Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 January 1888 — A Boy’s Bravery. [ARTICLE]

A Boy’s Bravery.

Many deeds of reckless daring are never recorded, but here is one, chronicled by no less a man than the great Duke of Wellington. He was once asked who, in his opinion, was the ■bravest man at Waterloo. “I can’t tell you that, ” he said, “but I can tell you tof one than whom I am sure there was no braver. He was only a private iu the artillery, but had he survived the day, he would have been an officer. “A farm-house, with an orchard surrounded by a thick hedge, formed a most important point in the British position, and was ordered to bo held against the enemy, at any hazard or sacrifice. “The hottest of the battle raged round this point, but the English behaved well and beat back the French, though they attacked the place again and again with great fury. ~ At last the powder and ball were found to be running short. At the same time the timber in the hedges took fire, and the orchard was soon surrounded by a ring of flame.

“A messenger had, however, been sent to the rear for more powder and ball, and in a short time two loaded wagons came galloping down to the farm-house, the gallant defenders of which were keeping up a thin and scanty fire through the flames which surrounded their post. “The driver of the first wagon, with the reckless daring of an English boy, spurred his struggling and terrified horses through the burning heap; but the flames rose fiercely round, and caught the powder, which exploded, in an instant, sending wagon, horses, and rider in fragments into the air. “For one instant the driver of the second wagon paused, appalled by his comrade’s fate; the next, observing that the flames, beaten back for the moment by the explosion, aflorded him one desperate chance, he sent his horses at the smoldering breach, and amid the deafening cheers of the garrison, landed his terrible cargo safely within. Behind him the flames closed up and raged more fiercely than ever.”— Youth’s Companion. No place, no company, no age, no person is temptation free.