10 15 This is the song the Brown Thrush flings, Mark how it closes: Luck, luck, What luck? Good enough for me! I'm alive, you see. Sun shining, No repining; Idle sorrow; Cover it up! Joy will fill it, Don't spill it, what time: at the time when. reveille (pronounced in our army rěv ȧ lē'): a signal for the soldiers to arise in the morning. sally: a bursting forth. voluble easily rolling. — repining: sorrowing. DOBBS HENRY WOODFIN GRADY HENRY WOODFIN GRADY (1851-1889), an American editor and orator, was born in Athens, Georgia, and educated at the University of Georgia. At the age of eighteen he began his editorial life on the Rome Courier. In 1880, through the generosity of Cyrus W. Field of New York, who lent him twenty thousand 5 dollars to buy a fourth interest in the Atlanta Constitution, he became managing editor of that paper. The success which it achieved was largely due to his genius. At the time of Grady's early death he was regarded as one of the most eloquent of our orators.. Throughout his life he had an earnest and practical sympathy for the lonely and the poor. Even in his boyhood days he would send many a little, negro ragamuffin to his mother's home with such a note as this: 10 Dear Mother: Please give this child something to eat. He looks 15 so hungry. H. W. G. His had been indeed a wonderful career in many ways. He could have had any office he wanted, though he cared for none; he could move his fellow-men whenever and wherever he spoke to them; he had the genius of the organizer and the journalist; he 20 wrought a great work of reconciliation for the nation. — TRENT. I am proud of my acquaintance with Dobbs. He was a hero whose deeds were not spread upon any of the books of men, but whose martyrdom I am sure illustrates a glowing page in God's great 25 life book. I met him late one night. The paper, with its burden of news and gossip, had just been put to press, and I strolled out of the hot, clanking room to catch a sight of the cool morning stars and a whiff of the dew-laden breezes 5 of the dawn. 10 15 Silhouetted against the intercepted stars I saw a tall and striking form standing like a statue in the corner. As I came out of the door the figure approached. "Is this the Herald office, sir?" "Yes, sir. Can I serve you. in any way? ?" "Well" hesitating for an instant, and then speaking boldly and sharply; "I wanted to know you could not trust me for a few papers?" if "I suppose so; walk in to the light." I shall never forget the impression Dobbs made on me that night, as we two walked in from the starlight to the glare of the gas-burners. As I have said before, he had a tall and strik20 ing figure. His face was ugly. He was ungraceful, ragged, and uncouth. Yet there was a splendid glow of honesty that shone from every feature and challenged your admiration. It was not that cheap honesty that suffuses the face of your aver25 age honest man, but a vivid burst of light that, fed by principle, sent its glow from the heart. It was not the passive honesty that is the portion of men who have no need to steal, but the triumphant honesty that has grappled with poverty, with disease, with despair, and conquered the whole brood of temptation; the honesty that has been sorely tried, 5 the honesty of martyrdom, the honesty of heroism. He was the honestest man I ever knew. There was one feature of his dress that was pathetic. He wore a superb swallow-tailed dress coat, -a gorgeous coat, which was doubtless christened 10 at some happy wedding (his father's, I suppose), had walked side by side with dainty laces, been swept through stately quadrilles, and to-night came to me upon a shirtless back and asked "trust" for a half-dozen newspapers. 15 It had that seedy, threadbare look which makes broadcloth after its first season the most melancholy dress that somber ingenuity ever invented. It was scrupulously brushed and buttoned close up to the chin, whether to hide the lack of a shirt 20 I never in the course of six months' intimate acquaintance had the audacity to inquire. In the sleeve, on which rosy wrists had been, in days gone by, laid in loving confidence, a shriveled arm hung loosely, and from its outlet three decrepit fingers 25 driveled. His hat was old and fell around his ears. His breeches, of a whitish material, had the peculiarity of leaving the office perfectly dirty one evening and coming back pure and clean the next morning. What amount of midnight scrubbing this 5 required from my hero Dobbs I will not attempt to tell. Neither will I guess how he became possessed of that wonderful coat. Whether in the direst days of the poverty which had caught him, his old mother, pitying her boy's rags, had fished it up 10 from the bottom of a trunk where, with mayhap an orange wreath or a bit of white veil, it had lain for years, the last token of a happy bridal night, and, baptizing it with her tears, had thrown it around his bare shoulders, I cannot tell. All I 15 know is that, taken in connection with the rest of his attire, it was startling in its contrast; and that I honored the brave dignity with which he buttoned this magnificent coat against his honest rags and strode out to meet the jeers of the world and 20 work out a living. I knew Dobbs for six months. Day after day I saw him come at three o'clock in the morning. I saw his pale face, and that coat so audacious in its fineness, go to the press room, fold his papers, 25 and hurry out into the weather. One night I stopped him. |