SCRATCHING FOR SAFETY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13701, 18 March 1908, Page 9

SCRATCHING FOR SAFETY.

Tut-: laugh often comes in the very face of danger. Privations and perils cannot, check the response to the comical. An instance of finding fun in the midst of disaster is told by Captain T. C. Morton in the "Southern Historical Papers." The Confederate picket-line during the American Civil War was stationed on a sandy bottom near a creel:. John l-'oid, one of the men on duly, was very plucky. He was seated near an uprooted tree, and could lie plainly seen byall his company. Suddenly a large mortar shen fell, unexploded, in the sand, about 4ft from him, the fuse smoking and sputtering. John took in the situation at a glance. He argued to himself that the shell would burst, before he could get up and run away, so that the safest thing he could do would be to get into the ground as fast as possible. With the utmost rapidity he began to work down into the sand with hands, feet, and head. The- men watched the proceedings, shouting: . "Scratch. .Tonit. scratch. She s going off !" . . , . It was an exciting .spectacle. .Never was a man more in earnest. The sand all .about was in commotion, and in the few seconds (he fizzing fuse gave him John burrowed like a great gopher, till nothing but the hump on his: back was visible as the loose, sand settled above him. The explosion came with a tremendous jar. which shook the. ground and sent hundreds of pieces of iron singing through the air. Everyone hold his breath, expecting to see poor John blown into atoms. When the smoke and dust blew away it was seen that Ford's head was still on his shoulders. He looked cautiously up. and seeing all was riidit sung out a hearty "Who-eeh!" as cheerily as if he had treed a coon instead id' having been face to face with death. A cheer "and a laugh ran all along the line.