Fighting in Cuban Waters or, Under Schley on the Brooklyn

Excerpt

WALTER DETERMINES TO ENTER THE NAVY

"Well, Walter, I suppose the newspapers are going like hot cakes this morning."

"They are, Mr. Newell. Everybody wants the news. I ran out of 'Globes' and 'Heralds' before seven o'clock, and sent Dan down for fifty more of each."

"That was right. It's a windfall for us newsdealers, as well as a glorious victory to match. It makes me think of my old war days, when I was aboard of the Carondelet under Captain Walke. We didn't sink so many ships as Dewey has at Manila, but we sank some, and smashed many a shore battery in the bargain, along the banks of the Mississippi. What does that extra have to say?" and Phil Newell, the one-legged civil-war naval veteran, who was also proprietor of the news-stand, took the sheet which Walter Russell, his clerk, handed out.

"There is not much additional news as yet," answered Walter. "One of the sensational papers has it that Dewey is now bombarding Manila, but the news is not confirmed. But it is true that our squadron sunk every one of the Spanish warships,—and that, I reckon, is enough for one victory."

"True, my lad, true; but there is nothing like keeping at 'em, when you have 'em on the run. That is the way we did down South. Perhaps Dewey is waiting for additional instructions from Washington. I hope he didn't suffer much of a loss. Some papers say he came off scot free, but that seems too good to be true."

"The news makes me feel more than ever like enlisting," continued the boy, after a pause, during which he served out half a dozen newspapers to as many customers. "What a glorious thing it must be to fight like that and come out on top!"

"Glorious doesn't express it, Walter. Why, if it wasn't for this game leg of mine, and my age being against me, I'd go over to the navy-yard to-day and reenlist, keelhaul me if I wouldn't!"

"But what of the stand?"

"The stand could take care of itself—until the Dons were given the thrashing they deserve for making the Cubans suffer beyond all reason." Phil Newell threw back his head and gave a laugh. "That puts me in mind of something that happened when the Civil War started. A young lawyer in New York locked up his office and pasted a notice on his door: 'Gone to the front. Will be back when the war is over.' I'd have to put up something similar, wouldn't I?"

"I wish you and I could go together, Mr. Newell."

"So do I, Walter, but I'm over sixty now, and they want young blood. By the way, what of that brother of yours down in New York?"

"Ben has joined the militia of that State, and is now at Camp Black waiting to be sworn into the United States service. I wish he had come on to Boston."

"Well, Uncle Sam wants soldiers as well as sailors, or he wouldn't call for a hundred and twenty-five thousand volunteers. But give me the deck or gun-room of a warship every time. Nothing finer in the world. I served for nearly ten years, and I know."

Walter smiled, and then waited on several additional customers. "My youngest brother, Larry, takes to the ocean," he answered. "He is out on the Pacific now, somewhere between the Hawaiian Islands and Hong Kong....