Something of Men I Have Known Part 33

The late General Gordon related to me the above incident, and added that the leaders mentioned were at a later day well known to the country, one the learned Bishop Longstreet of Georgia, the other the eloquent Senator McDuffie of South Carolina.

Events almost forgotten, forms long since vanished, were vividly recalled as, after long absence, I revisited the spot inseparably blended with the joyous a.s.sociations of childhood. The platform from which I was to speak had been erected near the ruins of the old church above mentioned, of which my grandfather had been a ruling elder, my father, mother, and other kindred the earliest members.

Upon my introduction to the vast a.s.semblage--the good things suggested by "barbecue" having meanwhile given to all an abundant feeling of contentment--I began by brief reference to the pleasure I experienced in again visiting, after the pa.s.sing of the years which separated childhood from middle age, scenes once so familiar, and meeting face to face so many of my early a.s.sociates and friends, and remarked, that in the early days in Illinois the not unusual reply of the Kentucky emigrant, when asked what part of the Old Commonwealth he came from was, "From the Blue Gra.s.s," or "From near Lexington," but that my invariable answer to that inquiry had even been, "From the Pennyrile!"

Some mention I made of Mr. Caskie, the dreaded school-master of the long ago, caused a momentary commotion in the audience, and immediately a man of white hairs and bowed by the weight of more than fourscore years, was lifted to the front of the platform.

With arm about my neck, he earnestly inquired: "Adlai, I came twenty miles to hear you speak; don't you remember me?" The audience apparently appreciated the instant reply: "Yes, Mr. Caskie, _I still have a few marks left to remember you by!"_

The venerable and long ago forgiven schoolmaster was fearfully deaf, and to prevent the possibility of a single word escaping him, he stood close beside me, and with his hand behind his ear and the other resting tenderly on my shoulder, faithfully followed me in my journeyings to and fro across the stage during the two-hours'

speech which followed.

My speech at length concluded, I was warmly greeted by scores of old neighbors and friends. Just forty years had pa.s.sed since my father had removed his family to Illinois, and it may well be believed that it was difficult to recall promptly all the names and faces of those I had known in childhood. Even a candidate has, at such times, "some rights under the Const.i.tution"; one of which, I honestly believe, is total exemption from the tormenting inquiries: "Do you know me? Well, what is my name?" The laurels, even of Job, had he ever been a candidate, would probably have turned to willows.

I am here reminded of an experience of one of my early compet.i.tors for Congress. It was his happy forte to remember instantly all his old acquaintances; not only that, but to know their full names.

To call out in friendly and familiar tone, in and out of season, "Bill," "d.i.c.k," "Sam," "Bob," a hundred times a day, was as natural to him as to breathe.

Upon one occasion, however, the fates seemed slightly untoward.

At the close of one of our joint debates, in the southern part of the district, he was greeted by a demure-looking individual with the salutation, "How are you, Judge?"

"My dear sir," exclaimed the regular candidate, grasping the interrogator warmly by the hand, "how are you, and how is the old lady?"

"I am not married, Judge," was the deliberate response, as of one a.s.suming the entire responsibility.

"Certainly not, certainly not, my dear sir; I meant you mother.

How is that excellent old lady?"

"My mother has been dead twenty years, Judge," was the mournful reply.

A trifle embarra.s.sed, but not entirely off his base, the judge looked earnestly into the face of the bereaved, and said:

"My friend, excuse me, your countenance is perfectly familiar to me, but I do not at this moment remember exactly who you are."

The response was, "Judge, _I am an evangelist."_

To which the candidate for Congress, now upon a firm footing, tapped the man of the sacred office familiarly upon the shoulder and cheerfully exclaimed, "Why, d.a.m.n it, _Van,_ I thought I ought to know you!"

Returning now for brief sojourn to the afore-mentioned barbecue, with a faithful kinsman as monitor, aided by a slight moiety of tact to be credited to personal account, I managed pa.s.sably well to get through the trying ordeal. "The old gentleman with the long white beard, coming toward us," observed my monitor, "is Uncle Jake Anderson. He has a hat bet that you will know him." Thus advised, I was ready for trial, and warmly grasping the hand extended me, I earnestly inquired, "Uncle Jake, _how are you?"_ "Do you know me, boy?" was the immediate response. "Know you?" I replied. "You and my father were near neighbors for years; how could I help knowing you?" "Yes, of course," he said, "but you being gone so long, and now running for President, I didn't know but what you had forgotten all about the old neighbors down on the Lick."

a.s.suring him that I had forgotten none of them, and congratulating him upon the hat he had won, I pa.s.sed on to the next.

The interview described was repeated with slight variations, many times, when my attendant remarked:

"That man leaning against the tree is John Dunloe; do you remember him?"

"Certainly," I replied, "I went to school with him."

Immediately approaching my early cla.s.smate I took him by the hand and said, "How are you, John?"

"Why, Adlai, do you know me?" was the prompt response.

"Know you," said I, "didn't we go to school together to Mr. Caskie right here at Blue Water, when we were boys?"

"Yas, of course we did," slowly answered by sometime school-fellow, "but you been 'sociatin' with them big fellows down about Washington so long, that I didn't know but what you had forgot us poor fellows down in the Pennyrile."

a.s.suring him that I never forgot my old friends, I inquired, "John, where is your brother Bill?"

"He's here," was the instant reply. "Me and Bill started before daylight to get to this barbecue in time. Bill 'lowed _he'd ruther go forty miles on foot to hear you make a speech, than go to a hangin'."_

x.x.xII A TRIBUTE TO IRELAND*

[*Footnote: Speech delivered by Mr. Stevenson at a banquet of the United Irish Societies of Chicago, September, 1900.]

THE WRITER'S VISIT TO NOTABLE PLACES IN IRELAND--HIS TRIBUTE OF PRAISE TO HER GREAT MEN--AMERICA'S OBLIGATION TO IRISH SOLDIERS AND STATESMEN.

I accepted with pleasure the invitation to meet with you. For the courtesy so generously extended me I am profoundly grateful.

Within late years it has been my privilege to visit Ireland; and I can truly say that no country in Europe possessed for me a deeper interest than the little island about whose name cl.u.s.ters so much of romance and of enchantment. I saw Ireland in its beauty and its gloom; in its glory and in its desolation. I stood upon the Giant's Causeway, one of the grand masterpieces of the Almighty; I visited the historic parks and deserted legislative halls of venerated Dublin; threaded the streets and byways of the quaint old city of Cork; listened the bells of Shandon; sailed over the beautiful lakes of Killarney, and gazed upon the old castles of Muckross and of Blarney, whose ivy-covered ruins tell of the far-away centuries.

What a wonderful island! The birthplace of wits, of warriors, of statesmen, of poets, and of orators. Of its people it has been truly said: "They have fought successfully the battles of every country but their own."

Upon occasion such as this, the Irishman--to whatever spot in this wide world he may have wandered--lives in the shadow of the past.

In imagination he is once more under the ancestral roof; the vine-clad cottage is again a thing of reality. Again he wears the shamrock; again he hears the songs of his native land, while his heart is stirred by memories of her wrongs and of her glory.

What a splendid contribution Ireland has made to the world's galaxy of great men! In the realm of poetry, Goldsmith and Tom Moore; of oratory, Sheridan, Emmett, Grattan, O'Connell, Burke, and in later years Charles Stewart Parnell, whose thrilling words I heard a third of a century ago, pleading the cause of his oppressed countrymen.

The obligation of America to Ireland for men who have aided in fighting her battles and framing her laws cannot be measured by words. In the British possessions to the northward, in the old city of Quebec, there is one spot dear to the American heart--that where fell the brave Montgomery, fighting the battles of his adopted country. What schoolboy is not familiar with the story of gallant Phil Sheridan and "Winchester twenty miles away?" Illinoisans will never forget Shields, the hero of two wars, the senator from three States. It was an Irish-American poet of a neighboring State who wrote of our fallen soldiers words that will live while we have a country and a language:

"The m.u.f.fled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo; No more of life's parade shall meet That brave and fallen few."

The achievements of representatives of this race along every pathway of useful and honorable endeavor are a part of our own history.

We honor to-day the far-away island, the deeds and sacrifices of whose sons have added so brilliant a chapter to American history.

From the a.s.sembling of the First Continental Congress to the present hour, in every legislative hall the Irishman has been a factor.

His bones have whitened every American battlefield from the first conflict with British regulars to the closing hour of our struggle with Spain.

The love of liberty is deeply ingrained into the very life of the Irishman. The history of his country is that of a gallant people struggling for a larger measure of freedom. His most precious heritage is the record of his countrymen, who upon the battlefield and upon the scaffold have sealed their devotion to liberty with their blood. With such men it was a living faith that--

"Whether on the scaffold high Or in the battle's van The fittest place for man to die Is where he dies for man."

With a history reaching into the far past, every page of which tells of the struggle for liberty, it is not strange that the sympathies of the Irishman are with the oppressed everywhere on G.o.d's footstool. Irishmen, in common with liberty-loving men everywhere, looked with abhorrence upon the attempt of a great European power to establish monarchy upon the ruins of republics.

May we not confidently abide in the hope that brighter days are in waiting for the beautiful island and her gallant people? I close with the words: "G.o.d bless old Ireland!"

x.x.xIII THE BLIND CHAPLAIN

DR. MILBURN'S SOLEMNITY IN PRAYER--HIS VENERABLE APPEARANCE--HIS CONVERSATIONAL POWERS--HIS CUSTOM OF PRAYING FOR SICK MEMBERS.

No Senator who ever sat under the ministrations of Dr. Milburn, the blind chaplain, can ever forget his earnest and solemn invocation.