The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions | Page 9

if one of the men known to have been with him May 1st should be found out in any American theater he would be taken on the stage by an irresistible call and a muscular committee of enthusiasts, and the play could not go on without "a few words" and the "Star Spangled Banner," "Hail Columbia," "Yankee Doodle," "Dixey" and "My Country, 'tis of Thee"; that the hallelujah note would be struck; that cars are chalked "for Deweyville"; that the board fences have his name written, or painted, or whittled on them; that there are Dewey cigars; that blacksmith-shops have the name Dewey scratched on them, also barn doors; and that if there are two dwelling-houses and a stable at a cross-roads it is Deweyville, or Deweyburg or Deweytown; that there is a flood of boy babies named Dewey, that the girls sing of him, and the ladies all admire him and the widows love him, and the school children adore him. The Admiral says: "I hear such things, and altogether they amaze me--the newspapers, the telegrams, the letters become almost unreal, for I do not comprehend what they say of my first day's work here. There was not a man in the fleet who did not do his duty."
The Admiral is told that he need not think to stay away until the people who have him on their minds and in their hearts are tired of their enthusiasm; that he cannot go home undiscovered and without demonstrations that will shake the earth and rend the skies; that the boys will drag the horses from his carriage, and parade the streets with him as a prisoner, and have it out with him, giving him a good time, until it will be a hard time, and he might as well submit to manifest destiny! His country wanted another hero, and he was at the right place at the right time, and did the right thing in the right way; and the fact answers all questions accounting for everything. Still he has a notion of staying away until the storm is over and he can get along without being a spectacle. Why, even the ladies of Washington are wild about him. If he should appear at the White House to call on the President, the scene would be like that when Grant first met Abraham Lincoln.
One rough day on the bay I took passage in a small steam-launch to visit the Olympia, where the Admiral's flag floated, to call on him. There was plenty of steam, and it was pleasant to get out a good way behind the breakwater, for the waves beyond were white with anger, and the boat, when departing from partial shelter, had proceeded but two or three hundred yards when it made a supreme effort in two motions--the first, to roll over; the second, to stand on its head. I was glad both struggles were unsuccessful, and pleased with the order: "Slow her up." The disadvantages of too much harbor were evident. The slow-ups were several, and well timed, and then came the rise and fall of the frisky launch beside the warship, the throwing of a rope, the pull with a hook, the stand off with an oar, the bounding boat clearing from four to ten feet at a jump; the clutch, the quick step, the deft avoidance of a crushed foot or sprained ankle, with a possible broken leg in sight, the triumphant ascent, the safe landing, the sudden sense that Desdemona was right in loving a man for the dangers he had passed, the thought that there should be harbors less fluctuating, a lively appreciation of the achievements of pilots in boarding Atlantic liners. The broad decks of the Olympia, built by the builders of the matchless Oregon, had a comforting solidity under my feet. The Admiral was believed to be having a nap; but he was wide awake, and invited the visitor to take a big chair, which, after having accompanied the launch in the dance with the whitecaps, was peculiarly luxurious. The Admiral didn't mind me, and had a moment's surprise about an observer of long ago strolling so far from home and going forth in a high sea to make a call. I confessed to being an ancient Wanderer, but not an Ancient Mariner, and expressed disapprobation of the deplorable roughness of the California Albatross, a brute of a bird--a feathered ruffian that ought to be shot.
The Admiral would be picked out by close attention as the origin of some millions of pictures; but he is unlike as well as like them. Even the best photographs do not do justice to his fine eyes, large, dark and luminous, or to the solid mass of his head with iron-brown hair tinged with gray.