\ Tht Banwell BanwelL 8. Cm Tkanday, 23, 1937 ADVENTURERS’ CLUB headlines from the lives of PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI , • “A Battle With Steel" .By FLOYD OmBONS Famous Headline Hon ter TTELLO EVERYBODY: A 1 You know, boys and girls, I used to say we had all kinds of people sending in their adventures to this column. “The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker," is the way the old saying goes, and that’s literally true. Here, for in stance, is the baker—Joseph A. McMurtrie of Newark, N. J. Joe was a baker’s apprentice when this thing happened to him. It was the summer of 1&29, and Joe, trying to turn his school vacation into something useful, had sigfred up to learn the baker’s trade in a pie and cake factory. It was the sort of job that caught Joe’s interest and like most youngsters, he was anxious to find out just how things were done. He studied the routine of the plant closely, watched the bakers at their work, and monkeyed around with all the big machines in the plant. The machines, especially, interested Joe. He never missed an opportunity to get a look at the inside of one, to find out how it worked. He didn’t get a chance to do that often, though. Some of those machines were dangerous. Most machines are, anyway—to anyone who doesn’t know how to use them. And the bosses around the plant didn’t encourage Joe to fool around with those big mixers. ' One Saturday afternoon, though, Joe got the chance he had been waiting for. The boss came to him about 4 o’clock and told him that all the bakers were going home—that Joe, whom he was leaving alone in the store, would be in complete charge until closing time. He Investigated a Big Mixer. Joe didn’t mind a bit. He sat out front in the store until everybody had gone, and then, along about 6 o’clock, when people were eating dinner and business in the store had dwindled off to nothing, he began to think about the machinery in the back room—particularly the big mixers which he had been told not to touch. Joe went into the back room and straight to the biggest of those mix ers. He opened the top—looked inside. There was a crate of eggs in it— liit Joe Was Being Drawn Into the Machine. lying right on top of the machinery. He took it out, wondering, at the same time, why anyone would put a crate of eggs—crate and all—into a dough mixer. He found out later that it had been put there for the par ticular purpose of keeping him out of that machine. But by the time he did find out the damage was done and it was too late. Joe took the crate out of the mixer and looked inside. The machine hadn't been cleaned out. All the moving parts were covered with some sort of goo, and Joe couldn’t see how they worked. Well—that problem was easily solved. He'd clean that mixer out himself. He got a big towel and scraper and went to work. Couldn’t Get His Hand Loose. There was a big rotator inside and Joe started cleaning that. He cleaned half of it and then found he couldn’t reach the other side, so he started the motor to turn it over. The motor whirred. Joe released the brake. The rotator began to move, and then— it happened! As Joe released the brake with his left hand, he placed his right—for some unknown reason—on top of the rotator. And in a split second he found himself being drawn into the machine. “Something,” says Joe, “was clutching my hand. I tried to work it loose, but I couldn’t A cold, stinging pain was shooting up my arm. That steel had a chill in it.” Joe’s left hand was still loose, wd with it he jammed on the brake again. But the motor was still running, straining against the brake with a peculiar sort of whine—like the sound of an electric fan when you hold the blade. “It was dark in that back room,” says Joe, “and I noticed that my hand and arm were getting awfully cold. 1 locked the brake and put my left hand into the machine to try and work the right one loose. I felt something wet and pulled my left hand out again. It was covered with blood. Thought He Was Bleeding to Death. “Then I began to get hysterical I tugged with all my might and started to yell for help. I was standing on my toes all this time. I couldn't set my feet flat on the ground, because the weight of my body would tear at my now terribly painful hand. I thought of being held in that position over the week-end—of slowly bleeding to death. I began to shout some more.” In the Y. W. C. A. building that stood back to back with the bakery a woman heard Joe’s frantic yells. She caUed them to the attention of an other woman, and they decided that it was just some chUdren playing. And Joe, bleeding and hysterical tugged at his swollen, lacerated arm. Slowly he was lapsing into unconsciousness when he heard a noise in the store outside. Joe tried to call His voice wouldn’t work. Then everything went black. Joe came to in a hospital, and there they told him how he got there. The customer who had come into the store had looked through the door and seen Joe hanging to the side of the machine. She called an ambulance and—well—it had taken three hours to get Joe out. But his hand was fixed up all right at the hospital and it’s as good as new today Copyright.—WNU Service. Horseshoe and Good Luck According to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable the legend that a horseshoe brings good luck is sup posed to have originated with St Dunstan, who was noted for his skill in shoeing horses. One day Satan himself is said to have appeared and demanded that his “single hoof’ should be shod. St. Dunstan, recognizing his customer, tied him tightly to the wall and proceeded to do as he was bid, but purposely in flicted so much pain that his Sa tanic Majesty begged for mercy. Thereupon St. Dunstan released his captive after having extracted from him a promise that he would never enter a place where a horseshoe was displayed. Thus reads the leg end. And so, for many centuries, observes a writer in the New Yrok Herald Tribune, the horseshoe has been looked upon as a charm against evil and a bringer of good fortune. At one time it was affixed to the front door of the house as a protection against witches. Lord Nelson caused one to be nailed to the mast of his flagship the Victory and, today, we still And this emblem of good luck installed in many homes. Romans in Chins Blakeslee’s “China aiM the Far East” mentions that from some cause which may be neither under stood nor explained, commercial and friendly missions between the Em peror of China and the heads of various Asiatic and European states first were dispatched at about the beginning of the Christian era. In the year 61 A. D., the Chinese em peror sent an envoy to the west for teachers and books of the true re ligion, but this envoy, dreading the hardships and perils of the deserts, deflected his course to the south, to India, and returned with Buddhist writings and priests. In 126 A. D., a Chinese general reached the valley of the Caspian sea and carried the grapevine back to China. In 163 A. D.,the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (An-Tun in Chi nese annals) sent an embassy by sea to Kattigora in Cochin-China to pro cure the rich silks made by the peo ple of the empire. The Roman mer chants traveled Inland to Lo Yang. A later Roman expedition to China in the reign of Theodosius, in the Eighth century, led to the culture of the silkworm in Europe. December 25,1862, Was a Day of Truce Along the Rappahannock On That Christmas Day, 75 Yaars Ago, Blua-Clad "Yank" and Gray-Garbed "Johnny Reb," Forgetting the Recent Horror of Fredericksburg, Declared an Unofficial Armistice, and Met Between the Lines for a Friendly Exchange of Food and Other Gifts. e Western Newspaper Union. Wjw * SUNDAY 1 SCHOOL LESSON-:- By REV. HAROLD L. LUNDQUIST, Dean ot the Moody Bible Institute ol Chicago. e Western Newepaper Union. ■M* •* ' _ (From a picture la CHRISTMAS DAT ON THE RAPPAHANNOCK “Dram-Beat of the Nation” by Charles Carlston Coffin, Courtesy, Harper and Brothers, publishers.) By ELMO SCOTT WATSON EARTH, good will peace; toward men.’ What an ironical sound that phrase must have to the man who, on December 25, finds himself wearing the uniform of the common soldier and engaged in war! Perhaps, somewhere “on earth’’ there is “peace.’’ But, he tells himself bitterly, it isn’t here where he and his comrades in arms are dem onstrating their “good will toward men’’ by trying to blast the spark of life from those men across the lines, who happen to be wearing a different uniform and holding allegiance to a different flag. He realizes, of course, that he ought to hate those fellows over there and that he is doing noth ing more than his “soldierly du ty” in trying to kill them. And yet, somehow ... on Christmas Day . . . But let Private John R. Pax ton, a “boy in blue” in the Army of the Potomac, speak for all such men. The Army of the Potomac, dis heartened by its many defeats and the incompetency of its com manders, is resting upon the Fal mouth hills in Maryland. Across the Rappahannock is Gen. Rob ert E. Lee’s Confederate army which, only two weeks earlier, had hurled General Burnside’s blue-clad hosts back down the bloody slopes of Fredericksburg with such fearful losses. It is Christmas day, 1862. Private Paxton is speaking now —(through the pages of Charles Carleton Coffin’s book, “Drum- Beat of the Nation.”) He says: “So this is war. And I am out here to ahoot that lean, lank, coughing cadaver ous-looking butternut fellow over the river. So this is WAR; this Is being a ■oldier . . . Hello. Johnny, what are you up to?” The river was narrow hut deep and swift. It wss a wet cold, not a freez ing cold. There was no Ice, too swift for that. “Hello. Johnny, what you coughing ao for?” “Yank, with no overcoat, shoes full of holes, nothing to eat but parched corn and tobacco, and with this denied Yankee snow a foot deep, there la noth in' left. NOTHIN' but to get up a cough by way of protestin’ against this Infernal Ill-treatment of the body. We- uns, Yank, all have a cough over here, and there's no sayln' which will run us Into the hole first, the cough or your bullets.’’ The snow still fell, keen winds, raw and fierce, cut to the bone. It was God's worst weather. In God’s forlomest. bleakest spot of ground, that Christmas day of '62 on the Rappahannock, a half- mile below the town of Fredericksburg. But come, pick up your prostrate pluck, you shivering private. Surely there is enough dampness around without add ing to It with your tears. “Let's laugh, boys.” “Hello, Johnny." "Hello, yourself. Yank.” "Merry Christmas, Johnny.” “Same to you, Yank.” “Say. Johnny, got anything to trade?” “Parched com and tobacco—the size of our Christmas, Yank." “All right; you shall have some of our coffee and sugar and pork. Bovs, find the boats.” Such boats! Some Yankee, desperately hungry for tobacco. Invented them for trading with the Johnnies. They were hid sway under the banks of the river for successive relays of pickets. We got out the boats. An old handker chief answered for a sail. We loaded them with coffee, sugar, pork, act the sail, and watched them slowly creep to the other shore. And the Johnnies? To see them crowd the bank and push and scramble to be first to seize the boats, going Into the water and stretching out their long arms! Then when they pulled the boats ashore, and stood In s group over the cargo, and to hear their exclamations "Hurrah for hog!" “Say. that's not roast ed rye, but genuine coffee.” “Smell it you-uns. And sugar, too!" Then they divided the consignment They laughed and shouted. “Reckon you-uns been good to we-uns this Christ mas day. Yanks.” Then they put parched com, tobacco, ripe persimmons, into the boats, and sent them back to us. And we chewed the parched com, smoked real Virginia leaf, ate persimmons which, if they weren’t very filling, at least contracted our stomachs to the aiu o( our Christmas dinner. And so the day passed. We shouted, “Merry Christmas, Johnny." They shout ed, “Same to you, Yank.” And we for got the biting wind, chilling cold; we forgot those men over there were our enemies, whom It might be our duty to shoot before evening. We had bridged the river, spanned the bloody chasm. We were brothers, not foes, waving salutations of good will in the name of the Babe of Bethlehem, on Christmas day In '82. At the very front of the opposing armies the Christ Child struck s truce for us—broke down the wall of partition, became our peace. We exchanged gifts. We shouted greet ings back and forth. We kept Christ mas, and our hearts were lighter for It. our shivering bodies not so cold. Nor were Private Paxton and his comrades the only soldiers along the Rappahahnock who thus “kept Christmas” in 1862. In Frank Moore’s collection ot “Anecdotes, Poetry and Incidents of the War; North and South, 1860-1865” (published in 1866) you will find a story headed “A Singu lar Incident,” which reads: ^ A soldier, writing from his camp near Fredericksburg, narrated the following, which occurred while he was on picket duty with his company: It was Christmas day and after par taking of a Christmas dinner of salt junk and hard tack our attention was at tracted by a rebel picket who hailed us from the opposite side of the river. “I say, Yank, if a fellow goes over there, will you let him come back again?” Receiving an affirmative answer, he proceeded to test the truth of It by paddling himself across the river. He was decidedly the cleanest specimen of a rebel I had seen. In answer to a question, he said be belonged to the a quick trip across the Rappahannock. Night came on and those not on duty lay down on the frozen ground to dream of other Christmas nights when we knew not of war. As the war dragged on its weary length, such armistices, inspired first by the spirit of Christmas in the winter of 1862, became increasingly common. This was especially true during the siege of Petersburg in the winter of 1864, as witness the fol lowing from H. Clay Trumbull’s “War Memories of an Army Chaplain”: A man on one side or the other would hold up prominently a white handker chief, or a sheet of white paper, as a sign of a desire for a tacit or Informal truce. If It were responded to by a simi lar sign on the opposite side and was not at once forbidden by the officer In command it was accepted by all as bind ing. Often at such times the men would Jump over their rifle pits, or embank ments, and meet each other peacefully between the lines, swapping coffee, of which the Union soldiers had an abun dance, for tobacco, with which the Con federates were well supplied; exchang ing newspapers, bartering “hard tack” for corn cake, conversing pleasantly, or bantering each other with good-natured references to their local peculiarities. Sometimes two opponents would sit down for a friendly game of cards. A fine sense of honor prevailed In the general recognition o( the sacredness of these informal and tacit truces. Men would not' Are at each other, at the close of one of these seasons, until both parties had had time to settle down to business again. If. on any occasion, an officer seemed to lack consideration WINTER SPORT IN A CONFEDERATE CAMP (From an Illustration la “Battles and Leaden of the Civil War,” Courtssy, tha Century Company.) Georgia Legion. One of our boys re marked, “I met quite a number of your boys at South Mountain.” “Yes, I suppose so. if you were there,” said the rebel, hit voice growing very sad. "We left many of our boys there. My brother, poor Will, was killed there. It was a hot place for a while and we had to leave it In a hurry.” “That’a ao, Georgia, your fellows fought well there and had all the ad vantage. but the old Keystone boys were pressing you hard. By the way, I have a likeness here (taking it out of his pocket), that I picked up on the battle field next morning and I have carried it ever aince.” He handed It to the rebel, who, on looking at it, pressed it to his lips exclaiming, “My mother! my moth er!” He exhibited considerable emotion at the recovery of the picture, but on the recovery of his composure, said that his brother had it in his possession, and must have lost It In the fight. He then asked the name of the one to whom he was Indebted for the lost likeness of his mother, remarking, "There may be bet ter times soon and we may know each other better.” He had taken from his pocket a small pocketbook in which to write the ad dress, when Alex—who had taken no part in the conversation—fairly yelled, "I know that book, I lost It at Bull Run!" "Thar's whar I got It, Mr. Yank.” said the rebel, and he handed It to Alex. “I am much obliged to you, Mr. Geor gia Legion. 1 would not part with it for the whole of the Southern Confed eracy.” I was a little curious to know some thing further of the book, so I asked Alex to let me see It. He passed It to me. I opened it, and on the flyleaf was written in a neat hand. "My Christmas Gift, to Alex , December 25, 1860. Ella." “Well, Alex," said I, “It's not often one has the same gift presented to him a second time.” ( "True, Captain; and If I could but see the giver of that gift today, there's but one other gift I would want." "What's that, Alex?" "This rebellion played out and my discharge in my pocket." The boys had all been busy talking to our rebel friend, who, seeing a horse man approaching In the direction of hit post, bid us a hasty good-by, and mada for those who were on such friendly terms, his men were quite likely to feel that their "friends, the enemy" ought to be notified of the fact. "Yanks, keep your heads under today. We’ve got an officer of the day on who wants us to be firing all the time, ao look out." One evening at the Petersburg front, several Confederate soldiers dragged a man of our brigade Into their lines, at the close of one of these seasons of truce; and they took him as a prisoner Into the presence of their commander, Gen. Roger A. Pryor of Virginia. The Union soldier protested and told his story. General Pryor turned to his men and asked If this wss the truth. When they admitted It was. he said quietly to our man: "Go back, then, to your own lines," and he added to the captors: “Let him go back. I don't want any thing of this sort In my command." On one occasion, before Petersburg, a Union regiment from Maryland, serving with our brigade was over against a Con federate regiment from the tame state. During one of these tacit truces, as the men of the two brigades were together between the lines of works, a father in the Maryland Union regiment met his son, a soldier in the Maryland Confed erate regiment. The meeting was a surprise to both but it was an amicable one. Each sol dier had been true to his own convic tions. They greeted each other affec tionately and talked together until the signal came for the ending of the truce when they sprang apart, each to his own lines, and again they were over against each other In deadly conflict. It is not difficult to understand why the Union and Confederate soldiers during the Civil war should have celebrated Christ mas with an unofficial armistice. For they were men of the same blood, the same language, the same traditions and not infre quently, as in the case of the two Maryland soldiers, bound to gether by the ties of family re lationship. So it was easy for the spirit of Christmas to effect itf magic upon them. Lcmoh ror December 26 CHRISTIAN CONSECRATION LESSON TEXT—PhlllppUns 1:12-28. GOLDEN TEXT—For to me to Uve is Christ, and to die Is gain.—PhUlpplans 1:21. PRIMARY TOPIC-Our Best Friend. JUNIOR TOPIC—Answering Jesus. INTERMEDIATE AND SENIOR TOP IC—Choosing a Life Purpose. YOUNG PEOPLE AND ADULT TOP- IC—What Christian Surrender Means. Consecration is one of the words expressing Christian truth which has been so much used and so often misused that it has lost its savor. The writer remembers many a ‘consecration service” which meant nothing to those present except the fulfilling of a certain formula or program. The purpose of the meet ing was excellent, but results were lacking because if had become a mere formality. Paul the apostle knew nothiug of any theory of consecration. He knew and lived and proclaimed such an abandonment of self to Christ and his cause as really required no statement in words—it was his life. We close today a three-month se ries of studies in the Christian life. We began at the right point by con sidering "Christian Sonship,” for no one can live until he is born and no one can live a Christian life un til he is born again. We have con sidered together God’s grace in keeping, renewing, guiding, blessing and communing with his own. All these precious truths call us to de vote ourselves to Christ in glad and full consecration. Men give themselves thus to the building of a fortune, to the prop agation of a political or social the ory, to the pursuit of an occupation or profession. The lights burn late in the research laboratory of the scientist, in the counting room of the business man, and at the political or social gathering. Why should not the Christian give himself in like measure for Christ and his holy cause? Paul, in the verses of our lesson, shows that spirit and boldly de clares that he follows Christ re gardless of trying circumstance—he does so now, "in the body,” not later in glory. And it matters not whether it be by life or death— “Christ shall be magnified.” I. “What Then?” (v. 18). Paul, was imprisoned for the gos pel’s sake. Did that stop him? no; he made the very guards who were assigned to watch him in his house into missionaries of the cross. He won each one as he took his desig nated period of service and sent him out as a testimony to "the whole praetorian guard and to all the rest”