- ous excesses, or sit in mute despair and pray' for death, in search of those who have no stockings to hang up, and sur- prise them by giving, what they do not expect, it may be that some, who are ready to curse God and die, will thank Him for sending love into the world and bless the messengers who brought its tokens into the depths and made them luminous. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 113 I^oberf and fl7G Sfar. He sat and watched the silent stars, Parade the azure sky, Saw Venus bright and regnant Mars, Above the hill top high, Saw in the depths, far, far away. In the enchanting light. A little star that seemed astray To haunting human sight, I watched his thoughtful baby face Toward my own upturned, And heard him tell, with childish grace The lesson he had learned. "Some stars are big and some are small, And none too old to grow; My teacher says God made them all To shine on us below, I think the tiny, baby star With such a feeble light Is younger than the one afar That twinkles all the night. If it is old, why does it not Laugh with the rest 'till dawn? It must be young, or God forgot To put the twinkles on." 114 ' FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. @ene. So Gene is dead! Beautiful, wayward, faithless Gene. The man who wrecked her young life walks unchallenged among men and women, who never loved "not wisely but too well," do him reverence. She met death by violence, and left her friends a heritage of dishonor. I have read somewhere that God is merciful; and 'tis said by those who saw her in the morgue, that He burnished anew her locks of gold, and brought back to her pain-riven, passion- swept face the sunny smile of her sinless youth. The placid brow, the sleeping eye-lids, and the pouting lips, gave no hint of lawless love and unholy living, but were mute and eloquent witnesses of her innocence before she dallied with lust, and, in her delirium, exchanged the — "Lilies and languors of virtue for the roses and raptures of vice." Men spoke lightly of the dead Magdalene, and women shuddered at the mention of her shame; but may we not hope that He who. stooping, wrote in the sand and sat upon the well at Sychar will remember her great temptation and the FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 115 unequal contest she waged with those who "set traps for the unwary." May He not remember that once she belie\ed in Him and called Him by name, and in His matchless mercy, forg-ive His errine child. 116 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. lorriG pamous Paf C/9omGn. In big, fat arms young Nero slept, Ere he was crowned and martyrs wept. The sensuous "Serpent of the Nile," Was fat and crafty, bright and vile. Famed Petrarch's Laura, fat and fair, Had dimpled cheeks and sunny hair. Shapely but fat — pray don't forget, — Was queenly, gracious Antoinette. Fair Flamminetto, fat and tall, Boccacio loved the best of all. The virgin queen, with coarse red hair. Was fat and fickle, vain and fair. Though feared by priest and diplomat, Queen Marg'rite of Navarre was fat. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 117 So, too, were those so famous grown, Whose graces Rubens well has shown. Like Russia's Catharine, fat and tall, Were Titian's beauties, one and all. Napoleon's cast-off Josephine, Was fat, and fussy too, I ween. Fat, too, was one well known to fame. The Madame Roland none could tame. Napoleon braved, could but despise The proud DeStael so fat and wise. George Sand, who with the scorners sat. Was brave and brilliant, smart and fat. Fat, too, the wise Castilian queen, Who sailed her ships to shores unseen. Like her who rules, beyond the sea. Our English kinsman, brave and free. And him, who trails fresh items down. And gathers news for all the town. 118 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. ^oW to ISg17gi\)g af a ^q\q\. Mv Dear Charlie: I understand you intend to leave this summer and feel dis- posed to offer some suggestions as to your conduct at the hotels you may*honor with your presence. Always speak patronizingly to the proprietor of the estab- lishment where you may stop, and authoratively to the clerk. Unless you do this they may not fully realize your importance A great many widely traveled men are careless and indifferent about the impressions they make and some are thoughtless enough to talk familiarly with the clerks. Never buy but one postage stamp at a time and never offer less than a dollar in making payment. Men who buy several stamps at once, and offer exact change when paying for them, are too considerate of the clerk, who ought to be kept bus)^ so that on Saturday night he can draw his salary with a clear con- science. Whenever you can do so get the bell boy to run errands when his services are needed at the hotel. Never, under any circumstances, hire him to go on a trip when he is at leisure or is not needed by the proprietor or other guests. Landlords and ladies are paid for the accommodations they furnish, and should be put to all the trouble and inconvenience possible. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. The guests expect to be disappointed and will be if they are not. Never go to your meals on time. Undignified people, and those who are busy, do that. If everthing is placed before you, fresh from the kitchen and steaming hot, you will have little cause for complaint, and if you don't want to be commonplace you must grumble, not only at the food, but the manner in which it is served. Hotel keepers should be reminded frequently, and in strong language, that they do not render equivalents and are not .giving satisfaction. They should be kept humble and not be allowed to put on airs, as they are liable to do. Gather up all the newspapers and periodicals in sight and keep them until you have read them. Others may want to read, too, and may be impudent enough to say so and suggest that you divide up, but you must, at all hazards, stand firm. They can wait, and should be compelled to do so. Possession is nine points in law, though the possessor is a hog. You can add a great deal to the general discomfort of your fellow guests by taking the papers to your room. Some ill-bred people may object, but you should not allow yourself to be influenced by them. Never graciously accept any explanation or apology that may be offered by the proprietor or any of his employes. Though you may be satisfied that no blame can justly attach to any of them, give them to understand that you have been outrageously treated and will devote the remainder of your life 120 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. to ruining their hotel and diverting trade to their competitors. Make it convenient to talk incessantly in the reading room, where drummers and others are writing important letters and making out orders and reports. Drummers are said to be very fastidious about little things and may intimate that "Silence is golden" and that "Your room is better than your company," and may even go so far as to tell you that the office, and not the reading room, is the place for linguistic exhibitions and encounters, but you must stand up for your rights and talk right on whether any body listens or not. Drummers are all right in their places, but what right have they to dictate to a. young man of elegant leisure on a pleasure trip? Do every- thing you can — with safety — to annoy them, when they want quiet and seclusion, and you may depend on their hatred and contempt "without money and without price," and may feel sure that by your impertinence you have made the hotel odious to them. If, at any time, you see the clerk balancing his accounts or busy assigning rooms to new arrivals, do your level best to draw him into a private conversation. If he shows a disposi- tion to ignore your efforts, get highly indignant, and if you are confident that you are a better man physically than he is, tell him that he is no gentleman and advise him to go to some school of politeness and learn good manners, and then suggest to the proprietor that a change in his office force will increase his business a' hundred fold. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 121 If you intend staying several days be careful not to say any- thing about rates, when you register, and call for the best room in the hotel. When you settle demand the lowest weekly rates. If the clerk suggests that, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, it was expected that you would pay the usual rates for transient guests, and that less desirable room are usually furnished weekly and monthly customers at boarding house prices, work yourself into a passion and insist that you did make arrangements, and if he does not do as you want him to, go to the proprietor and insist upon your rights. Tell him you don't propose to be robbed and that his clerk is an ass any way. While you are in town cultivate with great assiduity the acquaintance of the unemployed and have your friends call regularly and take possession of the office and reading room, A great many people think that the chairs in a hotel are for guests, but this is not so. They are for the use of those who board elsewhere and spend their leisure in discussing local affairs in public places. Guests who pay $2 a day are able to furnish their own chairs. Always give your orders to servants in an indistinct tone and abuse them roundly if they do not understand. Never tell one exactly what you want him to do, but, if he does not do it, report him to the proprietor and insist that he be dismissed at once for incompetency. Servants are employed for guests to FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. brow beat and you will be expected to spit venom at them on every occasion that presents itself. When you are in the company of other guests never express an opinion until you have found out what they believe, then take the opposite view. If they are christians quote Ingersoll and assert that Tom Paine was the greatest man the infant republic ever knew. If they are Republicans vilify Grant and declare that Lincoln was a mountebank and deserved martyrdom. If they are prohibitionists tell them that the liquor interest over- stops all others and that whiskey dealers have done more for the United States than any other set of men. By so doing you will precipitate heated discussions and make yourself a nuisance generally, which will intensify your personality and make you conspicuous. If any one shows a disposition to be friendly and enlighten you about the crops and the state of the weather, snub him — provided he is one of the snubable kind. If he resents the snub, exhibits symptoms of belligerency, and is well muscled or handy with a gun pacify him by all means and be profuse in your apologies if necessary. By following my advice you will do your part toward mak- ing men weary of the world and worldly things and thus prepare them to pray for the speedy coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. FROM TAPS JILL REVEILLE. I'm (^ornin^, |slev)er pear. I pray you pretty one so young and fair With sunshine nestling in your sunny hair, Come go with me this bright spring day To our dear Sunday-school across the way. The answer came, in sweet tones soft and clear, I really wish I could, I'm coming, never fear. The years rolled on and she, a woman grown. Was reaping, here and there, as she had sown; 1 saw her once again; Oh I she was wondrous fair. With sunshine nestling in her sunny hair, Come go with me this glorious Summer day To our dear Sunday-school across the way. The answer came, in sweet tones soft and clear, I really wish I could, I'm coming, never fear. The years rolled on and she, still older grown. Was reaping, here and there, as she had sown; I saw her care-worn face that yet was wondrous fair, The white threads sleeping in her sunny hair. Come go with me this radiant Autunni day To our dear Sunday-school across the way. The answer came, in tones yet soft and clear, I really wish I could, I'm coming, never fear. 124 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. The years rolled on and she, more aged grown, Was reaping, here and there, as she had sown; I saw the wrinkled face that once was wondrous fair. The sunbeams resting on her snowy hair; Come go with me this storm-swept Winter day To our dear Sunday-school across the way. The answer came, in tones once soft and clear, I really wish I could, I'm coming, never fear. I pray you pretty one so young and fair With sunshine nestling in your sunny hair. Come go with me this bright Spring day To our dear Sunday-school across the way; Come now, say not in sweet tones soft and clear: " I really wish I could, I'm coming, never fear." FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 125 growing ©Id. There comes a time in every man's life when he realizes that his physical charms are passing away, and that he must depend on other resources to secure the notice and esteem of an exacting public. His hoary head and bent back, his shrunken hands and furrowed cheeks may be pathetic in their sugges- tions, and excite pity, but they will not charm unless they are witnesses of a blameless and self-sacrificing life. A beautiful soul makes a radiant face, to which people instinctively turn with love and admiration, though it may show the tracery of age and pain. One of the questions men are perpetually discussing is: How can a man be attractive after he has passed his meridian? As a rule, when a man begins to feel the ravages of years his mental state changes for the worse and his spiritual fervor, if he has any, abates or varies with his moods. When he is in perfect health, and his faculties are unimpaired, he has no experimental knowledge of physical pain and is optimistic in his philosophy. When sleep come unsought, and sleepless hours, and the nightmares of so many troubled sleepers, are unknown to him, his days are tranquil and full of peace and hope, but when age and disease beget insomnia and continuous 126 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. depression and suffering, he becomes hypochondriachal and pessimistic. Life becomes a monotonous round of fatiguing duties and cruel disappointments, and unless he possesses the rarest of all gifts — a thankful and contented disposition, — he becomes hopeless. A hopeless man is a mad man. The folly of the man who thinks years constitute lite, and that age, characterless age, should command reverence is astounding. Age can be beautiful, and youth will bow to it, if there is something in it to beget leverence and inspire confidence, but it may be so monstrous and repellant that the pure minded will turn from it with horror. One of the most repulsive things known to human vision — pitiful and affecting though it may be — is an old man whose thoughts are unclean, whose language is foul and whose face indexes a leprous soul and life; who is, even on the verge of the grave, a libertine and a debauchee. The winter of life should be as serene and beautiful as an Italian sky when no clouds obscure its benignant face. The man upon whose head the "snows that never melt are falling," and whose back is bending under the ever increasing burdens of life should cultivate the graces of the spirit and sit as a willing disciple at the feet of the Great Teacher. He should, in every way possible, increase his stock of mental supplies and enlarge his spiritual capacities if he expects to be a recognized factor in social, political, and religious circles, and meet grim-fronted death, with a peaceful mind and a FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 127 smiling face, when the curtains are ready to fall, and the last act in the drama of life is on. Truth is a fountain of youth, a perennial beautifier, a divine elixir, and he who holds and lives it will never be out of touch with the purest and best of his kind. Sensuous grace and beauty may depart, when the shadows lengthen and the light grows dim, but a sense of spiritual power and companionship will remain. It will not forsake him though he breasts alone, the merciless river that frets its sunless banks and murmurs against the gloom that overshadows it, but will abide, until its floods roll behind, and he enters, unchallenged, the land of perpetual youth. 128 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. ^l7G biftle Mc\idGn's prater. You buy me bananas and candies sweet, And hold my hands whenever we meet — You darhng impudent thing. You swear that you love me night and day, And make me as happy every way As a "coon" with a chicken's wing. You make me giggle from night till morn, With almanac jokes, "all tattered and torn" — You giddy, delightful clown. You flirt with the girls to tease poor me, And make me as wretched as I could be If my hair were coming down. You tickle my chin anil pull my nose, Till I tremble and blush like a new-blown rose- You lovely, presumptuous tease. You tousle my hair and rumple'my sash, Till I feel like knocking you all to smash; Don't do so often, please, FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 129 Business I^ales. Employes are expected to come late and leave early, Any one keeping regular hours and making any effort to master the details of business will be suspected of sinister designs and peremptorily discharged. The janitor must quarrel with the office boy as often as possi- ble during business hours and read the papers while the pro- prietor carries in coal and sweeps the floor. Any one who does not abuse the management, and betray the secrets he may be entrusted with, will be considered devoid of spirit and instructed to call for his time. Any one treating the manager with courtesy will show a spirit of meanness and subordination that will not be tolerated and notified that his services are no longer needed. Any employe not drawing his salary in advance and taking days off in the busy season, without notice, will be expected to resign, to escape the humiliation of a dismissal. Mercantile establishment arc equipped and run for the accommodation of employes and managers are employed for them to abuse when not engaged in neglecting business. Every employe must do every thing in his or her power to antagonize the people who, with considerate treatment, may IMO FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. be induced to patronize the house or direct their friends to it. Employes are required to cultivate the acquaintance of the frivolous and impecunious and ignore, or treat with contempt, the solid and influential who may buy or can influence trade. Any one answering important correspondence at the proper time, or making enrries in the books in an orderly manner, will display too much knowledge and consideration and will be notified to quit at once. Any lady clerk who meets a customer promptly and dis- cusses the merits of goods, in a business like way, instead of flirting with the dudes, who may drop in or pass by, will dis- play too much enterprise and too little sentiment and her place will be declared vacant. FROM TAPS TILL REVELLLE. 131 fp[?G (^all. The call to strike sounds o'er the wires From Eastern coast unto the Golden Gate. Shall men obey and fan the smouldering hres, Arouse the murderous force of human hate? They know that giant wrongs prevail and feel That toil don't always reap a fair reward; That greed unheeding stands while men appeal And shows the suppliant's cry but scant regard. Some men, begirt with piles of gleaming gold, Reck not of dangers toilers sometimes know; Weep not when hunger's piteous tale is told. Nor for the workman's galling want and woe. But shall men leave the engines and the shops, Forsake the lines that stretch from sea to sea? When roads shut down, and crippled commerce stops. Where will their brimming "Horns of Plenty" be? When times are hard, with stealthy, noiseless, tread Sore famine comes and stalks through stricken lands Or sits enthroned where men, in voiceless dread. 132 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. In silence brood and fold their bony hands; Or, wrathful, hear their loved ones' piercing wail, See filthy rags enshroud their shrunken forms, With glaring eyes and features pinched and pale. They call for war— invoke Mar's deadly storms. The solemn vows, where money weds with toil, Should blend the two in purpose and in thought; And they, made one, in struggle and turmoil, Should bear the burdens troubled years have brought. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 1?!3 fpl7e PriGsi and \\}^ Mad (^ap. A mad cap fair, with yellow hair, Met a priest upon the stair. Where the light was dim; Though she cried, away! away! He so gallant, bold and gay. Squeezed her with a vim. Holding high her dainty gown. She was tripping gaily down. Where the light was dim; Wondering why a lover's kiss Filled anew her cup of bliss. When she thought of him. When the carpet caught her boot. She could nothing do but scoot. Screaming down the stairs; Toiling upward, worn and weary, Came the father, faint but cheery, Like an angel unawares. Round his massive neck inclined, 8nowy arms were fast entwined. 134 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Where the light was dim; Out of mind the lovers kiss, Gone the brimming cup of bliss Of the maiden slim. Ere he donned the priestly robes And applied the moral probes, To his love pugnacious; He had hugged a village belle Hugged her often, hugged her well, Says a scribe veracious. When the mad cap, wild with fright. Falling, calling, through the night, Headed down the stair; He recalled the village beauty. Cursed the trumpet call of duty. Ringing in the air. Cursed the Bishop and the Pope, Cloister, sack cloth, knotted rope, And his vows infernal; When she fell into his arms, Conscience rang no dread alarms Brought him bliss supernal. He, oft wrapped in meditation, O'er the problems of creation, And the ways of Eve; FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 135 Thought not of a races' glory, Whose traditions, old and hoary. He, with facts, could interweave. He forgot that woman fell, Opening wide the way to hell. When the world was young, Tempted men throughout the ages, Conquered censors, priests and sages. With the songs she sung. He forgot that legends old, Faded parchments fold on fold. Told the ruin woman wrought; And that weak, despairing man. Ever since the race began 'Gainst her wiles had fought. Forgot the legends, weird and old, Forgot the parchments fold on fold And monkish dreams of duty; Although she cried away! away I He so gallant grown and gay Paid tribute to her beauty. Mad cap fair, with yellow hair. Tumbling headlong down the stair, 136 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Where the Hght is dim; Why cry out away! away! When a father, bold and gay, Hugs you with a vim? Trembling woman calm your fears, Why should you dissolve in tears, When he says 'tis well? Fathers grave, with pallid faces, Wisdom rare and courtly graces. Sometimes hug but never tell, FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 1:^7 IdMq Ben ^read. Oh, a wanton boy was little Ben Tread, With a gangling form and pear-shaped head; He was lazy and thriftless and cruel, too, A graceless scamp — with nothing to do. He loafed on corners and ran the streets, A brawler and loafer with toughs and beasts. An object of loathing, with too much breath, Thought those who prayed for his early death. He frightened the horses from out of town And tossed poor tabby up and down. He rocked the cow on the public way. And deviled her baby the live-long day. He made too free with the puppy's tail And crushed, with his heel, the tiny snail; He mangled the birds in the garden tree And watched them writhing with fiendish glee. But one dark morn, in the waning fall, When harvests were gathered, apples and all, He scaled the fence of a farm-house near, To worry a farmer with doubt and fear; He scattered his turkeys and chickens and sheep. FROM TAJ'S TILL REVEILLE But a billy goat butted him into a heap, And death reached down for a silly fool When he twisted the tail of a sleepy mule. They nailed him up in a wooden box, And carted him over the ruts and rocks To a gloomy place where ghouls have birth, And planted him deep in the wormy earth. Xo good folks sobbed, or moaned or cried When the amateur Nero fell and died, But they decked with garlands the sleepy nmle Who used his heels on a silly fool. They gave his owner his weight in gold, And pensioned the mule so sleepy and old; They built him a palace, cool and nice. And tempered his drink with pounded ice. Hut the colic came and the mule lay dead One Summer day in his perfumed bed. And the cries of the mourners swept the land Like the wailing dirge of a county band. A towering shaft marks well the grave Of the valorous mule love could not save, And every morn, where he sleeps alone, The yearlings cry, and sob, and moan. And every noon, where his body lies, Gray pilgrims come with swimming eyes FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE 139 To weep for the hero of vanished years And water his bones with their falling tears. When twilight calls to the coming night, The songbirds come in the changing light, And sitting atilt in the gathering gloom, On a swaying branch, where the roses bloom. They sing of the loved one lying there Through the starless night and the noonday fair And sigh, as they dream in some sheltering tree. Of the silent sleeper that set them free. Oh, you who are cruel to beast or bird, Think well of the story you have heard And avoid the fate of the silly fool, Who twisted the tail of a sleepy mule. UO FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. aAr\ ©Appeal for oAbsiin^nce. I can not send this book adrift without making a personal appeal to my readers in behalf of abstinence from drink. The Modern Juggernaut is the rum power and the Minotaur of our century is the saloon. In thirty years of travel and observation among men and women of various kinds, from naked savages to those who wear purple and fine linen, I have seen enough to change me from an indifferent observer into an uncompromising enemy of the liquor traffic. While I hate the business as I hate the devil, I do not hate the men who are engaged in it, or the unfortunates who have fallen into the depths. Many saloon keepers are beneath the contempt of decent men, but others are not. Their moral education has been improper or incomplete. They reason from false premises and, reaching conclusions satisfactory to themselves, follow their callings with untroubled consciences. They do not fully comprehend the extent of the evil they are inflicting upon the public, or realize the sweeping force of the inspired declaration that those who sow to the wind will reap the whirlwind. I do not purpose to quarrel with those who hold contrary views and patronize the saloons. I think they are misguided and indulg- FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. ing a dangerous habit, and have never measured the far-reach- ing and demoralizing effect of their actions. Abuse is not argument, and as long as men are fallible the advocates of temperance should make liberal allowances for inherited weak- nesses and beliefs and the infirmities peculiar to fallen men. Those who advocate the drinking customs of society bring forward some reasons that are too puerile for intelligent thinkers to consider. The desire to be in touch with others and a companionable mixer, is a really commendable trait. Many insist that the man who refuses to drink betrays phari- seeism and will excite ridicule and anger and debar himself from general society. I have refused hundreds of times and remember two occasions, only, on which I made men angry. At a hotel in a Central Kentucky town a man insisted strenuously on my taking something, but I firmly and politely refused. He became very indignant and told me about several men that he had converted into masses of bloody pulp for refusing to accept his invitation, and intimated that I was liable to need the services of a surgeon if I persisted in being obstinate. I did not yield, neither did I go to a hospital for repairs. On the way from San Francisco to Panama a Ger- man, who believed that real hospitality meant schooners of beer, asked me to help him dispose of his stock on hand, and when I thanked him for his invitation but declined it, he was very wrathful and insisted that I had insulted him. By the aid of a diagram I got him to understand that my failure to 142 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. comply with his request was a matter of principle with me, and that no affront was intended. I told him that if the Queen had graciously invited me I would have acted towards her as I did towards him. We were afterwards good friends. The man who does not drink is barred out of many convivial parties where toasts are drunk and the clinking of glasses mingles with peals of merr\- laughter and snatches of rollick- ing song, and his sensitive nature may cause him to feel his comparative isolation very keenly, but he ought not let the desire for popularit}' overcome his loyalty to piinciple. It is claimed by many that by refusing to walk up to the bar and take something with the boys a business man antago- nizes sellers and drinkers too, and jeopardizes his business interests. This claim has enough truth in it to have weight with some people whose backbones are destitute of stiffness. Saloon keepers do sometimes boycott men who oppose their business, but I have too much faith in the integrity of human nature and the hard horse sense of men who sell intoxicants, and those men who buy them, to believe the assertion holds in every case. In business relations with men, sellers do not usually preach sermons or air views on political, religious or social reforms. The buyer wants the best goods, the lowest prices and the most advantageous terms, and seldom cares anjlhing about the peculiar notions of the seller. I think I would rather cart swill through the public streets than count profits earned by FROM TAJ'S TILL REVEILLE. 14:] sacrifice of principle, cowardice, and lying. The principle that a man must conceal his opinions and endorse erroneous views and practices, for gain, is vicious. The man who is all things to all men, in the commonly accepted sense, is a hum- bug and a liar, the incarnation of selfishness and deceit, as those who get entangled in the meshes of the web he is weav- ing will cheerfully testify. The human chameleon whose views take on a different color every time he crosses a town- ship line is unprincipled and a deceiver. A man who will stultify himself, and resort to questionable methods, to gain a customer will deceive a customer after he has caught him, if he can. This is the conclusion of long- headed men who regard the schemer with fear and disfavor in all mercantile or business transactions. The man is craven- hearted who will sacrifice his opinions, because by holding on to them, he occasionally loses a sale. It is established beyond controversy that in the land of per- petual winter, and under tropical suns, abstainers — other things being equal — exist where drinkers perish. It is admitted that the saloon is Pandora's box with hope left out — the unnatural mother of a degraded offspring — drunkards, murderers, and social outcasts. She sows poverty as a farmer sows oats, and is as indifferent to the ruin she has wrought as a thug is to the struggles of the victims he has strangled. .She lifts her defiant head in every land and thrusts her murderous hand into every home. .She sheds no tears, 144 FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. utters no cries, when children, old and haggard before their time, and women, scarred and shrunken, pass before her cry- ing for bread or wailing over the debauched and dishonored dead who wasted their substance within her walls and went from her doors into pauper's graves and the "outer darkness." The saloon is a hot-bed of anarchy, a dftspoiler of homes, and a standing menace to the peace and prosperity of the republic, and every man who contributes to its support aids in the demoralization of public morals and in undermining the foundations of our social system. It enslaves the weak and preys upon the helpless, and from its portals curses come in trqops. The poor, the abandoned, the hungry and the helpless, with their ruined lives and wrecked fortunes, appeal very strongly to my sympathy and sense of justice and increase my determination to do all I can to stay the merciless flood that engulfed them and is bearing down upon others. I have seen some of my associates, who were my sujieriors in many ways, clothed in rags, reeking with filth and covered with vermin, begging shamelessly on the highway. I have seen a man whose voice rang strong and clear in the council halls of the nation, who rode in the van of conquering armies, staggering in the public streets of a great city. I have seen a distinguished officer, one of the bravest men Texas sent into the Southern army, begging in the streets of Dallas. FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. 145 One of the foulest slanders ever hatched in the brain of mediocrity, and published by lyin^ lips, is that the slaves of drink are essentially without courage. Moral courage they lack, will power they need, but in the ranks of the drunkards of America, marching toward their final overthrow, are thous- ands whose physical courage has been tested on many fields. Passionless and calculating calumniators, who never feel the power of a consuming passion or an evermastering appetite can not submit to a comparison of heroic deeds, with them, before an intelligent and impartial jury. I have known women who bartered their homes and their honor for rum, and children that would reel like ships in a storm at sea. I hate the saloon because it invades the home, and defense- less women aud children suffer most from its ravages. Some- how a woman is a sacred thing to me, and a child is almost divine. I can not forget the woman who carried me on her bosom and loved me always; the woman who walked with me when the sun was shining and stood by me when the clouds were lowering; the little girl who grew weary and went from her mother's arms to walk with God in his shining place, and as long as I remember mother, wife and child I expect to stand with my face towards everything that increases the suffering and degradation of women and children, and assault it with tongue and pen until I can battle no longer. 14(1 FR in my little bed. In the room I called my own, When I was mother's l)aby boy. And a whiskered man, well grown; FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. I want to drink — plaese, do not scoff From the jntcher brown and old, Dearer to me, with its nozzle off, Than a flagon of yellow gold. For I remember, and so do you. Sweet Lennie, wee and wild, Who broke it on my curly head, "Cause I was a naughty child;" I'll miss the tiny, dimpled (jueen, That ruled from her mimic throne. Who never saw her naughty child, A stalwart man — full groww. Yes, tidy the room dear Jessie, For mother is grotving old. Fill full the grate with fuel. These winter nights are cold; jimmie is coming and I must rest, So I'll be strong to-morrow, He will not know my sunken face, With its speaking lines of sorrow. Urink round again, my comrades true, With a pilgrim homeward going, What care we if the preachers say, That the reaping follows the sowing; FROM TAPS TILL REVEILLE. Repeat the toast, "A Comrade's Health, And empty your ])rimming g-lasses, The fruit of the vine is Heaven's fire, To warm the heart of the masses. W'hi e curses tell from ashen lips, Men watched his failing; breath. Who, hattlino-, bowed in drunken 1 To the reaper men call death, And so he lies within the room He always called his own. When he was mother's baby boy, And a whiskered man well "-rown. THE END. n^^f^. VC^» ^ - 't vl' fr^ ^'- V-^ ti'