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."
