Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Reading the Signs

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Reading the Signs · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: If you've ever watched a baseball game closely, you'll notice
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  Speaker 1: something particular about the way the players communicate. There's not
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  Speaker 1: a lot of shouting on the field. Much of the
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  Speaker 1: way players talk is through hand signals and body language,
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  Speaker 1: and this isn't surprising. After all, sports stadiums are noisy places,
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  Speaker 1: and in baseball, every play needs to happen with clockwork efficiency.
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  Speaker 1: A pitcher and a catcher also need to strategize without
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  Speaker 1: the batter knowing what pitch will come next. Quick clear
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  Speaker 1: communication is the difference between a win and a loss.
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  Speaker 1: In the year nineteen hundred, the New York Giants brought
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  Speaker 1: a pitcher up from the minor leagues to finish out
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  Speaker 1: their season. His name was Luther Taylor, a twenty six
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  Speaker 1: year old from a small town in Kansas. He wanted
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  Speaker 1: to be a boxer, as a kid, but his parents
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  Speaker 1: didn't approve, so he became a baseball player instead. As
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  Speaker 1: soon as he joined the Giants, people thought this rookie
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be up to the task of the major leagues.
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  Speaker 1: He was in over his head, didn't have what it takes.
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  Speaker 1: In a game against Boston, five players on the other
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  Speaker 1: team attempted to steal third base, assuming that Taylor wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be alert enough to throw them out, but he did
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  Speaker 1: one after the other. He did this all without saying
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  Speaker 1: a word, and because of that he would earn the
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  Speaker 1: nickname Dummy Taylor. Now, in spite of the rude nickname,
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  Speaker 1: he was a popular member of the team. His teammates
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  Speaker 1: would remember him as a steady hand on the pitching mound.
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  Speaker 1: The rookie, who everyone expected to underperform, closed the season
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  Speaker 1: with a respectable pitching record, and the Giants chose to
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  Speaker 1: bring him back for the nineteen oh one season. That year,
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  Speaker 1: he held the second highest record for most games pitched,
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  Speaker 1: but unfortunately, the Giants suffered from a weak hitting record,
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  Speaker 1: so they didn't perform as well as Taylor pitched. In
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  Speaker 1: nineteen oh two, he left the Giants persuaded by a
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  Speaker 1: higher salary from the Cleveland Broncos. He was almost immediately
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  Speaker 1: miserable in the team though the rest of the team
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  Speaker 1: were uncommunicative with him, and he fell out. But the
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  Speaker 1: money was good and he was in the major leagues,
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  Speaker 1: and so he kept pitching. And then in May of
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  Speaker 1: that year, a familiar face appeared in the stands. It
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  Speaker 1: was Frank Bauerman, a catcher from the New York Giants,
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  Speaker 1: and every time Taylor walked between the mound and the dugouts,
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  Speaker 1: Bauerman signaled at him with sign language, asking him back
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  Speaker 1: to the Giants and making an offer, And every time
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  Speaker 1: he signed, Taylor would shake his head. Doorman kept signing
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  Speaker 1: at him, increasing the amount of money they were offering Taylor,
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  Speaker 1: and finally Taylor nodded yes and left Cleveland for good
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  Speaker 1: that evening. He pitched with the Giants until nineteen oh eight,
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  Speaker 1: before going back down to the minor leagues and finishing
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  Speaker 1: his career in nineteen ten. He had played nine seasons
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  Speaker 1: of professional baseball, earned himself a respectable record as a
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  Speaker 1: major league pitcher, all while having a very specific disability.
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  Speaker 1: You see, Luther Taylor was born deaf. His nickname Dummy
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  Speaker 1: was not a crack at his intelligence, but a reference
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  Speaker 1: to the fact that he didn't speak verbally. Think of
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  Speaker 1: the phrase to be dumbstruck. He communicated only with sign language.
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  Speaker 1: Every man in the nineteen oh one New York Giants
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  Speaker 1: team learned sign language in order to communicate with him
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  Speaker 1: on and off the field. It was a level of
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  Speaker 1: commitment and inclusion that understandably he was sad to leave,
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  Speaker 1: and that's why he felt so out of place in Cleveland,
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  Speaker 1: where his teammates didn't know sign language and thus struggled
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  Speaker 1: to communicate with the one deaf player they had. Taylor
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  Speaker 1: wasn't the first person to use hand signs on a
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  Speaker 1: baseball field, though, but his success popularized the practice in
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  Speaker 1: the public imagination. In fact, during his early career, it
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  Speaker 1: led to a game that disability rights advocates see as historic.
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  Speaker 1: You see on March sixteenth of nineteen oh two, nine
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  Speaker 1: days after his return from Cleveland, Luther Taylor took to
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  Speaker 1: the mound to pitch against the Cincinnati Reds. On the
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  Speaker 1: opposing team, center fielder William Ellsworth Hoy came up to
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  Speaker 1: bat as their leadoff hitter. Hoy was forty years old
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  Speaker 1: on his last season for the Reds, and he was
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  Speaker 1: also another deaf player who went by the nickname Dummy.
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  Speaker 1: This game was the first and only time two deaf
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  Speaker 1: players had faced each other in the major leagues, and
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  Speaker 1: because of that, the fact had been well publicized. The
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  Speaker 1: stands filled with around five thousand deaf and hard of
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  Speaker 1: hearing baseball fans. To these people, Taylor and Hoy's presence
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  Speaker 1: on the field spoke loud and clear, no hand signals required.
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  Speaker 1: There was a thick gray mist that was heavy in
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  Speaker 1: the air on the morning of October fourth, of seventeen
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  Speaker 1: seventy seven. The air was damp and already cold. It
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  Speaker 1: would be another few hours before the first rooster crowed,
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  Speaker 1: and the moon was still high overhead. Already, George Washington
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  Speaker 1: was hard at work. More accurately, George Washington and every
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  Speaker 1: soldier at his disposal were hard at work. Four months
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  Speaker 1: had passed since the British had seized Philadelphia, the revolutionary capital.
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  Speaker 1: The Continental Army had made several unsuccessful attempts to retake it,
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  Speaker 1: But today Washington had a plan. Early in the morning,
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  Speaker 1: long before sunrise, American soldiers would split into several groups
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  Speaker 1: and ambush the British at their base camp before they
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  Speaker 1: even woke up. The surprise attack would give them the
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  Speaker 1: edge that they'd been missing in previous battles. Washington hoped
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  Speaker 1: it would be enough. Already, the weather was getting cold,
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  Speaker 1: his soldiers were exhausted, and he lost good men in
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  Speaker 1: every battle over the past year, and so it would
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  Speaker 1: soon be too cold to do anything but survive this plan.
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  Speaker 1: This morning would be their last chance to take back
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  Speaker 1: the city before spring. Unfortunately, the mysts that hid them
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  Speaker 1: from their enemies also hid the men from each other.
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  Speaker 1: You may have heard soldiers talk about the fog of war,
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  Speaker 1: but in this case, there really was a fog. Thick
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  Speaker 1: morning mist made it almost impossible to tell who was
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  Speaker 1: fighting on which side. Two groups of American soldiers fired
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  Speaker 1: on one another after mistaking the other side for the
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  Speaker 1: British army, and in all of that confusion, the British
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  Speaker 1: managed to escape. General William Howe, who had captured the
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  Speaker 1: city in July, rode swiftly away from the battlefield after
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  Speaker 1: hearing shots. He assumed that a rebel scouting party was
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  Speaker 1: exchanging fire with patrolmen until the south of bullets followed
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  Speaker 1: him and his men out of their camp. Washington's plan
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  Speaker 1: the last hope of the Continental Army, had failed, not
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  Speaker 1: because of a mistake or because he was outsmarted, but
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  Speaker 1: because the fog literally caused mass confusion among everyone, from
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  Speaker 1: the revolutionary soldiers to the British generals, and even to Lila. Lila,
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  Speaker 1: you see, was a sweet fox terrier who had followed
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  Speaker 1: her owner into the melee and then followed the Americans
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  Speaker 1: when they eventually retreated. The soldiers were dirty, exhausted, freezing,
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  Speaker 1: and embarrassed. They were angry. They wanted revenge. They wanted
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  Speaker 1: to go home. When one of the men spotted the
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  Speaker 1: well groomed dog back at the camp and picked her up,
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  Speaker 1: he saw a shining silver color around her neck. These
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  Speaker 1: men were so cold and so hungry, and yet here
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  Speaker 1: was a dog who looked like she lived better than
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  Speaker 1: they did. To add insult to injury, Lila's owner had
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  Speaker 1: engraved his name on the gleaming silver collar. She belonged
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  Speaker 1: to none other than General William Howe. A few of
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  Speaker 1: the men, including the soldier who had found her, brought
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  Speaker 1: Lilah to Washington. They were still stinging with defeat, and
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  Speaker 1: they wanted Lilah, with her plump belly and saft fur
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  Speaker 1: to pay the price, they asked Washington to hold her
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  Speaker 1: in retribution for their defeat. Fortunately, the formidable General Washington
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  Speaker 1: was what we might call a dog person. He kept
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  Speaker 1: many pets and had several hunting dogs himself. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: Lafayette once gifted Washington with seven greyhounds as a show
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  Speaker 1: of friendship. So what did the brilliant strategist, the war general,
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  Speaker 1: and the first President of the United States do with
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  Speaker 1: his enemy's dog? While he instructed Alexander Hamilton to write
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  Speaker 1: General how a letter which would be delivered to the
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  Speaker 1: British soldier's camp under a flag of truce. And this
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  Speaker 1: is what the letter said. General Washington's compliments to General Howe,
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  Speaker 1: he does himself the pleasure to return him a dog
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  Speaker 1: which accidentally fell into his hands, and by the inscription
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  Speaker 1: on the collar, appears to belowung to General how Now.
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  Speaker 1: Not only that, but Washington also insisted Lila be brushed
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  Speaker 1: and fed before she was returned. The dog had done
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  Speaker 1: nothing wrong, after all, and she would be treated with
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  Speaker 1: respect and gentleness, the way Washington hoped that his own
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  Speaker 1: hounds would be if the roles had been reversed. The
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  Speaker 1: following day, Lilah was delivered to her owner. Along with
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  Speaker 1: Washington's note, One British officer wrote that How was so
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  Speaker 1: happy to see her that he picked her straight up
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  Speaker 1: and put her on his lap. Washington's original letter to
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  Speaker 1: General How can be found in the National Archives today,
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  Speaker 1: although any response from General How has vanished with time.
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  Speaker 1: George Washington accomplished many things during his time serving the
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  Speaker 1: United States as both the General and a president, but
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  Speaker 1: this story shows his integrity, generosity, and grace even in defeat,
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  Speaker 1: and as far as we know, Lila never complained. After all,
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  Speaker 1: as they say, a dog is a great judge of character.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. This show was created by me Aaron Manke
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the
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  Speaker 1: Grim and Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show and the people who make it
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  Speaker 1: over at Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find
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  Speaker 1: a link to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book,
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  Speaker 1: available in bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook,
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  Speaker 1: and if you're looking for an ad free option. Consider
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  Speaker 1: joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without
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  Speaker 1: the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and
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  Speaker 1: sign up over at patreon dot com. Slash Grimandmild, and
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  Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious.