The boy did not stand on the burning deck, whence all but him had
fled; he was among the first in the lifeboats. That other boy
--the Spartan youth--did not have his vitals gnawed by a fox; the
Spartan youth had been eating wild grapes and washing them down
with spring water. Hence that gnawing sensation of which so much
mention has been made. Nobody hit Billy Patterson. He acquired
his black eye in the same way in which all married men acquire a
black eye--by running against a doorjamb while trying to find the
ice-water pitcher in the dark. He said so himself the next day.
Even Barbara Frietchie is an exploded myth. She did not nail her
country's flag to the window casement. Being a female, she could
not nail a flag or anything else to a window. In the first place,
she would have used a wad of chewing gum and a couple of hairpins.
In the second place, had she recklessly undertaken to nail up a
flag with hammer and nails, she would never have been on hand at
the psychological moment to invite Stonewall Jackson to shoot her
old gray head. When General Jackson passed the house she would
have been in the bathroom bathing her left thumb in witch-hazel.
Furthermore, she did not have any old gray head. At the time of
the Confederate invasion of Maryland she was only seventeen years
old--some authorities say only seven--and a pronounced blonde.
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