The Coo-ee Reciter Part 10

Everything is clear-cut and within the sum of human emotions--eternal.

So it was with that last grand charge of the Devons, which swept the Boers from their fringe of the little plateau and finished the long seventeen hours' ordeal. The enemy were on one side of the Table, we on the other. A tropical hailstorm howled across it, and beat heavily in our faces, as Colonel Park led his men up the sheltered face of the hill, and halted a moment within five yards of the crest, to make ready.

The men knew exactly what they had to do, and the solemnity of a great and tragic undertaking was upon and about them. All the world for them--the too brief past with its consequences, the fast-flying present, and the mysterious beyond--might concentrate in a short desperate dash across a storm-swept African hilltop. It was the sublimity of life--the antic.i.p.ation of death. The Devons were making ready for it, and how unready a man might feel at such a moment! The line of brown riflemen stretched away to the left of us, and it seemed that every trivial action of every man there had become an epic. One noticed most of all the constant moistening of the dry lips, and the frequent raising of the water-bottles for a last hurried mouthful. One man tightened a belt, another brought his cartridges handier to his right hand, though he was not to use them. It was something to ease the strain of watching. Every little thing fixed itself on the mind as a photograph. There was no need of mental effort to remember. One could not see and forget, and would not, for his patriotism and his pride of kinship, forget if he could.

Then the low clinking, quivering sound of the steel which died away from us in a trickle down the ranks as the bayonets were fixed--and a dry, harsh, artificial laugh, in strong contrast to the quiet of the scene--everything heard easily somehow above the rush and clatter of the storm, and lost only for an instant in the sudden bursts of thunder. A bit of quiet tragedy wedged into the turmoil of the great play, and all unspeakably solemn and awe-inspiring. One must see to understand it. One may have seen yet can never describe it. The situation was not for ordinary language; it was Homeric, over-mastering.

"Now, then, Devons, get ready." There was a dry catch in the colonel's voice as he gave the word--and the short sentence was punctuated by the zip-zip of the Mauser bullets, that for a few precious seconds would still be flying overhead. There was a quick panting of the breath, a stiffening of the lines of the faces, that with so many of them was but the prelude to the rigidity of death. It was waiting for them only a few yards up, and their manhood was being sorely tried. But the Devons squared their shoulders, gripped their rifles--bringing them up with the quick whip of the drill, that was too well ground into them to be forgotten even then. A prompt dressing by the left, and, as though eager to get it over, the Devons sprang forward to the word into the double storm of hail and nickel-plated bullets. The killing suspense was over--they were in action at last, one's whole heart went with them, and just for one moment, as they stood fully exposed upon the plateau, it seemed to the watchers that there might be disaster. They had slightly miscalculated the enemy's strongest point, and had to wheel by the left.

As they did so the line faltered for a moment. A shiver, a pendulum-like swaying seemed to run down it; that was the history-making moment, when the regiment might either do something that ever afterwards they would try to forget, or that all their countrymen would be proud to remember--the moment in men's lives which, measured by emotion only, stretch out into centuries. It was the moment of a life, too, for the commander of men. His chance had come.

"Steady, Devons, steady," came the clear ringing call, and then, with one great surging rush, that gathered momentum even as it lost in fallen units, the regiment went on.

Boldly though they had taken and held that hill, prudence came to the Boer riflemen as these eager bayonets bore down upon them. For a moment they shot the Devons through and through, and then they ran. At that moment not a man amongst our common-place, drinking, swearing Tommies but was exalted, deified--but so many of them were something less of interest on earth than even a common soldier. Where the regiment had gone seventy of its dead and wounded littered the hilltop, but still it was the moment of victory, not of lamentations. It may sound strange to say that the prelude to a battle, like the preface to a book, can be greater than the actual battle or the book. But so it seemed to me.

Others might view it differently, but challenge our impressions as we may in the light of riper history, we shall never alter them. They are indelible. Overhaul the plates again and again as we please, it will always be the same picture.

DONALD MACDONALD ("How we Kept the Flag Flying").

_THE GAME OF LIFE._

There's a game much in fashion--I think it's called _Euchre_ (Though I never have played for pleasure or lucre), In which, when the cards are in certain conditions, The players appear to have changed their positions, And one of them cries in a confident tone, "I think I may venture to 'go it alone!'"

While watching the game, 'tis a whim of the bard's A moral to draw from that skirmish of cards, And to fancy he finds in the trivial strife Some excellent hints for the battle of Life; Where--whether the prize be a ribbon or throne-- The winner is he who can "go it alone!"

When great Galileo proclaimed that the world In a regular orbit was ceaselessly whirled, And got--not a convert--for all of his pains, But only derision and prison and chains, "It moves, _for all that!_" was his answering tone, For he knew, like the earth, he could "go it alone!"

When Kepler, with intellect piercing afar, Discovered the laws of each planet and star, And doctors, who ought to have lauded his name, Derided his learning and blackened his fame, "I can wait," he replied, "till the truth you shall own;"

For he felt in his heart he could "go it alone!"

Alas! for the player who idly depends, In the struggle of life, upon kindred or friends; Whatever the value of blessings like these, They can never atone for inglorious ease, Nor comfort the coward who finds, with a groan, That his clutches have left him to "go it alone!"

There's something, no doubt, in the hand you may hold: Wealth, family, culture, wit, beauty and gold, The fortunate owner may fairly regard As, each in its way, a most excellent card; Yet the game may be lost, with all these for your own, Unless you've the courage to "go it alone!"

In battle or business, whatever the game, In law or love, it is ever the same; In the struggle for power, or the scramble for pelf, Let this be your motto, "RELY ON YOURSELF!"

For, whether the prize be a ribbon or throne, The victor is he who can "go it alone!"

JOHN G. SAXE.

_PREJUDICE._

I was climbing up a mountain path, With many things to do, Important business of my own, And other people's too, When I ran against a Prejudice That quite cut off the view.

My work was such as could not wait, My path quite clearly showed; My strength and time were limited; I carried quite a load, And there that bulking Prejudice Sat all along the road.

So I spoke to him politely, For he was huge and high, And begged that he would move a bit, And let me travel by-- He smiled, but as for moving-- He didn't even try.

And then I reasoned quietly With that colossal mule; The time was short, no other path, The mountain winds were cool-- I argued like a Solomon, He sat there like a fool.

Then I flew into a pa.s.sion, I danced and howled and swore; I pelted and belaboured him Till I was stiff and sore; He got as mad as I did-- But he sat there as before.

And then I begged him on my knees-- I might be kneeling still, If so I hoped to move that ma.s.s Of obdurate ill-will-- As well invite the monument To vacate Bunker's Hill!

So I sat before him helpless, In an ecstasy of woe-- The mountain mists were rising fast, The sun was sinking slow-- When a sudden inspiration came, As sudden winds do blow.

I took my hat, I took my stick, My load I settled fair, I approached that awful incubus, With an absent-minded air-- And I walked directly through him, As if he wasn't there!

CHARLOTTE PERKINS STETSON.

_THE POOR AND THE RICH._

The rich man's son inherits lands, And piles of brick and stone and gold, And tender flesh that fears the cold, Nor dares to wear a garment old; A heritage, it seems to me, One would not care to hold in fee.

The rich man's son inherits cares.

The bank may break, the factory burn, Some breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft white hands would scarcely earn A living that would suit his turn; A heritage, it seems to me, One would not care to hold in fee.

What does the poor man's son inherit?

Stout muscles and a sinewy heart, A hardy frame, a hardier spirit, King of two hands he does his part In every useful toil and art; A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold in fee.

What does the poor man's son inherit?

Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things, A rank adjudged by toil-worn merit, Content that from enjoyment springs, A heart that in his labour sings; A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold in fee.

What does the poor man's son inherit?

A patience learned by being poor, Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it; A fellow feeling that is sure To make the outcast bless his door; A heritage, it seems to me, A king might wish to hold in fee.

Oh! rich man's son, there is a toil That with all others level stands; Large charity doth never soil, But only whitens, soft white hands; This is the best crop from thy lands; A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being rich to hold in fee.

Oh! poor man's son, scorn not thy state, There is worse weariness than thine-- In being merely rich and great; Work only makes the soul to shine, And makes rest fragrant and benign A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being poor to hold in fee.

Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, Are equal in the earth at last-- Both, children of the same dear G.o.d.

Prove t.i.tle to your heirship vast, By record of a well-filled past!

A heritage, it seems to me, Well worth a life to hold in fee.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

_THE ENGINEER'S STORY._

(_From the "Denver Post."_)

Well, yes, 'tis a hair-curlin' story-- I would it could not be recalled.

The terrible fright of that h.e.l.l-tinctured night Is the cause of my head bein' bald.