uncle isaac randall was the last grand army man in our town. all the other old comrades had passed on. as a boy i used to try to imagine what “the last grand army man” would be like. poets and artists have tried to picture him, but when he actually appears you know how far the real must travel to reach the ideal. for poet and artist would have us look upon some calm, dignified man, carried by the wings of great achievement far above the mean and petty things of life which surround us like a thick fog in a narrow valley. for that, i fear, is what most of us find life to be unless the memory of some great sacrifice or some great devotion can lift our heads up into the perpetual sunshine. those who knew uncle isaac saw little of the hero about him. he was just a little, thin, nervous man, very deaf, irritable and disappointed. no one can play the part of a deaf man with any approach to success unless he be a genuine philosopher, and uncle isaac was unfitted by nature for that. sometimes in summer, when the sun went down, you would see the old man standing in the barn looking off to the crimson west, over the purpling hills where the shadows came creeping up from the valley. a man with some poetry and philosophy would have seen in the darkening notch where the hills gave way, to let the road pass through, an approach to the beautiful gate through which wife and children and old comrades had passed on, to wait for him beyond the hills. but uncle isaac was cursed with that curiosity which is the torture of the deaf—he saw the hired man up on the hill talking to the neighbor’s boy, and his burning desire was to know what they were talking about as they stood in the twilight.
the great war came, and uncle isaac’s two grandsons volunteered. before they shipped overseas they came back to the farm—very trim and natty in their brown uniforms. it irritated the old man to think that these boys—hardly more than babies—hardly to be trusted to milk a kicking cow—should be sent to fight america’s battles. and those little rifles! they were not much better than popguns, compared with his old army musket. the old man took the gun down from the nail where it had hung for years. he had kept it polished, and the lock with its percussion cap was still working. he would show these young sniffs what real warfare meant. so they went out in the pasture—the old soldier carrying his musket, carefully loaded with a round bullet—pushed in with the iron ramrod. in order to show these boy soldiers what real warfare might be, the old man sighted the musket over the fence and aimed at a board about 300 yards away. the bullet went at least five feet wide, while the old musket kicked back so hard that uncle isaac winced with the pain. then one of the boys quietly raised his “popgun” and aimed at a bush at least half a mile away across the valley. in a fraction of a minute he fired half a dozen bullets which tore up the ground all around that bush. then the boys hung one of their brown uniforms on the fence across the pasture, and put grandpa’s old blue coat beside it. you could hardly distinguish the brown coat against the background, while the blue coat stood out like a target. it was hard for the old man to realize that both he and his musket belonged to a vanished past. the boys looked at the gun and at grandpa marching home—trying to throw his old shoulders back into military form—and smiled knowingly at each other as youth has ever done in the pride of its power. they could not see—who of us ever can see?—the spiritual forces of patriotism which walked beside the old man, waiting for the time to show their power.
the weeks went by, and day by day grandpa read his paper with growing indignation. you remember how for months the army in france seemed to stand still before that great “hindenburg line” which stretched out like an iron wall in front of germany. it seemed to uncle isaac as if his boys and the rest of the army were cowards—afraid to march up to the line and fight. one day he threw down his paper and expressed himself fully, as only an old soldier can.
“i told you those boys never would fight. at the battle of the wilderness lee had a line of defense twice as strong as this hindenburg ever had. did general grant sit still and wait for something to happen? not much!
“‘forward by the left flank!’
“that was the order, and we went forward. don’t you know what he said at fort donelson? ‘i propose to move on your works at once.’ if general grant was in france that’s what he’d say, and within an hour you’d see old hindenburg coming out to surrender! my regiment fought all day against a regiment from north carolina. i’ll tell you what! let me have my old regiment and that north carolina regiment alongside and i’ll guarantee that we will break right through that hindenburg line, march right across the rhine, hog-tie the kaiser and bring him back with us.”
“but, father,” said his daughter gently, “don’t you remember what harry writes? they don’t fight that way now. the cannon must open a way first. harry says they fire shells so large and powerful that when they strike the ground they make a hole so large you could put the barn into it. suppose one of these big shells struck in the middle of your regiment?”
“i don’t care,” said uncle isaac. “we’d start, anyway! we’d move on those breastworks and take our chances!”
and mother wrote about it to her boys in the army over in france. the young fellows laughed at the thought of those old white-haired men, with their antiquated weapons, lined up before the death-dealing power of germany. it seemed such a foolish thing to youth. the letter finally came to the grey-haired colonel of the regiment—an elderly man who had in some way held his army place in the ocean of youth which surrounded him. his eyes were moist as he read it, for he knew that if that group of wasted, white-haired men had lined up in front of the army they would not have been alone. down the aisles of history would have come a throng of old heroes—the spirit of the past would have stood with them. they would have stilled the laughter, and if these old veterans had started forward the whole great army would have thrown off restraint, broken orders and followed them through the “hindenburg line.”
but uncle isaac, at home, humiliated and sad, went about the farm with something like a prayer in his old heart.
“why can’t i do something to help? don’t make me know my fighting days are over. what can i do?”
and uncle isaac finally had his chance. perhaps you remember how at one time during the war things seemed dark enough. our boys were swarming across the ocean, and submarines were watching for them. food was scarce. frost and storm had turned against us. money was flowing out like water. spies and german sympathizers were poisoning the public mind, and the liberty loan campaign was lagging. uncle isaac, reading it all day by day in his paper, felt like a man in prison galled to the soul by his inability to help. there came a big patriotic meeting at the county town. it was a factory town with many european laborers. they were restless and uneasy, opposed to the draft, tired of the war and not yet in full sympathy with america. uncle isaac determined to go to this meeting, though his daughter did all she could to dissuade him. there was no stopping him when he once made up his mind, so his daughter let him have his way, but she sent old john zabriski along with him. old john was a german pole who came to this country as a young man out of the german army. he had lived on uncle isaac’s farm for years, and just as a cabbage or a tomato plant seems the stronger and better for transplanting, so this transplanted european in the soil of this country had grown into the noblest type of american. so the daughter, standing in the farmhouse door with eyes that were a little dimmed, watched these two old men drive away to the meeting.
they had the speaker’s stand in front of the court house. the street was packed with a great crowd. right in front was a group of sullen, defiant foreigners who had evidently come for trouble. the sheriff was afraid of them, and inside the court house out of sight, but ready for instant service, was a squad of soldiers. a young man who was running for the legislature caught sight of uncle isaac and led him through the court house to the speaker’s platform, and john went, too, as bodyguard. the old veteran sat there in his blue coat and hat with the gold braid, unable to hear a word, but full of the spirit which had come down to him from the old days.
something was wrong. even uncle isaac could see that, and john zabriski beside him looked grave and anxious. that solid group of rough men in front began to sway back and forth like the movement of water when the high wind blows over it, and a sullen murmur, growing louder, came from the crowd. a small, effeminate-looking man was making a speech. very likely his ancestors came originally to this country two centuries ago, but somewhere back in the years this man’s forebears had made a fortune. instead of serving as a tool to spur the family on to finer things it had been spread out like a soft cushion to carry them through life without a bruise or bump. and these rough men, whose life had been all bruise and turmoil, knew that this soft little american was here talking platitudes when he should have been over in france. perhaps you have never heard the angry murmur of a sullen crowd grow into a roar of rage, until the crowd becomes like a wild beast. the sheriff had heard this, and he was frankly frightened. he started a messenger back into the court house to notify the soldiers, but old john zabriski stopped him.
“wait,” he said, “do not that. you lose those men by fighting. we gain them.”
then, before anyone could stop him, old john stepped up in front and barked out strange words which seemed like a command. then a curious thing happened. the angry murmur stilled. the crowd stopped its movement, and then every man stood at attention! almost every man there had in former years served in one of the european armies, and what old john had barked at them was the old army command which had been drilled into them years before. and through force of habit which had become instinct, that order, for the moment, changed that mob into an army of attentive soldiers. the bandmaster was a man of imagination, and as quickly as his men could catch up their instruments they began playing “the star spangled banner.” poor old uncle isaac heard nothing of this. he could only guess what it was all about until john zabriski laboriously wrote on a piece of paper:
“dey blay der shtar banner!”
then there came into uncle isaac’s sad life the great, glorious joy of power and opportunity. he walked down to the front of the stage, took off his gold-braided hat and bowed his white head before them all. and old john zabriski, the transplanted european, came and stood at his side. a young woman, dressed all in white, caught up a flag and came and stood beside the two old men. then a wounded soldier with one empty sleeve pinned to his breast followed her. and there in that sunlit street a great, holy silence fell over that vast crowd. for there before them on that platform stood the glory, the pride, the precious legacy of american history. the last grand army man, the european peasant made over into an american, and the young people who represented the promise and hope shining in the legacy which men like uncle isaac and john zabriski have given them.
when the band stopped playing a mighty cheer went up from that great crowd, and one by one the men of that sullen group in front took off their hats and joined in the cheering. they made uncle isaac get up again and again to salute, and no less a person than judge bradley shook both hands and said:
“we all thank you, captain randall. you have saved this great meeting and made this town solidly patriotic.” it was a proud old soldier who marched into the farmhouse kitchen that night, and in answer to his daughter’s questioning eyes he said:
“annie, i want you to write those boys all about it. tell ’em they are not doing it all. tell ’em judge bradley called me cap’n and said i saved the meeting. i only wish general grant could have been there!”
all of which goes to show that those of you who have come to white hair should not feel that you are out of the game yet. material things may go by us, but the spirit of the good old days is still the last resort!
