In Havana, where he was one day roaming about unarmed, Colonel Putnam
met with an adventure which nearly cost him his life and made him the
involuntary owner of a negro slave. Seeing a Spaniard beating a black
man with a bamboo cane, he darted in with his old time impetuosity, and
seizing the stick, wrenched it away from its owner, who, joined by other
exasperated Cubans, turned upon the American and compelled him to flee
to a vessel for safety. Here he was followed by the negro, who so
successfully appealed to the soldier's tender sensibilities that he
allowed him to accompany him home to Connecticut. There he served him
faithfully, and when his master died he bequeathed to "Old Dick"--as he
was called--the "Havana cane," of which the colored Cuban exile was
inordinately proud.
Israel Putnam was now a man of substance, more than ever looked up to by
his neighbors and honored by the community in which he dwelt. Taking up
his duties of citizenship where he had left them on being summoned to
war, he threw off the military habit as he might an old garment now no
longer of service, and became again the contented, humble farmer.
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