hours he lay without thought or feeling or motion. Then his senses
returned. The dawn of the third morning was breaking. Ah, the world
seemed very beautiful to those worn eyes. Suddenly a great longing to
live rose up in the lad’s heart, and from his soul welled a deep and
fervent prayer that Heaven would have mercy upon him and let him see his
home and his friends once more. In that instant a soft, a faint, a far-
off sound, but oh, how inexpressibly sweet to his waiting ear, came
floating out of the distance:
“Waw . . . he! waw . . . he! waw-he!–waw-he!–waw-he!”
“That, oh, that song is sweeter, a thousand times sweeter than the voice
of the nightingale, thrush, or linnet, for it brings not mere hope, but
certainty of succor; and now, indeed, am I saved! The sacred singer has
chosen itself, as the oracle intended; the prophecy is fulfilled, and my
life, my house, and my people are redeemed. The ass shall be sacred from
this day!”
The divine music grew nearer and nearer, stronger and stronger and ever
sweeter and sweeter to the perishing sufferer’s ear. Down the declivity
the docile little donkey wandered, cropping herbage and singing as he
went; and when at last he saw the dead horse and the wounded king, he
came and snuffed at them with simple and marveling curiosity. The king
petted him, and he knelt down as had been his wont when his little
mistress desired to mount. With great labor and pain the lad drew
himself upon the creature’s back, and held himself there by aid of the
generous ears. The ass went singing forth from the place and carried the
king to the little peasant-maid’s hut. She gave him her pallet for a
bed, refreshed him with goat’s milk, and then flew to tell the great news
to the first scouting-party of searchers she might meet.
The king got well. His first act was to proclaim the sacredness and
inviolability of the ass; his second was to add this particular ass to
his cabinet and make him chief minister of the crown; his third was to
have all the statues and effigies of nightingales throughout his kingdom
destroyed, and replaced by statues and effigies of the sacred donkey;
and, his fourth was to announce that when the little peasant maid should
reach her fifteenth year he would make her his queen and he kept his
word.
Such is the legend. This explains why the moldering image of the ass
adorns all these old crumbling walls and arches; and it explains why,
during many centuries, an ass was always the chief minister in that royal
cabinet, just as is still the case in most cabinets to this day; and it
also explains why, in that little kingdom, during many centuries, all
great poems, all great speeches, all great books, all public solemnities,
and all royal proclamations, always began with these stirring words:
“Waw . . . he! waw . . , he!–waw he! Waw-he!”
SPEECH ON THE BABIES
AT THE BANQUET, IN CHICAGO, GIVEN BY THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE TO THEIR
FIRST COMMANDER, GENERAL U. S. GRANT, NOVEMBER, 1879
The fifteenth regular toast was “The Babies–as they comfort us in
our sorrows, let us not forget them in our festivities.”
I like that. We have not all had the good for tune to be ladies. We
have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast
works down to the babies, we stand on common ground. It is a shame that
for a thousand years the world’s banquets have utterly ignored the baby,
as if he didn’t amount to anything. If you will stop and think a minute
–if you will go back fifty or one hundred years to your early married
life and recontemplate your first baby–you will remember that he
amounted to a great deal, and even something over. You soldiers all know
that when the little fellow arrived at family, headquarters you had to
hand in your resignation. He took entire command. You became his
lackey, his mere body servant, and you had to stand around, too. He was