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THE OLD SOLDIER`S STORY
AS TOLD BEFORE THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN NEW YORK CITY Since we have had no stories to-night I will venture, Mr. President, to tell a story that I have heretofore heard at nearly all the banquets I have ever attended. It is a story simply, and you must bear with it kindly. It is a story as told by a friend of us all, who is found in all parts of all countries, who is immoderately fond of a funny story, and who, unfortunately, attempts to tell a funny story himself--one that he has been particularly delighted with. Well, he is not a story-teller, and especially he is not a funny story-teller. His funny stories, indeed, are oftentimes touchingly pathetic. But to such a story as he tells, being a good-natured man and kindly disposed, we have to listen, because we do not want to wound his feelings by telling him that we have heard that story a great number of times, and that we have heard it ably told by a great number of people from the time we were children. But, as I say, we can not hurt his feelings. We can not stop him. We can not kill him; and so the story generally proceeds. He selects a very old story always, and generally tells it in about this fashion: I heerd an awful funny thing the other day--ha! ha! I don`t know whether I kin git it off er not, but, anyhow, I`ll tell it to you. Well!--le`s see now how the fool-thing goes. Oh, yes!--W`y, there was a feller one time--it was during the army and this feller that I started in to tell you about was in the war and--ha! ha!--there was a big fight a-goin` on, and this feller was in the fight, and it was a big battle and bullets a-flyin` ever` which way, and bomb- shells a-bu`stin`, and cannon-balls a-flyin` `round promiskus; and this feller right in the midst of it, you know, and all excited and het up, and chargin` away; and the fust thing you know along come a cannon-ball and shot his head off--ha! ha! ha! Hold on here a minute!--no, sir; I`m a-gittin` ahead of my story; no, no; it didn`t shoot his HEAD off-- I`m gittin` the cart before the horse there--shot his LEG off; that was the way; shot his leg off; and down the poor feller drapped, and, of course, in that condition was perfectly he`pless, you know, but yit with presence o` mind enough to know that he was in a dangerous condition ef somepin` wasn`t done fer him right away. So he seen a comrade a-chargin`, by that he knowed, and he hollers to him and called him by name--I disremember now what the feller`s name was. . . . Well, that`s got nothin` to do with the story, anyway; he hollers to him, he did, and says, "Hello, there," he says to him; "here, I want you to come here and give me a lift; I got my leg shot off, and I want you to pack me back to the rear of the battle" --where the doctors always is, you know, during a fight--and he says, "I want you to pack me back there where I can get med-dy-cinal attention er I`m a dead man, fer I got my leg shot off," he says, "and I want you to pack me back there so`s the surgeons kin take keer of me." Well-- the feller, as luck would have it, ricko`nized him and run to him and throwed down his own musket, so`s he could pick him up; and he stooped down and picked him up and kindo` half-way shouldered him and half-way helt him betwixt his arms like, and then he turned and started back with him--ha! ha! ha! Now, mind, the fight was still a-goin` on--and right at the hot of the fight, and the feller, all excited, you know, like he was, and the soldier that had his leg shot off gittin` kindo` fainty like, and his head kindo` stuck back over the feller`s shoulder that was carryin` him. And he hadn`t got more`n a couple o` rods with him when another cannon-ball come along and tuk his head off, shore enough!-- and the curioust thing about it was--ha! ha!--that the feller was a-packin` him didn`t know that he had been hit ag`in at all, and back he went--still carryin` the deceased back--ha! ha! ha!--to where the doctors could take keer of him--as he thought. Well, his cap`n happened to see him, and he thought it was a ruther cur`ous p`ceedin`s--a soldier carryin` a dead body out o` the fight--don`t you see? And so he hollers at him, and he says to the soldier, the cap`n did, he says, "Hullo, there; where you goin` with that thing?" the cap`n said to the soldier who was a-carryin` away the feller that had his leg shot off. Well, his head, too, by that time. So he says, "Where you going with that thing?" the cap`n said to the soldier who was a-carryin` away the feller that had his leg shot off. Well, the soldier he stopped-- kinder halted, you know, like a private soldier will when his presidin` officer speaks to him--and he says to him, "W`y," he says, "Cap, it`s a comrade o` mine and the pore feller has got his leg shot off, and I`m a-packin` him back to where the doctors is; and there was nobody to he`p him, and the feller would `a` died in his tracks--er track ruther--if it hadn`t a-been fer me, and I`m a-packin` him back where the surgeons can take keer of him; where he can get medical attendance--er his wife`s a widder!" he says, " `cause he`s got his leg shot off!" Then CAP`N says, "You blame fool you, he`s got his HEAD shot off." So then the feller slacked his grip on the body and let it slide down to the ground, and looked at it a minute, all puzzled, you know, and says, "W`y, he told me it was his leg!" Ha! ha! ha!
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