An Effective Token

A STORY

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

Pleasant pictures are always pleasant; the lapse of time never makes them less attractive; nor can age lessen their value. As it is with pictures upon canvas, giving to the eye some marvelous beauty of nature, so it is with those pictures of real life which the hearts of good men are presenting every day, and which only require to be gathered up, and to be put in preservable form, to become treasures and blessings.

The following one which, as a picture of the spirit of Masonry will be interesting to many, and in giving it to you, I will simply say, by way of introduction, that the hero of the incident was my friend in the after years, and that his story was amply true and unadorned.

Billy William—“Fifer Billy” was his name of common use, from the fact that he had been a musician in the regular army, with the fife for his instrument—was a native of Portland, Maine, left parentless at an early age, and thrown upon his own resources for sustenance. He was not more than fifteen when he entered the army as a musician, where he remained eight years. From that he went to sea, concluding that he would see a bit of the old world before he died. He made three voyages to Liverpool, after which, in 1840, at the age of thirty-five, or thereabouts, he shipped for a voyage to India.

Of the possessions left to Billy Williams from his father’s store, the only thing he cared to preserve was a masonic emblem—a Past Master’s jewel, presented to his father by a lodge of Freemasons on which he had presided for several years. It was a simple pin of silver, its design, the square and compasses, resting upon the… Read More