Futility Closet - 220-The Old Hero of Gettysburg

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from a ratless province to James Bond's eggs. This is episode 220. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1863, on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, a 69-year-old shoemaker took down his ancient musket and set out to shoot some rebels. In today's show, we'll follow John Burns' adventures in that historic battle,

Starting point is 00:00:39 which made him famous across the nation and won the praise of Abraham Lincoln. We'll also survey some wallabies and puzzle over some underlined sevens. And a quick programming note. We'll be off next week, so look for the next episode on October 22nd. John Burns was born in New Jersey on September 5th, 1793. His parents had been married when the country was just two years old. It's often said that he fought in the War of 1812, and we know that he enlisted at age 19, but the only source for the claim that he saw combat in that war are the stories that he himself told. He seems to have been at the Battle of Marcus Hook in 1814,

Starting point is 00:01:22 bracing for an assault that never came, but altogether he served in the army for just one term of three months and another of 14 days. So it seems reasonable to say that Burns was a veteran of the War of 1812, but for a short time, and that his unit probably saw no action. Here as elsewhere, so many stories are told about him that it's sometimes hard to tell fact from legend. It's sometimes even said that he was a veteran of three American wars, which would mean that he also fought in either the Seminole Wars or the Mexican-American War, but there's not much evidence to support that either. Even after his military service, Burns' early life is very murky. He himself said he led a wandering and dissipated life, but at some point he embraced temperance, got married, and adopted a daughter. It looks like his main trade was as a boot and shoemaker,

Starting point is 00:02:03 and the family moved around quite a bit. He also possibly served as a wood quarter, a carriage salesman, and a tax collector. Some years before the Civil War, he settled in Gettysburg, where he worked as a shoemaker and, for a time, as a constable. Apparently, he wasn't a very good constable because he was given to emotional rants. That's another bubble I have to burst. One of the legends about John Burns is that he was a humble, kind, and admirable man whose heart swelled with patriotic pride. People who knew him said differently. Apparently, he saw everything in black and white. You were his friend or his enemy, and if you disagreed with him, you were a sinner, a criminal, or a copperhead, meaning someone who wanted to make peace with the Confederates. One of his acquaintances wrote, stern, gruff, and decided

Starting point is 00:02:42 in his manners, he was a man who was strong in his prejudices and equally so in devotion to any cause or person whom he liked. Another called him uncouth and eccentric, and a third said he cannot understand a joke and cannot see through a joke. Byrne's peculiar eccentricity was his inability to know a joke. He took life seriously and was liable to rant upon any point of view. And he was stubborn, temperamental, and extremely profane. He did have strong feelings about the Civil War. In May 1861, he was serving as a constable when

Starting point is 00:03:11 the Pennsylvania legislature called on Adams County to provide an infantry group for the new Pennsylvania reserves. Burns tried to sign up, but was rejected due to his age. He was 68. He found work as a teamster instead and traveled with the army for 22 days and then served as policeman of a wagon camp in Maryland. In early 1862, he went back to Gettysburg and took up his work again there as a cobbler. He was interacting pretty regularly by then with the cavalry because he was so close to the theater of war in the South. The biggest day of Burns' life came on July 1, 1863, when Union and Confederate forces started a desperate fight west of town, Burns took down the old flintlock musket he'd carried in the War of 1812. When his wife remonstrated with him, he told her to go down to the cellar and stay there until he came back.

Starting point is 00:03:54 In the street, he met his neighbor, Joseph Broadhead, and told him to, quote, get your gun and go along out and fight the damn rebels. When Broadhead hesitated, Burns called him a damned coward, a chicken-hearted squaw, and a tallow-faced sissy. I don't know why I find that so much more endearing than if he was a large-hearted patriot. The best part of this whole story is that he's a crabby old man. Another citizen saw him with his rifle on his shoulder, cursing as he walked along every male non-combatant he found above ground for a squaw, coward, etc. On Chambersburg Street, he met Hannah Walter and told her he could stand it no longer, he must have a hand in the fight. He said, if I don't come back, I wish you would see to the old woman. Then he hurried across the fields and disappeared in the woods on the brow of Seminary

Starting point is 00:04:32 Ridge. As General John F. Reynolds and his staff were descending the ridge, they met an old man who was said to possess an air of authority. Reynolds asked him how to get to the Emmitsburg Road because he needed to meet General John Buford there. Burns told him and watched the whole cavalcade pass. When Reynolds came back, he asked Burns how an oncoming column might make its way through the outskirts of town. Burns told him that too and watched as Reynolds ordered his troops to level the fences and open away to the ridge. Around 1030, an aide on General Abner Doubleday's staff remembered, In returning for the 2nd and 3rd Divisions, I met John Burns in the field east of the seminary, with an old musket on his shoulder and a powder horn in his pocket,

Starting point is 00:05:08 hurrying to the front, looking terribly earnest. When near me, he inquired, Which way are the rebels? Where are our troops? I informed him they were just in front, and he would soon overtake them. He then said, with much enthusiasm, I know how to fight. I have fit before. It's not clear with any detail what Burns was doing during the morning. He told one soldier he was sneaking along the fences ahead of the rebels as they came in.

Starting point is 00:05:28 But he would have seen the first encounter of the Union Army's First Corps as they routed two Confederate brigades and took hundreds of prisoners. At some point after that action, he went back to town. At the north side of the village, he saw a wounded infantryman come back from the front, stand his gun against a tree, and sit down. Burns asked him if he was going to use it again. The man said, no, you can have it. I can't carry it any further. Burns took the soldier's belt and cartridge box and picked up the musket. According to some accounts, the soldier asked him,

Starting point is 00:05:52 what do you want to do with it? And Burns said, shoot the damn rebels, and he set off again for the battlefield. I should say that at least two other people claim they gave Burns a modern rifle to replace his flintlock musket before he got to the firing line. Everyone wants to be the one who did that, and it's not clear which of them is right, but it's pretty certain that someone did, and he didn't use his old musket in the fighting. At about noon, the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry was fighting near Edward McPherson's farm half a mile west of town. Major Thomas Chamberlain saw an old man moving up through the field and said, old man, where are you going? Burns said, I want a chance. A chance for what? To shoot. Chamberlain remembered later that his eye fired with excitement and his whole frame swayed with emotion. Even despite all the heroic drama going on that day, everyone seems

Starting point is 00:06:34 to remark on what Burns was wearing. According to an 1863 article from the Montrose Republican, he was dressed in his best, consisting of a light blue swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, corduroy pantaloons, and a stovepipe hat of considerable height, all of ancient pattern and doubtless an heirloom in his house. Chamberlain sent him to Colonel Langhorne Wister, who asked him, Well, old man, what do you want? Burns said, I want a chance to fight with your regiment. You do? Can you shoot? Oh, yes. But where are your cartridges?

Starting point is 00:07:01 Burns slapped his pantaloons pocket and said, I have them here. Wister said, Certainly you can fight with us, and I wish there were many more like you. But Wister said he'd better go into the woods where he could do more damage and would be less likely to be hit. Burns made his way to the woodlot owned by John Herbst, and there he met the right flank of the 7th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Sergeant George Eustace later wrote, it must have been about noon when I saw a little old man coming up in the rear of Company F. In regard to the peculiarities of his dress, I remember he wore a swallow-tailed coat with smooth brass buttons. He had a rifle on his shoulder.

Starting point is 00:07:33 We boys began to poke fun at him as soon as he came amongst us, as we thought no civilian in his senses would show himself in such a place. Lieutenant Amos Rood of Company K had not slept in 36 hours and was dozing under an oak tree when an artillery shell cut through the branches overhead and sent a huge limb tumbling onto his knee. He started awake and was regarding this with some intelligent attention when a voice said, Got hurt, didja? He saw an old man standing next to him holding a musket and asked what he was doing there. He said, I'm an officer of the law. I live in that last house there, and he pointed to the town. When you boys went at a run out here, I told my woman I was going out to help you. He said, with a blue swallow-tailed coat, rolling collar, and brass buttons, carrying a long, small-bore rifle and an old plug hat on, with tight-striped pants. I thought he was a yank by his dress.

Starting point is 00:08:30 He came up to me and said in a feeble but resolute voice, Sir, are you in command of this regiment? I answered yes, and he said, Will you allow me to fight in your regiment? To which I replied, Old man, you had better go to the rear or you might get hurt. The rebels are very careless about how they shoot, and you're liable to get killed any moment. See, the bullets are flying pretty thick now. But tut, said the old man, I've heard the whistle of bullets before. Well then, if you will fight, then you must take a gun that will do some good, handing him a nice silver-mounted rifle that I had captured.

Starting point is 00:08:55 He looked at it and said, that does look better than my squirrel gun. I will try it. He took it and started out in front of our line, which was laying down at the time, and said he, I want to get a sight at one of them. Rude swore Burns in to Company K of the 7th Wisconsin so that he wouldn't be executed as a bushwhacker if he were captured. A bushwhacker is a guerrilla fighter, someone who's not part of the regular army. J.W. Bruce of Company K wrote that after Burns received his equipment, he wandered the length of regiment and possibly the brigade. He wrote, it is not to be wondered at that he should do so. He was proud as could be, the men patting him on the back and promising his heroism. It would take a stronger character than I think he had not to be elated. A little afternoon, he joined the firing line, probably

Starting point is 00:09:33 the advance line of the 7th Wisconsin. The fighting got so hot that it's impossible to track everything he did that day or to count how many Southerners he killed or wounded, but there are a few specific memories. Samuel Bates wrote that, away across Willoughby Run was seen an officer riding a beautiful gray horse. He came on, leading his men with the utmost gallantry. He was pointed out to Burns, and that beautiful charger was seen galloping riderless over the field, and the old hero was saluted by three cheers from the soldiers who were watching him. Burns himself later said, about 1 p.m. during an intermission, while lying in the woods, I saw a Missouri man fall from the shot of a rebel concealed in the bushes. I stepped behind a tree, and seeing the rebel about to reload, I shot him.

Starting point is 00:10:11 I also shot a tremendous great rebel who would not get out of my way. He later recalled that he fired 18 to 25 rounds given to him by the 7th Wisconsin and claimed that he killed three rebels to his certain knowledge. As Colonel John Brockenbrough's Virginia Brigade faced off against the advance line of the 7th Wisconsin, Burns helped to maintain the skirmish line at the fence as long as it held. When the line retired, he fell in with the main line of the 7th. Sergeant Eustace wrote, bullets were flying thicker and faster and we hugged the ground about as close as we could. Burns got behind a tree and surprised us all by not taking a double quick to the rear. He was as calm and collected as any veteran on the ground. We soon had orders to get up and move about 100

Starting point is 00:10:48 yards to the right when we were engaged in one of the most stubborn contests I ever experienced. I never saw John Burns after our movement to the right when we left him behind his tree and only know that he was true blue and grit to the backbone. Eventually they were flanked on both the right and the left and Burns retreated to the east edge of McPherson's Woods and fell in with the remnants of the 24th Michigan. We know he was wounded there, but there are very different accounts of it. A few say he was wounded once. Burns himself said he was wounded seven times. The consensus seems to be three. The local doctor who tended to him after the battle said one of the wounds was through his ankle, another through an arm, while a third was a flesh wound in his breast. The most serious wound was a gunshot to his leg. It happened just as he was leaving the Herbst Woodlot and retiring toward

Starting point is 00:11:28 the Lutheran Cemetery. He fell and didn't get up again. The battle continued to rage around him, and General William Dorsey Pender's division of the Army of Northern Virginia passed over him in their advance. He later said, I laid there, cannon shots and bullets tearing up the ground about me. I just expected to die right there by our guns or theirs. As he lay there, he had the presence of mind to throw away his gun, bury his remaining ammunition, and roll onto the mound of fresh dirt so that he wouldn't look like a combatant. He'd been sworn in as a volunteer, but was still wearing civilian clothes, so he could be executed as a bushwagger if the Confederates found he'd been fighting. Burns said later that just after the fighting, the ground was all covered with dead horses and broken wagons and pieces of shells and battered muskets and everything of that kind, not to speak of the heaps of dead.

Starting point is 00:12:11 The rebels found him as he lay there. They asked, old man, what are you doing here? He said, I am lying here wounded as you see. Well, but what business have you to be here? And who wounded you? Our troops or yours? I don't know who wounded me, but I only know that I'm wounded and in a bad fix. Well, what were you doing here? What was your business? If you will hear my story, I will tell

Starting point is 00:12:28 you. My old woman's health is very poor, and I was over across the country to get a girl to help her, and coming back before I knew where I was, I had got right into this fix, and here I am. Where do you live? Over in town, in such a small house. It appears that they left him there. Burns said, Completely indifferent? Yeah. That's a little surprising. Strikingly different stories about that. The fighting at Gettysburg went on for two more days and produced the most casualties of the entire war.

Starting point is 00:13:05 On July 5th, as the Confederate Army began its march back to Virginia, Dr. Charles Horner attended to Burns' wounds. Word of his exploits got about, and in a short time, the whole country was reading about them. Matthew Brady's photographer Timothy H. O'Sullivan reached town around July 15th and photographed Burns in a rocking chair at his house on Chambersburg Street with crutches and his musket propped behind him. When Abe Lincoln came to Gettysburg in November 1863 to dedicate the soldiers' national cemetery, he asked to see Burns, and that evening the two walked arm-in-arm to the Presbyterian Church on Baltimore and High Streets.

Starting point is 00:13:37 J. Howard Wirt remembered, They seemed an ill-assorted pair, and they certainly could not keep step, try as they would. But Burns looked reverently up at the man towering above him, and the one who towered above him looked lovingly down at the bent and wounded patriot to whom he had said, with fervor, when he first clasped his hand, God bless you, old man. For the rest of his life, John Burns traveled all over the East Coast, speaking to crowds about the battle. Eventually, to save having to tell the same story over and over, he started handing out a card titled John L. Burns Account of Himself. He sold copies of his photograph, and both the state and federal

Starting point is 00:14:08 governments ordered pensions for him. For a while, he served as assistant doorkeeper at the state capital in Harrisburg. Then he bought a small farm shortly before he died on February 4, 1872, at age 78. He was buried in the town's Evergreen Cemetery. As early as June 1887, there were calls for a monument. Among the supporters were the veterans of the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry, who said they believed it would tell future generations what a Pennsylvania civilian did there. A statue was erected in 1902 on Stone Avenue, near the spot where Burns first encountered the 150th when he arrived at the field of battle. I'm a little amazed to be saying this, but I have some more wallaby updates.

Starting point is 00:15:00 In episode 215, I covered the stories of two escaped wallabies in the UK, only one of which had been recaptured at the time we recorded the episode. The wallaby who had escaped from a supposedly wallaby-proof enclosure at an animal park in Filey continued to evade all attempts to get him back to the park. The park named him Houdini and was posting regular updates on his doings and their many unsuccessful attempts to capture him, despite their using thermal cameras, drones, and systems of nets. I hadn't checked on the situation in a few days when we got an update from John Stoven with the subject line,

Starting point is 00:15:31 a sad footnote to your recent wallaby news. Hi, podcat and pod people. Greetings from the UK. I'm sure lots of your listeners will send you this from the BBC News website. As the story says, this was not the ending to his story the park wanted. Keep up the good work. Futility Closet always brightens my Monday commute. And the BBC story told how Houdini had been sadly found dead on September 25th, about five miles from the park, apparently having been hit by a vehicle. The park posted on their Facebook page that they were all devastated by the news, which I can imagine because they really were working hard to try to keep track of him and figure out

Starting point is 00:16:09 how to safely capture him. Houdini's companion Homer is still safely at the park, as apparently he hasn't figured out whatever his buddy had for how to get out of the enclosure. That is the sadder because they've been trying so hard to recapture it. Yeah, they really were. And they were putting a lot of thought into not harming him in doing it because, you know, they were considered tranquilizer guns, but that could have hurt him. And they really were trying. And on the topic of dead wallabies, which is really not something I had ever expected

Starting point is 00:16:41 to be saying, Stuart Baker wrote, Hi, guys. Love the podcast and found the recent episodes of wallabies and other similar marsupials amusing as I studied ecology and live in New Zealand. I live in Wellington and was quite amused a few months ago

Starting point is 00:16:55 to see a story about a mysterious dead wallaby on the front of the office newspaper. I've attached a later follow-up story which appears to show that no one managed to work out where this came from. The story Stewart sent actually mentioned two mysterious dead wallabies that were found roadside in Wellington, one in 2010 and one in May of this year. There are no known wallabies in that area, so as Stewart said, it's been a puzzle as to how they got there.

Starting point is 00:17:21 So roadside meaning they were probably hit by vehicles? They actually couldn't tell from the state of the bodies whether they'd been hit by a vehicle or not. They apparently know nothing at all about these wallabies. And what really interested me in reading the article was how these dead wallabies were taken so seriously by the authorities, who for this most recent incident sent a biosecurity expert into nearby areas equipped with thermal imaging gear to search for more wallabies. In the 2010 incident, a biosecurity expert into nearby areas equipped with thermal imaging gear to search for more wallabies. In the 2010 incident, a biosecurity officer dug up the dead animal to get a DNA sample on it. In most of the stories I've read about wallabies, they're seen as an

Starting point is 00:17:56 acute curiosity or an attractive addition to an animal park, so it's been hard for me to wrap my head around how big of a pest they are seen as in New Zealand, where areas that don't yet have any wallabies are quite anxious to keep it that way. There is such a concern with the spread of wallabies that authorities in New Zealand are conducting fecal pellet counts in some areas to try to track the distribution and spread of the animals. Which ties in with an email from Alex Venson, who wrote about episode 213, in which I discussed how Sir George Gray had introduced wallabies to Kawo Island in New Zealand, and how problematic that had become

Starting point is 00:18:31 for the area. Alex thought we might be interested to know a little more about the mainland wallabies, and he also very helpfully provided a better pronunciation for Kawo Island than the one I had found and had been using in episode 213. Alex said, while it's true there are wallabies on Kawa Island near Auckland, the most widespread population of feral wallabies are actually in the South Island, particularly in the South Canterbury region. They were introduced near the town of Waimate by Michael Studham, the first European settler in the area, in the 1870s. I've heard different stories about whether they were intended as pets for his daughters or released for hunting at the Studham farm.

Starting point is 00:19:11 Either way, they got loose and spread into the Hunter Hills and have been breeding ever since. From that small starting point, the wallabies have spread across more than 5,000 square kilometers of the South Island, with sightings further afield, and have become a significant agricultural and conservation pest, particularly in the unusual ecosystem of the Mackenzie Basin. It's estimated they cost the economy around $67 million a year. While that might seem like a lot of money, it is a small fraction of the $3.3 billion estimated annual cost of introduced species to New Zealand, and in comparison to possums, stoats, and rats, their impact on native biodiversity is limited but increasing. The impact is also largely focused on the South Canterbury region.

Starting point is 00:19:58 The town of Waimate markets the wallabies as a unique selling point. There is a petting zoo, for example, and signs welcome visitors to wallaby country, not quite the same as bear country. Every year there is an annual wallaby hunt organized by local farmers and the Department of Conservation, with participants regularly bagging thousands over a weekend. Numbers are increasing despite this. It's also true that some wallaby species are endangered, but there's an even rarer Australian species, which is one of the most destructive pests in New Zealand, the possum. Possums were introduced into New Zealand for the fur trade and have done untold damage to native

Starting point is 00:20:36 forests and birds. It's quite astonishing and terrifying to realize their impact on our ecosystem, and that's before you account for them spreading bovine tuberculosis and other diseases. But they are, in fact, endangered in Australia. In New Zealand, we run them over, shoot them, trap them, poison them, and generally view them as the most pernicious of all pests, spending millions every year to control them. But in Australia, they spend millions trying to save them. Our predator-free 2050 program hopes to eradicate possums along with stoats and rats. It's going to be difficult, but we can do it. Cheers and keep up the great work. I have trouble killing a spider, so the idea of

Starting point is 00:21:16 competitive wallaby hunting or swerving to deliberately run over possums is kind of hard for me to imagine. But New Zealand does seem to be positively overrun by some of these animals. For example, the Atlantic notes that there are 30 million possums in a country the size of Colorado. Given the vast numbers of them, the real damage they're doing, and the threat they pose, I guess that could change your perspective on them. I hadn't thought about it, but I guess invasive species are even more of a concern in a relatively small area? Right, yes. And the issue in New Zealand, as we discussed in another episode, is that there are no predators. There were no native mammals to New Zealand

Starting point is 00:21:56 other than bats and a couple of aquatic mammals. So introducing mammals into the ecosystem has really changed things. So they can get out of hand more quickly. Right, with no predators. And really knock the system off balance. Yeah, and that seems to be really happening. On the subject of wallabies causing trouble, I have an update on the Manx wallabies I've been reporting on. Alison Mews, who very nicely volunteered to be our British wallaby correspondent, sent a link to a BBC story, as did Mike Kane, who has been quite on top of the Manx wallaby situation,

Starting point is 00:22:29 and who sent some different links, saying, You're probably fed up hearing about wallabies by now, but a recent BBC request of the Isle of Man police seems to have kicked off another round of media interest. The BBC reported that wild wallabies on the Isle of Man have sparked several police incidents lately, including causing a car to swerve and then crash, and a sea rescue. Officers actually waded into the Irish Sea to rescue a Manx wallaby that had a broken leg after it was spotted struggling in the water. The BBC story had a nice photo of the little guy snuggled by an officer in a thermal blanket before it was taken off to a vet for treatment,

Starting point is 00:23:07 and a link to a story about an orphaned Manx wallaby being hand-reared by a vet to try to save it. So I'm just imagining what our New Zealand listeners must be thinking to hear the trouble they go to to try to save one wallaby in the UK. I wonder if the wallabies have a little newsletter where they inform each other about all these dramas. I wonder if the wallabies have a little newsletter where they inform each other about all these dramas. Apparently, the Manx marsupials have caused several collisions in the last few years. The Telegraph reports that there are calls for roadside warning signs to stop motorists being so startled by the wallabies. And the Times had an article with the headline, Wild Wallabies Running Amok on Isle of Man.

Starting point is 00:23:48 It seemed to me that the Times might have a bit of a low bar for what running amok entails, but our Manx listeners can consider themselves warned. Carla Moore, Lonnie Moore, and their feline owners Jet and DP wrote, Hi guys, imagine my surprise to hear of yet another case of kangaroos gone wild, though it's possibly only a wallaby gone wild. Here's a link to the story, which has a short video clip available for viewing as well. As always, thank you all for your time and effort in putting Futility Closet out there for our edification and enlightenment. And Carla Lonnie Jet NDP sent an NPR story from September 4th titled, Mystery Kangaroo is at Large in Austria Confusing

Starting point is 00:24:26 Everybody, which says, Kangaroos are, of course, indigenous to Australia. Austria is, of course, not Australia. But there's a marsupial hopping about in Upper Austria, and no one knows why. The article says that the suspected kangaroo, which they note maybe could turn out to be a wallaby, has been seen a number of times, and a local police officer said, we have called all the zoos and kangaroo breeders around us, but no one is missing a kangaroo. It's a little amusing because Austria, in a bid to distinguish itself from Australia, has for many years sold t-shirts and souvenirs that state, no kangaroos in Austria. But despite that slogan,

Starting point is 00:25:06 if this mystery marsupial is indeed a kangaroo, it wouldn't even be Austria's first, as there have been at least three instances in the past couple of years of Austrian kangaroos escaping from their owners and hopping around confusing people. I was kind of surprised to learn that that many people keep kangaroos as pets. Maybe people in Austria think it's particularly amusing given the confusion with Australia. Maybe the kangaroos think they're in Australia. They can't spell. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. I really appreciate how many people are now including pronunciation tips for their names. Thank you for those. And a special thank you to Alex this week for including pronunciation help for the names and places in his email.

Starting point is 00:25:46 That's always a big help for me, as it can be difficult sometimes to track those down for other countries. If you have something that you'd like to send to us pod people, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me an interesting sounding situation, and I have to try to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. This is from listener John Spray. An old woman approached a librarian and asked, why does page seven in all the books I take out have the seven underlined in pen?

Starting point is 00:26:21 What did the librarian respond? Okay. All right. Let's back up. Does it matter where this happens? No. So this could be in any country, theoretically? Yes. Okay. when you say the number seven, is that like the Arabic number seven? Not like Roman numerals? Yeah, presumably it's a page number, so yes. Okay. Is she taking out a particular kind of book?

Starting point is 00:27:04 Yes, but that doesn't have to be the case. Okay. Let me kind of read you a little bit more. Yeah. John found this on Twitter, posted by a librarian named Saoirse in Dundee, Scotland. She wrote, I asked if she was doing it. She said she wasn't and showed me the new book she was getting out that she hadn't even had yet. It also had the seven underlined.

Starting point is 00:27:18 I said, I don't know, maybe someone really likes page seven, assuming, of course, that there is a serial killer in the library. I checked some other books. Most didn't have it, but a lot in this genre did. They're we old women books, romances set in wartime Britain. Lots of underlined sevens. The woman who pointed it out shrugged and went on her way saying, just thought you should know. So in this case, in the actual case, they were all in the same genre, but they wouldn't have to be. all right trying to think if this helps me or not okay so it does when did you say a library it's what i think of as a library yes but you say like she shrugged

Starting point is 00:27:54 and she went on her way but it presumably somebody figured out why the sevens were underlined or this wouldn't be a very good puzzle i have no idea yes you're hoping i'm gonna come up with the answer to why the sevens are underlined. There is a reason. I'm sorry, you said they were underlined in pen? Yes. Does that matter? That it was done in pen?

Starting point is 00:28:15 Correct. No. No. Okay, so it could have been underlined in pencil and it would make as much sense? Yes. Okay, was it one person that they thought was doing the underlining? Yes. Let's say yes.

Starting point is 00:28:29 Okay. Somebody who worked at the library? No. Another library patron? Yes. Okay. So the books were presumably not, they were coming to the library un-underlined, right? And then somebody else was checking them out

Starting point is 00:28:46 and underlining the sevens? Yes. Underlining any other page numbers? No. Just the sevens? Yes. And underlining them, not drawing a line through those sevens.

Starting point is 00:28:56 That's right. Okay. Underlining and no other number. Does that have something to do with some people think seven is a lucky number? No. Does underlining a seven change it into a different kind of a character, like a character that has meaning, you know, a symbol that has meaning

Starting point is 00:29:14 to people somehow? Was it presumably another older woman? You said this was a genre popular with older women. Yes, let's say yes. woman? You said this was a genre popular with older women. Yes, let's say yes. And she wasn't trying to send some kind of a signal or something or signal something by doing this. Was she trying to communicate to somebody other than herself? No. Was she trying to communicate to herself? Oh, so she'd know which books she'd read. How do you just jump to it like that? Yeah, that's exactly it.

Starting point is 00:29:46 Saoirse writes, my manager came back from doing arts and crafts with some of the kids, and I decided to tell her about the serial killer in the library. And that's how I found out that a lot of our elderly clientele have secret codes to mark which books they've read before. Our computers do it automatically, but many have been doing it since before that was possible. So Esther might underline page seven, and Anne might draw a little star on the last page, and Fred might put an F on the title page. Then when they pick it up, they can check. She goes on, it's quite clever really, but now I'm dying to just underline page seven in every new wheeled women book we get in. So good news, there's not a serial killer in the library whose MO includes the number seven in wartime romances. Bad news, people are defacing books rather than

Starting point is 00:30:22 just asking us to scan them. So thanks, John, for sending that in. That was a very cute puzzle. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle that they'd like to send in for us to try, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Futility Closet is now supported entirely by our amazing listeners. We just wouldn't be able to commit to the amount of time that the show takes to make if it weren't for the donations and pledges we get. If you would like to help support the celebration of the quirky and the curious that is Futility Closet, please see our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or see the support us section of our website at futilitycloset.com. If you're looking for more Futility Closet while we're off next week, at our website you can browse through Greg's collection of over 10,000

Starting point is 00:31:10 delightful distractions, check out the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any questions or comments for either the podcat or the pod people, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by the phenomenal Doug Ross. Thanks for listening.

Futility Closet - 220-The Old Hero of Gettysburg

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