The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 27, 1899, Page 23

THE SUNDAY CALL. 23 How the Gitls Greeted Our Brave JBoys all a new experience to the girls. Man many of the mothers and ve been thrc watched i y far gh it before, The Civil War But i butter i 1t 1s new and tears nd these 1s feeling that will nner befo r own boys are dmit of many tears are the To shed showed its first of Thursday. Sunol. Now air be blown uire hat lashed as ed, walked ur, I e ) and water like whitewashed pile. d by strong hands 1 was pulled t ed inside the transport arri not I wished to offend the awful dignit doth hedge our customs round, but cause half a dozen soldiers had hold ¢ m s and because my le 2 attached to my bod e several minutes to after I stood on \the deck. took the officer about half that time to catch me. about Subsequently he lost me just as rapidly. r arrest,” t come with me, ; coat by the only button ge through the port had it, and with firm tread and ¢t head I told my captor I and bade him lead the way. he reiterated, me to the quarterdeck attired in mu gold lace kers told me that 1 was I would be allowed hip If I did not try ing. I looked at the House that twinkled s in the dim distance and great stretch of black water that ntervened, and I assured the officer that would make no attempt to escape that ssurance he removed me I might follow my save over the sides th f the 1 this time the officers of the tegiment had held aloof, not ing to break In upon the examination of a prisoner. As soon, however, as I had been released on parole they crowded Y athy and to in- e into the causes which had led to my t. I told them, and their Indignation knew no bounds. It was chiefly directed the boatman who had deserted my companions and myself at the ship’s side, and it would have fared ill with the heartless Swede if those stern veterans could have laid hands on him at that ment. inst hstanding the unfortunate cir- 1stances which had brought me to my ent s—circumstances over which I had no control—yet my position was one SUNDAY CAL gl L e ‘invi- alacrity with owed how ea upon it, and I began to cerning my com- Honig below, like a dark y had not been seen of the offic aid some- star 1 imagined it must en Britt's parti-colored shirt and ktie that flashed in the moon- light as he went flying over the rail. I determined to find out, and excusing myself started on a hunt through the ship. Down below in the steerage I found Honig hiding under a bunk and consoling himself with a cup of cofi and a sandwich, which a kind steward had surreptitiously smuggled into him. Honlg tremblingly asked me what was going to be done with him. Upon my an- swering that nothing more serious would be done than to place him under arrest he took heart of grace and came forth from his hiding place. He had seen nothing of Britt, so I left him, to search for Willie in other places. I left the aristocratic precincts of the commissioned officers and started forward among the men. The minute I stepped into their quarters I experienced a greet- ing that would atone for a far worse mis- fortune than imprisonment by the Cus- tom-house authorities. The men, whom I had last seen in Luzon, crowded around me and fairly wrung my hand off with the vigor of their salutations. Questions flew thick and fast, and I had as many to ask as I had to reply to. Regimental and company matters were recounted and discussed with an Interest which could not possibly be felt, or even understood, by one who had not tasted of the life himself and there learned to feel, not for the men, but with them. I don’t know why it is, possibly because the only station I ever occupied In Uncle Sam’s service was the most humble he has to offer, but my affection is all for the man who packs the gun. The officers who command them are good men, but the fellow whose Joys and sorrows, pleas- ures and privations, hopes and disappoint- ments, claim my sympathy, and get it, is the fellow who In demonstrations, such as those this past week has seen, shines only in the aggregate—the fellow who has all the worst of it at the front and who is never helped through the hardship that he must undergo in the fleld by the prospect of a well pald political position which will be his reward when be returns home. een to FELLOVWS SISTER.. of a gentle ed boy looked agged for- troduced or. It r boy for nay come y ear. lverywhere the rs clung tight and that was the thing v ¢ visit to the S on as long as But my around me, and a forced to answer le stor ¥ crowded I was xious inquiries afte: relatives and friends and to repeat every detal f the grand reception that awaited the regiment. did not m to un- derstand it. y knew they had done thelr duty, but they had been too modest to expect any such ovation as I pictured to them. One feliow expressed the general feeling in the following sentenc “We knew the people would be glad to get us home,” he sald. *“But, h—l, we never thought the killing of a few niggers and greasers was going to create such excite- ment. However, If the people delight to so honor us we fully appreclate the com- pliment and will do our best to show them so.” This sentence 1s repeated as nearly word for word as memory will per- mit. As soon as the boys’ curiosity had been in a measure satisfied they began to an- swer a few of my questions and I learned of what had been going on in the Phil- ippines. From the Information I thus gleaned I am satisfied that no reception was too good for the California volun- teers. While we were still conversing below we heard considerable noise on deck and rushed up to find that a Chronicle re- porter had tried to board the vessel and had been repulsed with the loss of a plece 3 MAPPY WITH RIS ONN, AND SOME OTHER to be sentimental, and although they care a great deal about the big brothers they also care a great deal about what they have brought home. I saw one shake her braids over his shoulder and give him one tremendous California kiss and ask all in the same breath for her Philippina ring and what are the products of the Canaries. Bhe thought he must have seen the Canaries—hadn’t he? She had been studying about them. Now and then the roof rang with a shriek that meant found. A tall, whole- gome girl wearing the Red Cross badge made her escape from the breakfast room, where she had been waiting at table. She came out through the crowd, apron fiying, her arms loaded with wreaths. Somehow she had caught a glimpse of him through the bars, and she ran screaming and waving through the room. It was a good, healthy sight to see as she fell on that plucky brother’s neck, and there 't a tear in all her wel- come. So in order that things should be done properly, the plucky brother wept a little weep on his own behalf. Which likewise was a good, healthy sight to see. For after the fighting and the waiting are over, and stand on a hero’s record, then the tears don't blot out one letter of that # record, but twinkle for its brighter {llumi- nation, The breakfast was royal. The April § weather had calmed partly by the tfme the boys were really charging at the ta- bles, and there was a serene afterglow of flushed cheeks, tousled hair and {ll- Now and then hs agjin, and three g E¢t at once before a sta or who hadn’t yet caught a glimpse ad or meat. e fluffy littl regulated hats, broke out water volunt: of br blonde dropped a platter >struction, in her haste n for a sunt By F. #. Healy. he quarterm s hand over the arched or the amid crowd. r the lost renc oft wit such violent me Britt was fo. He s to e it off until he was it would st him five years on if one of v officers caught him in his borrowed plumes. Then the uniform came off so quickly that for very modesty one of the men was forced to wrap him tem- porarily in a couple of old sacks. Leaving Billy to attend to his toflet I again went aft. There I found that Ho- nig, who is a lawyer as well as a reporter, had tangled up In argument the man by whom he had been placed under ar- rest that the fellow had actually been brought to belleve that he and not Ho- nig was the person under restraint. As this was a very satisfactory arrange- ment he was not undeceived up to. the time he left the vessel and I have no doubt that when he reads this article he will receive the first intimation of his mistake. In the first few moments aboard all the rush news had been gathered and now there was nothing to do but to sit down and walit for something to happen which would either make us busy or release us from cur incarceration. neck. And the big sisterly girl in blue forgot that the much-received darling had not yet had a single bite, and fell to pat- ting him on his blessed back—big, moth- erly, go-to-sleep pats, that made eating a choky risk. The little blue-gowned girl with a pompadour for an Empress was the best of all. “You don’t know how men are,” she ex- plained to some colleagues, with the ex- perience of many years in her voice. “Men don’t think kisses are a patch on bread and butter until after they've finished the bread and butter.” Whereupon she set an object lesson that made itself good for a table length. She fed them, and fed them again, and there wasn’'t a hungry man left within reach of her plates of chicken and peas. Privileged sisters and sweethearts in- side the bars of the east nave leaned over the backs of their heroes’ chairs or sat beside them at the loaded tables. There was a little shirt-waisted one I watched who was wise enough to tell home stories while her hero enjoyed his breakfast, and the stories besides. There was one less wise who asked questions that it starved a man to keep answered, and there were a host of girls, simply girls, who both told and questioned in such a torrent of words and laughs and tears that it didn’t much matter whether the stories were heard or the questions answered. There was a Gladys I saw who tried hard to be conventional. Which, as she soon found, was the most unconventional e o B T T B L3 W TR D M ok #-777 SSTIYRE | WONDER IF THERE 15 A ,B0Y IN THAT REGIMENT wHo HASNT A SWEETHEART \WAITING s thing she could do. *“Do explain the po- litical relations in' the Philippines,” she began properly—and then wound up with, “Oh, 1 don’t care a button about them, but, Jackie, do you know, the parrot has learned a bugle call.” 1 st with its big over there The break clusive che splendid, con- was a better chance for more comfortable affection outside the east nave again. Man hadleft their best beloved outs bars when they went In to a breakfast that couldn’t quite make up even by its groaning tables for the attractive outside There was a long blessed hour for ni little leave-takings—leave-takings that meant how-dye-do again in no time, and the roof of San Francisco over both heads. The Presidio is nearer than Ma- nila. The boys looked as placid and jovial after the fedst as private citizens look, and the tears had for the most part wept themselves out. The boys beamed under or over wreaths, and the happlest girls in San Francisco leaned on their arms or clung to their shoulders while they prom- enaded. There was a certain society favorite whose tawny curls alone appeared above a mass of white sweet peas and silk walsts and golf capes. There was a less known soldier in another corner with only one little bunch of pink rosebuds and one small damsel that nobody in particular knew. And they were both entirely sat- isfied so far as the most critical observer could see. In days when football men are back numbers and matinee idols are out of date; when, in short, there is nothing in the masculine line strictly in it except the cign of our army; In these days there are overtures made that belong to leap year alone. But it is entirely the thing to be as attentive as one likes to a returning hero, and the islands of the far East (or s it West?) do not furnish maidens that come in the way of home ties. So it is, for the most part, a satisfying enough home coming on both sides. I might think it was always so if I didn’t remember the case of the measurer of rib- bons. And even then I wondered if the THOSE WHO SAW HER STANDING THERE WiLL NOT FOrRGET" brown jacket wouldn't flnally ocut him out. There was a girl on the boat Thursday that I noticed. She had large, well-gloved hands and smoothly knotted hair. She the kind of girl who wears low heels a sailor hat conspicuous neither for v old nor very new shape. She was as a cucumber on the boat; so cool fancied she merely wanted a snap- of the transport. shot It was a minute before we steamed into ‘Washington street wharf that I caught sight of the yellow flurry of her relative’'s “You have somebody on board?* she answere cool : “a brother.”” She but her eyes shone. to have hysterics no way of reaching Tnion depot on ok of the thing ad one whit good check- been n there wa But I saw her , and from tt that ption for all that of a re in on self. The whole affair this week has been such a patchwork of all the things we feel—love and fear and hope and comedy and tragedy. There are so many _little sights on which hinge so much. There was more pathos than is quite easy with- out a handkerchief in the way the girl in the blue silk waist clung to her great Adonis that once was; poor scarred sol- dier that has returned to her, branded with the sign of dread diseass. And the woman who stood back agalinst the brass bars and watched from under her black vell; watched those who went to meet somebody. She was alone. Those who saw her standing there will not forget. CRELLYS CRANDALL. The Experiences of the First Newspaper Men to Board the Big Graps- port Off the Heads. offense of the of- heinous both r forced de ch of us had t , In and we could offer was placed before us settled down to tell them the news of the world from which they had been so long separated. We were getting along in fine shape. The cabin was filling up with tobacco smoke, through which jest and storie were flying thick and f again interrupted. Th was an Examiner launch loaded with Alice Rix, reporters and a dog. They all wanted to come right on board and pleaded for recognition of passes which they claimed they had from all sorts and conditions of people in all kinds and classes of authoritative positions. But it was no go. They were forced to content themselves with talking through a megaphone, ask- ing questions which no one on board un- derstood and receiving replies which were not distinct enough to be intelligible. After a while they became tired and went home. Then the Chronicle made another try. This time it was Mabel Craft who appeared. She stood on th tug’s deck and tried to convince the tran port's officers that by allowing a_ repr sentative of her paper on board they would be conferring a personal favor on Major General Shatter. They replied that nothing would give them greater satis- faction than to put the general under an obligation, and If the party would repeat REPORTERS 71S PRISONERS ON THE SHERMAN it on the morrow, after the doctor it, it would be most cor- Then they aiso went its vi had made his v diall; home. As a matter of fact, the whole evening was i i ai n_ hail ing them how d not get h; by one the soldi the crowd a newspaper boats re that come W, an invitation of ns, the regimental ad- his room. In the highly h I had been my arrest bunking alone was ve of solitary confinement. , but in that al agony than mpassed in a_long life. rid dreams. They were ons of custom-house officers and I suffered 1 slept but time 1 exper| fi with vi and other uncanny thing intensel Early to lool he morning I arose and started bout the Going forward I ng fruit a ews all’s boat efore sunrise and supplied all hands with papers and delicacies. The otk papers sent out boats some hours lat As soon as it became perfectly crafts of ali sorts and sizes began to come out, and soon the boys were recognizing familiar faces and receiving greetings from loved ones whom they had not seen for the last fifteen months. Among the swarm of tu; us around was a white one commanded by an officer whose natural flerceness of expression was considgrably increased by an enormous pair of mustachios that adorned (?) his upper lip. This gentleman, lately attached to a Polar relief expedi- tion but now in command of a customs tug, brought off another officer, who lis- tened to the report of our guard and then doubled the one on Honig. Our new captor was not the real thing, but he was more heavily plated than the one who had originally arrested us, and he told us that we were to be handed over to the doctor, who would act as a sort of preliminary court to sit on our ca Naturally this increased our uneasiness. It is bad enough that circled to be sat upon by any one, but by a doctor! A_little before noon the transport welghed anchor and started toward the city. Out of the Golden Gate to meet her came such a procession of decorated craft that one would not find it hard to deceive himself into the belief that he had been whisked back to the days when Ven- etian splendor was the glory of the seas and he was witnessing the nuptial cere- monies of the Adriatic. Just after we entered the heads the doc- tor came on board. He was made as- quainted with our apprehension and we were summoned before him. After read- ing us a caustic lecture on the evil we had done he stood us in front of him fi?d sized us up. As a Tesult of his ex- aminatfon _our guards were a, changed. One was put over Honig ‘-‘;2 elf and a special man was detalled watch over Billy. They all had or- ders not to allow us out of sight for a moment. This readjustment rather hurt Honig and myself.” Billy was a little bit of a fellow and we did not see why guard should be detailed to him while a single man 3 was llvrr'mr‘d sufficient to take care of both of us. ’lrh n we got into trouble between our- selves. This single espionage racket had ted us into sort of legal Slamese ever one of us wished to do and wherever one of us d to go there the other had to fol- The guard was willing to accom- us to any part of the ship, but he should not separate. Now oned all sorts of ilifeeling be- Honig and myself are dissimilar in every way and our tastes are as opposite as our appearances. If T wanted to look at the city front it was a cinch that Honig would want to gaze at Alcatraz, and if Honig wanted to flirt with some one over the bow I would have a particular friend in_one of the boats astern, nally we came to an arrangsment by which we took turn about, each man be. ing the elder twin for half an hour, then glving wa¥ to the other. This agreement worked ltke a charm and the guard, who had been losing flesh trying to keep us hm? together, had a chance to get a Httle rest. When the vessel came to an anchor a tug bearing our superiors came alongside and a message was sent up to us to lose the guard and come down on board. We told the boys what was wanted and they stood in with us nobly. Getting around our patrol they so mixed him up among themselves that we had a chance to slip away. I got on to the tug by the help of a_ porthole which a_couple of sol- dlers held open while T sfld down a rope which a friendly coalpasser supplied me with. Hon s there when I arrived and Bri ing his custodian through the assist f the Rafters, slid down from the stern of the transport on a tug's lagpole. en there he beat us on the honor end of it. The polé broke and he descended in a most sensational manner ht in dst of a circle of ladles tug’s deck. The tug at med off and we were again free men. Honig and r our escape, b we had che €lf were much relieved at t we could not help wishing en the flagpole. [ ENRY PETERSON of the Brunswick is the Sandow of the water front, and he has proved it by, figuratively, picking up the gage of battle thrown down by an excited and ob- stinate bull that objected to a sea voy- | age. The Grecian Hercules and the Lygian giant Ursus both rolled into one could not hope to rival him in the estimation of the gallant tars and bold longshore- men who do the most of their swearing in the immediate vicinity of Spear- street wharf. Henry is a hero of brawn and sinew— a man in whom the three dimensions, |length, breadth and thickness, are so harmoniously combined as to mak2 him a wonder and a marvel among his kind. His scalp-lock waves triumphantly six feet and four inches above the deck of any vessel upon which he plants his sturdy number twelve feet. He weighs 291 pounds. Never having heard most probably of the two gentlemen previously mention- ed, as being out of his class in the rival line, Henry cannot, even by those most envious of his pregent glory, be accused of knowingly putting upon the stage of actual existence a plagiarism of the special “turns” which gained those mythical personages their wide renown. Like them, however, he has engaged in single combat with a flerce and raging specimen of the bovine species, and with his good right arm, assisted per- haps somewhat by his left, has gained a victory over his four-footed antago- Jhe Ursus of the &ater Front. nist, the recital of which will long Inter- est the dwellers and workers around our wharves. The bull in question was not a specially large one, but he was possess- ed of a great deal of stubbornness and was of a most excitable temperament. Determining in his own heart that life on the ocean wave was not desirable for him, he decided not to board the tug upon which Henry was helping to lecad his companions in misery on their way to the Brunswick, but instead to seek the bosky groves of East street and rest beneath the shade of the trees thoughtfully planted there some time since by a nature-loving Harbor Com- mission. Up the whart he started, and his gen- tle amble became a wild and maddened gallop as the persons whom he met Jointly and severally proceeded to ob- ject to his plans. Up East street he turned, and just then Henry realized that something had happened, and, in the vernacular of the front, “got a wig- gle on.” He cleared the wharf in four bounds and got abreast of the bull in two more. Then he got a left hook on the brute's spreading horns and trot- ted along beside him until he came to a place where, three or four paving stones being missing, there was a chance to stick his toes into terra firma and make an anchor of himself for the queer craft he was trying to get command of. He didn’t stick them quite far enouzh, however, for the ani- mal dragged him up and sailed along a little further until they came to an- other hole in the pavement, and here Henry was more successful. He didn't break the creature’s neck, but he came pretty near cracking it, and for a few moments there was an energetic and spirited tug-of-war between man and beast, during which bets were even among the wildly interested onlookers. Every muscle in the sailor's body was tried and twisted to the utmost, every nerve was tense. He had entered upon an unequal contest, but, having en- tered, his stout heart would not let him retreat. The bull gathered its forces for one supreme effort and sprang fran- tically forward. Peterson's legs stiff- ened until they seemed like twin masts d he sat h ne three hundred pounds of individuality back on the at- mosphere and wished, for the moment, that he were five hundred pounds heav- fer. But he did not need to be. Intel- ligently directed human strength proved more than a match for blind brute force. The shock of suddenly arrested motion followed that last crazed leap for liberty, and then with a quick bending of the giant form beside him the bull's head was forced down be- tween his quivering forelegs; then those forelegs wavered and bent, and prone upon the ground lay the con- quered beast, with Peterson of the Brunswick sitting conqueror astride his neck.