Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/134

 For several hours each week day one can find Mr. Horne, perched high up on a frail scaffold, mall and chisel in hand, chipping away at a granite slab, with one end in view—to restore to its rightful place in the historic tablet on the historical span, the name of Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War when work on "Cabin John Bridge" was started by the United States Government. Asked to tell something about the lure that brought him to the National Capital, here to ply his trade on one job alone, the Mississippian said while seated on the bank by the side of the little stream the bridge so proudly spans:

HOW IT CAME ABOUT.

"It is this way. There isn't anybody but my old lady and myself. You see we were in California last year knocking around. I have sort of retired, and we wanted to go there, so we did. Well," here Mr. Horne plucked a blade of grass meditatively, "we wanted to see an inauguration, so we came on for Taft's. It was just after we had gotten here, when I read a story in the Post about the restoration of Jefferson Davis' name on the marble slab, and I said to my old lady, said I: 'I'm going to get that job if I have to pester the whole of the government to do it.'

"But wait a bit. I'm going too fast. About ten or fifteen years ago, when I was working down in Birmingham, Ala., one day I read the name of Davis had been taken off. I was nothing but a boy when the Civil War was going on, but we all down there were mighty hot at having the name taken off, anyhow, and I had heard of it. But when I read that article I said to my old lady, said I: 'I sure would like to have the job of putting that name back on there, and, by George, if it ever is going to be put back I'll do it.'

GLAD HE READ THE POST.

"Well, I didn't see any prospect of its ever being put back on, till, as I said, I came here. You may just reckon I was some glad to read that story in the Post. Then I learned there were going to be bids made on it. So I filled out a blank. I reckoned