THE OLD CAPTAIN COMES INTO HIS OWN
It was a great winter we had in the office of the _Star_. It was in
those months that we really made the _Star_. It was curious, indeed,
once we began to be knitted together in a new bundle--with Anthy's quiet
and strong hand upon us--how the qualities in each of us which had
seriously threatened to disrupt the organization, had set us all by the
ears, were the very qualities which contributed most to the success
which followed. It all seems clear enough now, though vague and
uncertain then, that what we really did was to _use_ the obstreperous
and irritating traits of each of us instead of trying to repress them.
There was the old Captain, for example. Ed thought him a "dodo," and
wanted to put him on the shelf, where many a vigorous old man's heart
has bitterly rusted out just because his loving friends, lovingly taking
his life work out of his hands, have been too stupid to know how to use
the treasures of his experience. Nort smiled at the way he tourneyed
like Don Quixote with windmills of issues long dead, and I was
impatient, the Lord forgive me, with his financial extravagances at a
time when the _Star_ was barely making a living. But Anthy loved him.
I don't know exactly how it came about, but one evening when we were all
in the office together the talk turned on the Civil War. Some one asked
the Captain:
"You knew General McClellan personally, didn't you, Cap'n?"
I remember how the old Captain squared himself up in his chair.
"Yes, I knew Little Mac. I knew Little Mac----"
It took nothing at all to set the Captain off, and he was soon in full
flood.
"I said to Little Mac, riding to him at full gallop ... and Little Mac
said to me:
"'Captain Doane.'
"'Yes, sir, General,' said I.
"'Do you see that rebel battery down there on the hillside?'
"'I do, General.'
"'Well, Cap'n Doane,' said he, 'that battery must be taken--at any cost.
May I depend on you?'
"'General,' said I, 'I will do my duty,' and I wheeled on my horse and
rode to the front of my troop.
"'Forward--_March!_ Draw--_Sabres!_ Gallop----_Charge!_----'"
By this time the old Captain was on his feet, cane in hand for a sabre,
the wonderful light of a by-gone conflict shining in his eyes. I could
see him charging down the hill with his clattering troop; hear the clash
of arms and the roll of musketry; see the flags flying and the men
falling--dust and smoke and heat--the cry of wounded horses.... They
took the battery.
Well, when he finished his story that evening there was a pause, and
then I saw Anthy suddenly lean forward, her hands clasped hard and her
face glowing.
"Such stories as that," she said, "ought not to be lost, Uncle Newt.
They are _good_ for people. The coming generation doesn't know what its
fathers suffered and struggled for--or what the country owes to
them----" And then, wistfully: "I wish those stories might never be
lost."
Instantly Nort sprung from his chair, for great ideas when they arrived
seemed to prick him physically as well as mentally.
"Say," he almost shouted, "I have it! Let's have the Cap'n write the
story of his life--and, by Jiminy, publish it in the _Star_. Everybody
knows the Cap'n--they'd eat it up."
It was Nort's genius that he could see, instantly, the greater
possibilities of things, and his suggestion quite carried us away. We
all began to talk at once:
"Print the Captain's picture, a big one on the first page. A story every
week. Why, he _knew_ James G. Blaine----"
Anthy leaned back in her chair, her eyes like stars, looked at Nort, and
looked at him.
When we went out that night the old Captain threw a big arm over Nort's
shoulder. The tears were running quite unheeded down the old fellow's
face.
"Nort, my boy," he said, "I love you like a son."
He was happier that night than he had been before in years.
The next morning Nort appeared at the office with a tremendous
announcement, headed: _Captain Doane's Story of His Life_, which would,
on a conservative estimate, have filled an entire page of the _Star_.
And the old Captain, who need never have taken off his hat to Dickens or
Dumas where copiousness was concerned, began to write--enormously. The
dear old fellow, looking back into his own past, discovered anew a hero
after his own heart, and as the incidents jumped at him out of his
memory, he could scarcely put them down fast enough. He filled reams of
yellow copy paper.
With the first article we published a three-column half-tone portrait of
the Captain, his head turned a little to one side to show the full lift
of his brow, and one hand thrust carelessly and yet artfully into the
bosom of his long coat. Oh, very wonderful! The first article, headed,
EARLY MEMORIES OF HEMPFIELD
was really excellent, after Anthy had cut out two thirds of the old
Captain's copy--which no other one of us would have dared to do.
Well, in an old town, in an old country, where the memories of many
people reached far back, where many had known Captain Doane all their
lives, this article instantly found sympathetic readers, and began to be
talked about. We felt it at once in the demand for papers. Later came
the stories of early political affairs in Hempfield and, indeed, in New
England, and stories of the war which were really thrilling. Other
headings were: "_How I Met General McClellan_" and "_Reminiscences of
James G. Blaine_."
These not only awakened local interest, but they began to be clipped and
quoted in outside newspapers, even in Boston and New York. A reporter
was sent down from Boston to "write up" the old Captain. It was quite a
triumph. The Captain began to have visitors, old friends and old
citizens, as he had never had before. They became almost a nuisance in
the office. But the Captain was in his element: he thrived on it; his
eye brightened; he walked, if possible, still more erect. His very mood,
indeed, for his fighting blood was up, gave us some difficult problems.
Nearly every week he would pause in the course of his narrative to smite
the Democratic party, to cry "Fudge" at flying machines, or to visit his
scorn upon the "initiative, referendum and recall." And one week he cut
loose grandly upon woman suffrage, after he had first expressed his
chivalric admiration for the "gentle sex" and quoted Sir Walter Scott:
"Oh, woman, in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please," etc., etc.
Nort brought me the copy, laughing.
"I asked the Captain," he said, "if he thought Anthy was uncertain, coy,
and hard to please."
"What did he say?"
"He waved me aside. 'Oh, Anthy!' he said, as if she did not count at
all. You know how the Captain lays down the eternal laws of life and
then lets all his personal friends break 'em!... What would you do
about the passage, anyway?"
"Why print it," I said. "It's the old Captain himself."
And print it we did.
[Illustration]