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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Child's Book of American Biography, by
+Mary Stoyell Stimpson, Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Child's Book of American Biography
+
+
+Author: Mary Stoyell Stimpson
+
+
+
+Release Date: May 31, 2010  [eBook #32628]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILD'S BOOK OF AMERICAN
+BIOGRAPHY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Carla Foust, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 32628-h.htm or 32628-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32628/32628-h/32628-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32628/32628-h.zip)
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+      A list of corrections will be found at the end of
+      this e-book.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILD'S BOOK OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY
+
+by
+
+MARY STOYELL STIMPSON
+
+Illustrated by Frank T. Merrill
+
+
+[Illustration: He rode beside the coach on a chestnut horse.
+
+FRONTISPIECE. _See Page 6._]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Decoration]
+
+Boston
+Little, Brown, and Company
+1924
+
+Copyright, 1915,
+By Little, Brown, and Company.
+All rights reserved
+
+Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD
+
+
+In every country there have been certain men and women whose busy lives
+have made the world better or wiser. The names of such are heard so
+often that every child should know a few facts about them. It is hoped
+the very short stories told here may make boys and girls eager to learn
+more about these famous people.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                  PAGE
+
+   GEORGE WASHINGTON                 1
+
+   WILLIAM PENN                      9
+
+   JOHN PAUL JONES                  17
+
+   JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY            27
+
+   BENJAMIN FRANKLIN                36
+
+   LOUIS AGASSIZ                    46
+
+   DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX               54
+
+   ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT            62
+
+   CLARA BARTON                     75
+
+   ABRAHAM LINCOLN                  81
+
+   ROBERT EDWARD LEE                91
+
+   JOHN JAMES AUDUBON               98
+
+   ROBERT FULTON                   106
+
+   GEORGE PEABODY                  116
+
+   DANIEL WEBSTER                  124
+
+   AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS            132
+
+   HENRY DAVID THOREAU             141
+
+   LOUISA MAY ALCOTT               149
+
+   SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE      155
+
+   WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT       164
+
+   PHILLIPS BROOKS                 173
+
+   SAMUEL CLEMENS                  181
+
+   JOE JEFFERSON                   188
+
+   HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW      197
+
+   JAMES MCNEILL WHISTLER          204
+
+   RALPH WALDO EMERSON             215
+
+   JANE ADDAMS                     222
+
+   LUTHER BURBANK                  229
+
+   EDWARD ALEXANDER MACDOWELL      236
+
+   THOMAS ALVA EDISON              243
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+   He rode beside the coach on a chestnut horse _Frontispiece_
+
+                                                          PAGE
+
+   He began munching one of these as he went back
+   into the street                                          41
+
+   "How big is your trunk?"                                 88
+
+   He rode there on horseback                              129
+
+   The poor fellow fell to the floor as if he were dead    166
+
+   He generally went out alone                             221
+
+
+
+
+THE CHILD'S BOOK OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE WASHINGTON
+
+
+No one ever tells a story about the early days in America without
+bringing in the name of George Washington. In fact he is called the
+Father of our country. But he did not get this name until he was nearly
+sixty years old; and all kinds of interesting things, like taming wild
+colts, fighting Indians, hunting game, fording rivers, and commanding an
+army, had happened to him before that. He really had a wonderful life.
+
+George Washington was born in Virginia almost two hundred years ago.
+Virginia was not a state then. Indeed, there were no states. Every
+colony from Maine to Georgia was owned by King George, who sent men from
+England to govern them.
+
+At the time of George Washington's birth, Virginia was the richest of
+the thirteen colonies. George's father, Augustine Washington, had a fine
+old southern farmhouse set in the midst of a large tobacco plantation.
+This farm of a thousand acres was on the Potomac River. The Washington
+boys (George had two older brothers and several younger ones) had plenty
+of room to play in, and George had a pony, Hero, of his own.
+
+George was eleven years old when his father died, and his mother managed
+the plantation and brought up the children. George never gave her any
+trouble. He had good lessons at school and was willing to help her at
+home. He was a fine wrestler and could row and swim. Indeed, he liked
+the water so well, that he fancied he might lead the life of a sailor,
+carrying tobacco from the Potomac River to England. He heard stories of
+vessels meeting pirates and thought it would be very exciting. But his
+English uncle warned Mrs. Washington that it would be a hard life for
+her son, and she coaxed him to give up the idea.
+
+George had shown that he could do the work of a man on the farm when he
+was only sixteen. He was tall and strong and had a firm will. He had
+great skill in breaking colts and understood planting and harvesting, as
+well as tobacco raising. Being good at figures, he learned surveying.
+Surveying is the science of measuring land so that an owner will know
+just how much he has, how it lies, and what it adjoins, so that he can
+cut it into lots and set the measurements all down on paper. George was
+a fine land surveyor, and when he went to visit a half-brother, Lawrence
+Washington, who had a beautiful new home on the Potomac, which he called
+Mount Vernon, an English nobleman, Lord Fairfax, who owned the next
+estate, hired George to go all over his land in Virginia and put on
+paper for him the names of the people who lived in the Shenandoah
+valley, the way the roads ran, and the size of his different
+plantations. He really did not know how much land he owned, for King
+Charles the Second had given an immense amount of land to his
+grandfather. But he thought it was quite time to find out, and he was
+sure George Washington was an honest lad who would do the work well.
+
+Lord Fairfax spoke so highly of George that he was made surveyor of the
+colony. The outdoor life, and the long tramps in the sunshine made
+George's tall frame fill out, and he became one of the stoutest and
+handsomest young men in the colony.
+
+Lawrence Washington was ill and had to go to a warmer climate, so he
+took George with him for help and company. Lawrence did not live and
+left the eight-thousand-acre estate, Mount Vernon, to George. This made
+George Washington a rich man at twenty.
+
+The French and English began to discover that there was fine, rich land
+on either side of the Ohio River, and each laid claim to it. Now the
+Indians had been wandering through the forests of that region, camping
+and fishing where they chose, and they felt the land belonged to them.
+They grew ugly and sulky toward the English with whom up to this time
+they had been very friendly. It looked as if there would be war.
+
+"Some one must go and talk to these Frenchmen," said Dinwiddie, the
+English governor at Virginia, "whom shall we send?"
+
+Lord Fairfax, the old neighbor of George, answered: "I know just the man
+you want. Your messenger must be young, strong, and brave. He must know
+the country and be able to influence both the French and the Indians.
+Send George Washington."
+
+Washington served through these troubled times one year with Dinwiddie
+and three years with General Braddock, an English general. Always he
+proved himself brave. He had plenty of dangers. He was nearly drowned,
+four bullets went crashing through his clothes, in two different battles
+the horse on which he was riding was killed, but he kept calm and kept
+on fighting. He was soon made commander-in-chief of all the armies in
+Virginia.
+
+After five hard years of fighting, Washington went back to Mount Vernon,
+where he lived quietly and happily with a beautiful widow to whom he was
+married a few weeks after meeting her. When he and his bride rode home
+to Mount Vernon, she was dressed in white satin and wore pearl jewels.
+Her coach was drawn by six white horses. Washington was dressed in a
+suit of blue, lined with red satin and trimmed with silver lace. He rode
+beside the coach on a chestnut horse, with soldiers attending him.
+
+Mrs. Washington had two children, Jack Custis, aged six, and Martha, who
+was nicknamed Patty, aged four. George Washington was very fond of these
+children, and one of the first things he did after they came to Mount
+Vernon was to send to England for ten shillings' worth of toys, six
+little books, and a fashionable doll. Patty broke this doll, but
+Washington only laughed and ordered another that was better and larger.
+
+George Washington was having a fine time farming, raising horses and
+sheep, having the negro women weave and spin cloth and yarn, carrying on
+a fishery, and riding over his vast estate, when there was trouble
+between the colonists and England. Again a man was needed that was
+brave, wise, and honest. And when the colonists decided to fight unless
+the king would either stop taxing them or let them vote in Parliament,
+they said: "George Washington must be our commander-in-chief." So he
+left his wife, children, and home, and led the American troops for seven
+years.
+
+The colonists won their freedom from the English yoke, but they knew if
+they were to govern themselves, they needed a very wise man at their
+head. They made George Washington the first President of the United
+States of America. Of course it pleased him that such honor should be
+shown him, but he would have preferred to be just a Virginian farmer at
+Mount Vernon. However, he went to New York and took the oath of
+office--that is he promised, as all presidents have to, to work for the
+good of the United States. He was dressed in a suit of dark brown cloth
+(which was made in America) with knee-breeches and white silk stockings,
+and shoes with large silver buckles. He wore a sword at his side, and as
+the sun shone on his powdered hair, he looked very noble and handsome.
+He kissed the Bible as he took the oath; the chancellor lifted his hand
+and shouted: "Long live George Washington, President of the United
+States."
+
+The people did some wild cheering, cannons boomed, bells rang, hats were
+tossed in the air, and there was happiness everywhere.
+
+America had her first President!
+
+Washington ruled the people for eight years wisely and well. He was
+greatly beloved at home and he was praised in other countries. A German
+ruler said Washington was the greatest general in the world. A prime
+minister of England said Washington was the purest man in history. But
+we like to say Washington was the Father of our country, and we like to
+remember that he said: "Do justice to all, but never forget that we are
+Americans!"
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM PENN
+
+
+When Charles the Second was King of England, there lived in London a
+wealthy admiral of the British navy, Sir William Penn. He had been such
+a brave sailor that he was a favorite at court. He had a son who was a
+handsome, merry lad, whom he meant to educate very highly, for he knew
+the king would find some great place for him in his kingdom.
+
+So young William was sent early to school and college, where he learned
+Greek and Latin, French, German, and Dutch. He was quick motioned and
+strong. At Oxford College there was hardly a student who could equal him
+in swimming, rowing, and outdoor sports. His father grew prouder and
+prouder of his son each day. "William," he said to himself, "will do
+honor to me, to his king, and to his country." And he kept urging money
+and luxuries upon his son, whom he dressed like a prince.
+
+Imagine the Admiral's despair when he learned one morning that his son
+was hobnobbing with the Quakers! Just then a new sect of religious
+people who called themselves Quakers, or Friends, had sprung up in
+England. They were much despised. A Quaker believed that all men are
+equal, so he never took his hat off to any one, not even the king. The
+Quakers would not take an oath in court; would not go to war or pay
+money in support of war; always said "thee" and "thou" in addressing
+each other, and wore plain clothes and sober colors. They thought they
+ought always to act as their consciences told them to.
+
+In England and Massachusetts, Quakers were treated like criminals. Some
+of them were put to death. But the more they were abused, the more their
+faith became known, and the more followers they had.
+
+A traveling Quaker preacher went to Oxford, and when young William Penn
+heard him, he decided that he had found a religion that suited him. He
+stopped going to college services, declared he would not wear the
+college gown, and even tore the gowns from other students. He was
+expelled from Oxford.
+
+The Admiral was very angry. He told his son he had disgraced him. But he
+knew William had a strong will, and instead of having many harsh words
+with him, sent his son off to Paris. "I flatter myself," laughed the
+Admiral, "that in gay, fashionable Paris, William will soon forget his
+foolish ideas about the Quakers."
+
+The young people of Paris made friends with William at once, for he was
+handsome and jolly. He was eighteen years old. He had large eyes and
+long dark hair which fell in curls about his shoulders. For a time he
+entered into all the gay doings of Paris and spent a long time in Italy.
+So when he returned to England, two years later, his father nodded
+approval at the change in his looks and ways. He seemed to have
+forgotten the new religion entirely. But presently an awful plague swept
+over London, and William grew serious again. The Admiral now packed the
+boy off to Ireland. He was bound to stop this Quaker business.
+
+There was some kind of a riot or war in Ireland, and William fought in
+the thickest of it, for he liked to be in the midst of whatever was
+going on. One evening he heard that the old Quaker preacher he had liked
+at Oxford was preaching near by. He, with some other soldiers, went to
+hear him, and all his love for the Quaker faith came back to him, and he
+joined the society. He was imprisoned with other Quakers, and then his
+father said he would never speak to him again. But he really loved his
+son and was so pleased when he got out of prison that he agreed to
+forgive him, if he would only promise to take off his hat when he met
+his father, the king, or the Duke of York. But after young William had
+thought about it, he told his father that he could not make such a
+promise.
+
+William was sometimes in prison, sometimes driven from home by his
+father, then forgiven for the sake of his mother; often he was tired out
+with writing and preaching, but he kept true to his belief.
+
+When William's father died, he left his son great wealth, which he used
+for the good of others, especially the Quakers. William knew the Crown
+owed the Admiral nearly a hundred thousand dollars. As the king was
+something of a spendthrift, it was not likely that the debt would be
+paid very soon, so William asked the king to pay him in land. This the
+monarch was glad to do, so he granted an immense tract of land on the
+Delaware River, in America, to the Admiral's son.
+
+William planned to call this tract Sylvania, or Woodland, but when King
+Charles heard this, he said: "One thing I insist on. Your grant must be
+called after your father, for I had great love for the brave Admiral."
+Thus the name decided on was Pennsylvania (Penn's Woods).
+
+William Penn lost no time in sending word to all the Quakers in England
+that in America they could find a home and on his land be free from
+persecution. As many as three thousand of them sailed at once for
+America, and the next year William visited his new possessions. He did
+not know just how the tract might please him, so he left his wife and
+child behind, in England. He laid out a city himself on the Delaware
+River and called it the City of Brotherly Love, because he hoped there
+would be much love and harmony in the colony of Quakers. The other name
+for city of brotherly love is Philadelphia. If you visit this city
+to-day, you will find many of its streets bearing the names William Penn
+gave them more than two hundred years ago. Some of these are Pine,
+Mulberry, Cedar, Walnut, and Chestnut streets.
+
+Of course Indians were to be found along all the rivers in the American
+colonies. Penn really owned the land along the Delaware, but he thought
+it better to pay them for it as they had held it so many years, so he
+called a council under a big tree, where he shook hands with the red men
+and said he was of the same blood and flesh as they; and he gave them
+knives, beads, kettles, axes, and various things for their land. The
+Indians were pleased and vowed they would live in love with William Penn
+as long as the moon and sun should shine. This treaty was never broken.
+And one of the finest things to remember about William Penn is his
+honesty with the much persecuted Indians.
+
+Penn left the Quaker colony after a while and went back to England. But
+he returned many years later with his wife and daughter. He had two fine
+homes, one in the city of Philadelphia, the other in the country. At the
+country home there was a large dining-hall, and in it Penn entertained
+strangers and people of every color and race. At one of his generous
+feasts his guests ate one hundred roast turkeys.
+
+Penn, who was so gentle and loving to all the world, had many troubles
+of his own. One son was wild and gave him much anxiety. He himself was
+suspected of being too friendly with the papist King James, and of
+refusing to pay his bills. For one thing and another, he was cast into
+prison until he lost his health from the cold, dark cells. It seems
+strange that the rich, honest William Penn should from boyhood be doomed
+to imprisonment because of his religion, his loyalty, and from trying
+to obey the voice of his conscience. While he was not born in this
+country, the piety and honesty of William Penn will always be remembered
+in America.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN PAUL JONES
+
+
+Along the banks of the River Dee, in Scotland, the Earls of Selkirk
+owned two castles. John Paul was landscape gardener at Saint Mary's
+Isle, and his brother George made the grounds beautiful at the Arbigland
+estate. Little John Paul stayed often with his uncle. At either place he
+could see the blue water, and he loved everything about it. At Arbigland
+he watched the ships sail by and could see the English mountains in the
+distance. From the sailors he heard all kinds of sea stories and tales
+of wild border warfare. When a tiny child, he used to wander down to the
+mouth of the river Nith and coax the crews of the sailing vessels to
+tell him stories. They liked him and taught him to manage small
+sailboats. He quickly learned sea phrases and used to climb on some high
+rock and give off orders to his small play-fellows, or perhaps launch
+his boat alone upon the waters and just make believe that he had a crew
+of men on board with whom he was very stern.
+
+For a few years this son of the Scotch gardener went to parish school,
+but his mind was filled with the wild stories of adventure, and he
+longed to see the world. John had a feeling that his life was going to
+be exciting, and he could not keep his mind on his books some days. He
+was not sorry when his mother told him that as times were hard, he must
+leave school and go to work.
+
+John's older brother, William, had gone to America, and his uncle George
+had ceased working for the Earls of Selkirk because he had saved enough
+money to go to America. He was a merchant, with a store of his own in
+South Carolina.
+
+John heard such glowing accounts of men getting rich and famous in that
+land across the sea that he felt it must be almost like fairy-land.
+Think how pleased he must have been when at the age of twelve he shipped
+aboard the ship _Friendship_, bound for Virginia! And best of all, this
+ship anchored a few miles from Fredericksburg, where his brother lived.
+When in port, John stayed with William. He loved America from the first
+moment he saw a bit of her coast, and he never left off loving our
+country as long as he lived.
+
+John went back and forth from America to Scotland on the _Friendship_ a
+great many times. He had made up his mind that he would always go to
+sea, and he meant to understand everything about ships, countries to
+which they might sail, and all laws about trading in different ports. So
+he studied all the books he could get hold of that would teach him these
+things.
+
+Sometimes he changed vessels, shipping with a different captain.
+Sometimes he went to strange countries. But he was one who kept his eyes
+open, and he learned to be more and more skilful in all sea matters.
+
+About two years before the Revolutionary War, he was feeling
+discouraged. He knew his employers were pirates in a way. He had met
+with some trouble on his last voyage, so that he knew it was best not to
+go to his brother's when he reached North Carolina from the West
+Indies, and that he had best avoid using his own name. As he sat alone
+on a bench in front of a tavern one afternoon, his head in his hands, a
+jovial, handsome man came along. The man was well dressed, a
+kind-hearted, rich Southerner. He hated to see people unhappy. After he
+had passed John Paul, he turned back and going close to him, asked:
+"What's your name, my friend?"
+
+"I have none," was the answer.
+
+"Where's your home?"
+
+"I have none."
+
+The stranger was struck with the face and figure of John Paul and
+noticed that his handsome black eyes had a commanding expression. He
+said to himself: "Here is a lad that will be of importance some day, or
+my name is not Willie Jones!"
+
+Then Willie Jones took John by the arm and said: "Come home with me. My
+home is big enough for us both."
+
+This was quite true, for Willie Jones had a beautiful estate called "The
+Grove." The house was like a palace with its immense drawing-rooms,
+wide fireplaces, carved halls, and spacious dining-room which overlooked
+the owner's race track. For Willie Jones owned blooded horses, went to
+country hunts, played cards, and had overseers to manage his fifteen
+hundred slaves, who worked in Jones's tobacco fields and salt mines. His
+clothes were of the first quality and his linen fine.
+
+On a neighboring estate across the river lived Willie's brother, Allen
+Jones. He was married to a dark-eyed beauty who gave parties in her
+large ballroom, and who led the minuets and gavottes better than any of
+her guests.
+
+Just as John Paul had been at home on the estates of the Earl of Selkirk
+in Scotland, he was now at home on both these southern plantations. By
+both families he was petted and soon beloved. He seemed like one of
+their own blood.
+
+The people of North Carolina talked constantly of Liberty. They declared
+themselves anxious to be independent of England. Soon after the famous
+Boston Tea-party, the women of North Carolina pledged their word to
+drink no more tea that was taxed.
+
+John Paul took the same stand as his good friends. And he more than ever
+felt he was born to do great deeds. And he hoped to prove his gratitude
+to the Joneses by winning fame. From this time he took the name of John
+Paul Jones. All his navy papers are signed that way. And he became an
+American citizen.
+
+Paul Jones's rise was rapid. In 1776 he became a lieutenant in the
+Continental navy. The colonists had but five armed vessels; the
+_Alfred_, on which Paul Jones served, was one of them. These five ships
+were the beginning of the American navy. The captain of the _Alfred_ was
+slow in reaching his vessel, and so Paul Jones had to get the ship ready
+for sea. He was so quick and sure in all his acts that the sailors all
+liked him.
+
+The ship was visited by the commodore of the squadron of five ships. He
+found everything in such fine condition that he said: "My confidence in
+you is so great that if the captain does not reach here by the time we
+should get away, I shall hoist my flag on your ship and give you command
+of her!"
+
+"Thank you, Commodore," and Paul bowed, "when your flag is hoisted on
+the _Alfred_, I hope a flag of the United Colonies will fly at the peak.
+I want to be the man to raise that flag on the ocean."
+
+The commodore laughed and replied: "As Congress is slow, I am afraid
+there will not be time to make a flag after it actually decides what
+that shall be."
+
+"I think there will, Sir," answered Paul Jones.
+
+It seems he knew almost for a certainty that the Continental Congress
+had planned their first flag of the Revolution. It was to be of yellow
+silk, showing a pine tree with a rattlesnake under it, and bearing the
+daring motto: "Don't tread on me." Paul Jones had bought the material to
+make one, out of his own pocket, and Bill Green, a quarter-master, sat
+up all night to cut and sew the cloth into a flag.
+
+Captain Saltonstall arrived in time to take command, but Paul Jones kept
+his disappointment to himself and faithfully did the lieutenant's
+duties. He had been drilling the men, and when the commodore came again
+to inspect the ship, some four hundred, with one hundred marines, were
+drawn up on deck. Bill Green and Paul Jones were very busy for a minute,
+and just as the commodore came over the ladder at the ship's side, the
+flag with the pennant flew up the staff, under Paul Jones's hand. Every
+man's hat came off, the drummer boys beat a double ruffle on the drums,
+and _such_ cheers burst from every throat!
+
+The commodore said to Paul Jones: "I congratulate you; you have been
+enterprising. Congress adopted that flag but yesterday, and this one is
+the first to fly."
+
+Bill Green was thanked, too, and the squadron sailed for the open sea,
+the _Alfred_ leading the way.
+
+Paul Jones was very daring, but his judgment and knowledge were so
+perfect that in the twenty-three great battles which he fought upon the
+seas, though many times wounded, he was never defeated. He made the
+American flag, which he was the first to raise, honored, and he kept it
+flying in the Texel with a dozen, double-decked Dutch frigates
+threatening him in the harbor, while another dozen English ships were
+waiting just beyond to capture him. He was offered safety if he would
+hoist the French colors and accept a commission in the French navy, but
+he never wavered. It was his pride to be able to say to the American
+Congress: "I have never borne arms under any but the American flag, nor
+have I ever borne or acted under any commission except that of the
+Congress of America."
+
+Paul Jones served without pay and used nearly all of his private fortune
+for the cause of independence. Congress made him the ranking officer of
+the American navy and gave him a gold medal. France conferred the cross
+of a military order upon him and a gold sword. It was a beautiful day
+when this cross was given him. The French minister gave a grand fete in
+Philadelphia. All Congress was there, army and navy officers, citizens,
+and sailors who had served under Jones. Against the green of the trees,
+the uniforms of the officers and the white gowns of the ladies showed
+gleamingly.
+
+Paul Jones wore the full uniform of an American captain and his gold
+sword. He carried his blue and gold cap in his hand. A military band
+played inspiring airs as the French minister and Paul Jones walked
+toward the center of the lawn. Paul Jones was pale but happy. He was
+receiving an honor never before given a man who was not a citizen of
+France, but as his eyes lighted on the stars and stripes floating above
+him, they filled with tears, for his greatest joy of all was that he had
+left the sands of Dee to become a citizen and defender of his beloved
+America.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY
+
+
+When the city of Boston, Massachusetts, was just a small town in which
+there were no schools where boys and girls could learn to draw and
+paint, one little fellow by the name of John Singleton Copley was quite
+sure to be waiting at the door when his stepfather, Peter Pelham, came
+home to dinner or supper, to ask why the pictures he had been drawing of
+various people did not look like them. Peter Pelham could nearly always
+tell John what the matter was, because he knew a good deal about
+drawing. He made maps and engravings himself.
+
+John remembered what his stepfather told him and practised until he made
+really fine drawings. Then he began to color them. He did love gay
+tints, and as both men and women wore many buckles and jewels, and
+brocades and velvets of every hue in those days, he could make these
+portraits as dazzling as he chose.
+
+There is no doubt John loved to make pictures. He had drawn many a one
+on the walls of his nursery when he was scarcely more than a baby. He
+later covered the blank pages and margins of his school-books with faces
+and animals. And instead of playing games with the other boys in
+holidays, he was apt to spend such hours with chalks and paints.
+
+When John was fourteen or fifteen, his portraits were thought so
+lifelike that Boston people paid him good prices for them. He was glad
+to earn money, for his kind stepfather died, leaving his wife to the
+care of John and his stepbrother, Henry. He had been working and saving
+for years when he married the daughter of a rich Boston merchant. This
+wife, Suzanne, was a beautiful girl, proud of her husband's talent and
+anxious for him to get on in the world. The artist soon bought a house
+on Beacon Hill which had a fine view from its windows. He called this
+estate, which covered eleven acres, his "little farm." You can guess how
+large it looked when I tell you that the farm is to-day practically the
+western side of Beacon Hill.
+
+The young couple were happy and must have prospered, for a man who saw
+the house on the hill wrote to his friends: "I called on John Singleton
+Copley and found him living in a beautiful home on a fine open common;
+dressed in red velvet, laced with gold, and having everything about him
+in handsome style." It is evident John still liked bright colors.
+
+John had never seen any really good paintings; he had never had any
+teacher; and he longed to see the works of the old masters in other
+countries. But at first he did not want to leave his old mother; then it
+was the young wife who kept him here; and by and by he felt he could not
+be away from his own dear little children, so it was not until he was
+nearly forty that he went abroad.
+
+In one of the first letters that Suzanne got from her husband he told of
+the fine shops in Genoa. She laughed when she read that in a few hours
+after he landed he bought a suit of black velvet lined with crimson
+satin, lace ruffles for his neck and sleeves, and silk stockings. "I'd
+know," she said to herself, "the suit would have a touch of
+crimson--John does love rich colors!"
+
+All his letters told how wonderful he found the old paintings and often
+described his attempts to copy them. After he had visited the galleries
+and museums of Italy, he went to England. He was delighted to find that
+his wife and family had already fled there because of the Revolution in
+America. He had heard of the trouble between the Colonists in America
+and England and had worried night and day for fear harm would come to
+Suzanne and the children. Of course he worried about the "little farm"
+too, but it was no time to go back to Boston, and he could only hope his
+agent would protect it.
+
+The Copleys liked London, but some days they felt homesick for Beacon
+Hill. Still he must keep earning money, and there were plenty of English
+people who wanted to sit for their portraits, while of course, with the
+fierce Revolution raging, and with soldiers camping everywhere, Boston
+people did not care much about having their pictures painted.
+
+In London John began to paint pictures that showed events in history.
+Sometimes he would take for a subject a famous battle, sometimes a scene
+from the English Parliament, or perhaps a king or lord doing some act
+which we have read about in their lives. These pictures were immense in
+size and took a long time to do, because Copley was particular to have
+everything exactly true. George the Third was so much pleased with his
+work that when he was going to paint the large work "The Siege of
+Gibraltar", his Majesty sent him, with his wife and eldest daughter, to
+Hanover, to take the portraits of four great generals of that country,
+who had proved their bravery and skill on the rock of Gibraltar. All the
+uniforms, swords, banners, and scenery were as perfect as if Copley had
+been at the siege himself, and the officers' faces were just like
+photographs. The king was very kind and generous. He told Copley not to
+hurry back to England but to enjoy Hanover thoroughly, and to give his
+wife and daughter a holiday they would never forget. To enable Copley to
+go into private homes and look at art treasures which the public never
+saw, the king gave him a letter asking this courtesy, written with his
+own hand.
+
+This large canvas, "The Siege of Gibraltar", is owned by the city of
+London. There is another huge painting, "The Death of Lord Chatham", at
+Kensington Museum, which Americans like to see. It shows old Lord
+Chatham falling in a faint at the House of Lords. The poor man was too
+sick to be there, but he was a strong friend to the American Colonies
+and had declared over and over again that the king ought not to tax
+them. When he heard there was to be voting on the question, he rose from
+his bed and drove in a carriage to the House to say once more how wicked
+it was. The members of the House of Lords look very imposing with their
+grave faces and robes of scarlet, trimmed with ermine, but they
+sometimes act in a childish manner and show temper. One man who almost
+hated Chatham for so defending the Colonies sat as still as if he were
+carved out of stone when the poor old lord dropped to the floor. This
+picture shows him sitting as cold and stiff as a ramrod while all the
+other members have sprung to their feet or have rushed to help the
+fainting man.
+
+The Boston Public Library holds one of Copley's historical pictures. It
+shows a scene from the life of Charles the First of England. He is
+standing in the speaker's chair in the House of Commons, demanding
+something which the speaker, kneeling before him, is unwilling to tell.
+There is plenty of chance for John Copley to show his love for brilliant
+coloring, for the suits of the king, his nephew, Prince Rupert, and his
+followers are of velvets and satins, the slashed sleeves showing facings
+of yellow, cherry, and green. The knee breeches are fastened with
+buckles over gaudy silk stockings and high-heeled slippers. The men wear
+deep collars of lace, curled wigs, and velvet hats with sweeping plumes.
+
+But in a picture at Buckingham Palace called "The Three Princesses"
+there is a riot of color. The scene is a garden, beyond which the towers
+of Windsor Castle show, with the flag of England floating above it;
+there are fruit-trees and flowers, parrots of gay plumage, and pet dogs.
+The little girls' gowns are rainbow-like, and one of them is dancing to
+the music of a tambourine. It is a darling picture, and the royal couple
+prized it greatly.
+
+When John Copley was only a young man, he sent a picture from Boston to
+England, asking that it might be placed on exhibition at the Royal
+Academy. It was called "The Boy and the Flying Squirrel." The boy was a
+portrait of his half-brother, Henry Pelham. Copley sent no name or
+letter, and it was against the rules of the Academy to hang any picture
+by an unknown artist, but the coloring was so beautiful that the rule
+was broken, and crowds stopped before the Boston lad's canvas to admire
+it. When it was discovered that John Copley painted it, and it was known
+he had received no lessons at that time, he was urged to go abroad at
+once. At the time he could not. But the praise encouraged him to keep
+on, and before he had a chance to visit Italy, he had painted nearly
+three hundred pictures. Nearly all of these were painted at the "little
+farm" on Beacon Hill, when he or Suzanne would hardly have dreamed the
+day would come when he should be the favorite of kings and courts.
+
+
+
+
+BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
+
+
+One of the greatest Americans that ever lived was Benjamin Franklin. The
+story of his life sounds like a fairy tale. Though he stood before
+queens and kings, dressed in velvet and laces, before he died, he was
+the son of a poor couple who had to work very hard to find food and
+clothes for their large family--for there were more than a dozen little
+Franklins!
+
+Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, one bright Sunday morning more
+than two hundred years ago. That same afternoon his father took the baby
+boy across the street to the Old South Church, to be baptized. He was
+named for his uncle Benjamin, who lived in England.
+
+As Benjamin grew up, he made friends easily. People liked his eager face
+and merry ways. He was never quiet but darted about like a kitten. The
+questions he asked--and the mischief he got into! But the neighbors
+loved him. The women made little cakes for him, and the men were apt to
+toss him pennies.
+
+One day when Benjamin was about seven, some one gave him all the pennies
+he could squeeze into one hand. Off he ran to the toy shop, but on his
+way he overtook a boy blowing a whistle. Ben thought that whistle was
+the nicest thing he had ever seen and offered his handful of pennies for
+it. The boy took them, and Ben rushed home with his prize. Well, he
+tooted that whistle all over the house until the family wished there had
+never been a whistle in the world. Then an older brother told him he had
+paid the other boy altogether too much for it, and when Ben found that
+if he had waited and bought it at a store, he would have had some of the
+pennies left for something else, he burst out crying. He did not forget
+about this, either. When he was a grown man and was going to buy
+something, he would wait a little and say to himself: "Careful,
+now--don't pay too much for your whistle!" An Italian sculptor who had
+heard this story made a lovely statue called "Franklin and his Whistle."
+If you happen to be in the beautiful Public Library in Newark, New
+Jersey, you must ask to see it.
+
+Ben always loved the water and was a wonderful swimmer as a little
+fellow. He could manage a boat, too, and spent half his play hours down
+at the wharves. One day he had been flying kites, as he often did, and
+thought he would see what would happen if he went in swimming with a
+kite tied to his waist. He tried it and the kite pulled him along
+finely. If he wanted to go slowly, he let out a little bit of string. If
+he wanted to move through the water fast, he sent the kite up higher in
+the air.
+
+But it was in school that Ben did his best. He studied so well that his
+father wanted to make a great scholar of him, but there was not money
+enough to do this, so when he was ten he had to go into his father's
+soap and candle shop to work. The more he worked over the candles, the
+worse he hated to, and by and by he said to his father: "Oh, let me go
+to sea!"
+
+"No," said Mr. Franklin, "your brother ran away to sea. I can't lose
+another boy that way. We will look up something else."
+
+So the father and son went round the city, day after day, visiting all
+kinds of work-shops to see what Benjamin fancied best. But when it
+proved that the trade of making knives and tools, which was what pleased
+Benjamin most, could not be learned until Mr. Franklin had paid one
+hundred dollars, that had to be given up, like the school. There was
+never any spare cash in the Franklin purse.
+
+As James Franklin, an older brother, had learned the printing business
+in England and had set up an office in Boston, Ben was put with him to
+learn the printer's trade. Poor Ben found him a hard man to work for. If
+it had not been for the books he found there to read and the friends who
+loaned him still more books, he could not have stayed six months. But
+Ben knew that since he had to leave school when he was only ten, the
+thing for him to do was to study by himself every minute he could get.
+He sat up half the nights studying. When he needed time to finish some
+book, he would eat fruit and drink a glass of water at noon, just to
+save a few extra minutes for studying. James never gave him a chance for
+anything but work; it seemed as if he could not pile enough on him. When
+he found Ben could write poetry pretty well, he made him write ballads
+and sell them on the streets, putting the money they brought into his
+own pocket. He was very mean to the younger brother, and when he began
+to strike Ben whenever he got into a rage, the boy left him.
+
+Benjamin went to New York but found no work there. He worked his way to
+Philadelphia. By this time his clothes were ragged. He had no suitcase
+or traveling bag and carried his extra stockings and shirts in his
+pockets. You can imagine how bulgy and slack he looked walking through
+the streets! He was hungry and stepped into a baker's for bread. He had
+only one silver dollar in the world. But he must eat, whether he found
+work or not. When he asked for ten cents' worth of bread, the baker gave
+him three large loaves. He began munching one of these as he went
+back into the street. As his pockets were filled with stockings and
+shirts, he had to carry the other two loaves under his arms. No wonder a
+girl standing in a doorway giggled as he passed by! Years afterwards,
+when Franklin was rich and famous, and had married this very girl, the
+two used to laugh well over the way he looked the first time she saw
+him.
+
+[Illustration: He began munching one of these as he went back into the
+street. _Page 41._]
+
+After one or two useless trips to England, Franklin settled down to the
+printing business in Philadelphia. He was the busiest man in town.
+Deborah, his wife, helped him, and he started a newspaper, a magazine, a
+bookstore; he made ink, he made paper, even made soap (work that he
+hated so when a boy!). Then he published every year an almanac. Into
+this odd book, which people hurried to buy, he put some wise sayings,
+which I am sure you must have heard many times. Such as: "Haste makes
+waste"; "Well done is better than well said"; and "Early to bed and
+early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
+
+Franklin and his wife did so many things and did them well that they
+grew rich. So when he was only forty-two, Franklin shut up all his shops
+and took his time for studying out inventions. When you hear about the
+different things he invented, you will not wonder that the colleges in
+the country thought he ought to be honored with a degree and made him
+Doctor Franklin. Here are some of his inventions: lightning-rods,
+stoves, fans to cool hot rooms, a cure for smoking chimneys, better
+printing-presses, sidewalks, street cleaning. He opened salt mines and
+drained swamps so that they were made into good land. Then he founded
+the first public library, the first police service, and the first fire
+company. Doesn't it seem as if he thought of everything?
+
+But better than all, Franklin always worked for the glory of America.
+When King George was angry and bitter against our colonies, Franklin
+went to England and stood his ground against the king and all his
+council. He said the king had no right to make the colonies pay a lot of
+money for everything that was brought over from England unless they had
+some say as to how _much_ money it should be. If they paid taxes, they
+wanted to vote. They were not willing to be just slaves under a hard
+master.
+
+"Very well, then," said the council, "then you colonists can't have any
+more clothes from England."
+
+Mr. Franklin answered back: "Very well, then, we will wear old clothes
+till we can make our own new ones!"
+
+In a week or so word was sent from England that clothing would not be
+taxed, and the colonists had great rejoicings. They built bonfires, rang
+bells, and had processions; and Benjamin Franklin's name was loudly
+cheered.
+
+But England still needed money and decided to make the colonists pay a
+tax on tea and a few other things. Then the American colonists were as
+angry as they could be. They tipped the whole cargo of tea into Boston
+Harbor, and in spite of Franklin's trying to make the king and the
+colonists understand each other, there was a long war (it is called the
+Revolutionary War) and it ended in the colonists declaring themselves
+independent of Great Britain. A paper telling the king and the world
+that the colonists should not obey the English rule any longer, but
+would make laws of their own was signed by men from all thirteen
+colonies. Benjamin Franklin was one of the men from Pennsylvania who
+signed it. As this paper--The Declaration of Independence--was first
+proclaimed July 4, 1776, the people always celebrate the fourth day of
+July throughout the United States.
+
+Franklin was postmaster-general of the colonies; he was our first
+minister to the Court of France, the governor (or president, as the
+office was then called) of Pennsylvania, and helped, more than almost
+any other man, to make America the great country she is.
+
+Franklin was admired in France and England for his good judgment and
+clever ideas. Pictures of him were shown in public places; prints of his
+face were for sale in three countries; medallions of his head were set
+in rings and snuff-boxes; he traveled in royal coaches, and was treated
+like a prince. But although it was "the Great Doctor Franklin" here, and
+"the Noble Patriot" there, he did not grow vain. Benjamin Franklin was
+just a modest, good American!
+
+
+
+
+LOUIS AGASSIZ
+
+
+Louis Agassiz was a Swiss boy who knew how to keep his eyes open. Some
+people walk right by things without seeing them, but Louis kept a sharp
+lookout, and nothing escaped him.
+
+Louis was born in a small Swiss village near a lake. His father was a
+minister and school teacher. His mother was a fine scholar and was very
+sure that she wanted her children to love books, but two brothers of
+Louis's had died and she meant to have Louis and another son, Auguste,
+get plenty of play and romping in the fields so that they would grow up
+healthy and strong, first of all; there would be time for study
+afterwards.
+
+The Agassiz boys had a few short lessons in the morning with their
+father or mother, and then they roamed through the woods and fields the
+rest of the day. Of course they found plenty to interest them and never
+came home from these jaunts with empty hands. They had pet mice, birds,
+rabbits, and fish.
+
+There was a stone basin in his father's yard, with spring water flowing
+through it. In this Louis put his fish and then watched their habits. As
+I told you, nothing escaped his eyes. He proved this more than once.
+
+It was the custom in Swiss cantons for different kinds of workmen to
+travel from house to house, making such things at the door as each
+family might need. Louis watched the cobbler, and after he had gone away
+surprised his sister with a pair of boots he himself had made for her
+doll. And after the cooper had made his father some casks and barrels,
+Louis made a tiny, water-tight barrel, as perfect as could be. He kept
+his sharpest gaze on the tailor, and Papa Agassiz said to his wife: "Let
+us see, now, if Louis can make a suit!" They did not, in the end, ask
+him to try, but no doubt he knew pretty well how it was done.
+
+At the age of ten, Louis was sent to a college twenty miles from Motier,
+where his parents lived. He was keen at his lessons and asked questions
+until he mastered whatever he studied. The second year he went to this
+college he was joined by his brother, Auguste. The two boys liked the
+same things and never wanted to be away from each other. Whenever a
+vacation came, the boys walked home--all that twenty miles--and did not
+make any fuss about it!
+
+By and by the boys wanted to own books which would tell them about
+birds, fishes, and rocks. These were the things Louis was thinking of
+all the time. The boys saved every cent of their spending money for
+these books. They were always talking about animals. One day, as they
+were walking from Zurich to Motier, they were overtaken by a gentleman
+in a carriage. He asked them to ride with him and to share his lunch.
+They did so and talked to him about their studies. He was greatly taken
+with Louis, who was a handsome, graceful lad, as he told the stranger
+his fondness for books. The gentleman hardly took his eyes from the boy,
+and a few days later Reverend Mr. Agassiz had a letter from him saying
+that he was very rich and that he wanted to adopt Louis. He said he was
+sure that the boy was a genius.
+
+Louis was not willing, though, to be any one's boy but his own parents',
+and so the matter was dropped.
+
+The boys did not have much spending money, and it took, oh, such a long
+time to save enough to buy even one book! So they often went to a
+library, or borrowed a book from a teacher, then copied every word of it
+with pen and ink, so as to own it. You can see from this that they were
+very much in earnest.
+
+When not studying or copying, the brothers were busy outdoors, watching
+animals. In this way they learned just what kinds of fishes could be
+found in certain lakes, and almost the exact day when different birds
+would come or go from the woods. In their rooms the cupboards and
+shelves were crammed with shells, stuffed fishes, plants, and odd
+specimens. On the ledges of the windows hovered often as many as fifty
+kinds of birds who had become tamed and who made their home there.
+
+At seventeen Louis was bending over his desk a good many hours of the
+day. He learned French, German, Latin, Greek, Italian, and English. But
+he was wise enough to keep himself well and strong by walking, swimming,
+and fencing.
+
+Because Louis's parents and his uncle wanted him to be a doctor, he
+studied medicine. He carried home his diploma when he was twenty-three
+and earned a degree in philosophy, too. But in his own heart he knew he
+would not be happy unless he could hunt the world over for strange
+creatures and try to find out the secrets of the old, old mountains.
+
+Louis traveled all he could and became so excited over the different
+things he discovered that he sometimes stopped in cities and towns and
+talked to the people, in their public halls, about them. He had a happy
+way of telling his news, and crowds went to listen to the young Swiss.
+
+The King of Prussia thought that any one who used his eyes in such good
+fashion ought to visit many places. He said to Louis: "Here is money
+for you to travel with, so that you may find out more of these strange
+things. You are a clever young man and can do much for the world!"
+
+In the course of his travels, Louis Agassiz came to America. At that
+time he could not speak English very well, but all his stories were so
+charming that the halls were never large enough to hold the men and
+women who wanted to hear him.
+
+Louis Agassiz loved America so well that he made up his mind to spend
+the rest of his life here. As time passed, he decided, also, to give
+this country the benefit of all that he discovered. He was so bright
+that the whole world was beginning to wonder at him. France got jealous
+of America's keeping such a great man. So Napoleon offered him a high
+office and great honors; but Louis said "No," adding courageously: "I'd
+rather have the gratitude of a _free_ people than the patronage of
+Emperors!"
+
+The city of Zurich begged him to return.
+
+"No," he wrote, "I cannot. I love America too well!"
+
+Then the city of Paris urged him to be at the head of their Natural
+History Museum, but this was no use, either. Nothing could win Louis
+Agassiz away from America.
+
+At Harvard College Agassiz was made professor of natural history, and
+there is to-day at Cambridge a museum of zoology, the largest of its
+kind in the world, which Agassiz founded and built. At his home in
+Cambridge the professor still kept strange pets, quite as he used to do
+when a boy. Visitors to his garden never knew when they might step on a
+live turtle, or when they might come suddenly upon an alligator, an
+eagle, or a timid rabbit.
+
+The precious dream of going to Brazil came true when Louis Agassiz was
+fifty years old. With a party of seventeen and his wife, he went on an
+exploring expedition to South America. It was a great adventure.
+
+Agassiz had been to many cold countries and had slept on glaciers night
+after night, with only a single blanket under him, but never in his life
+had he been in the tropics.
+
+When Agassiz arrived in South America, Don Pedro, the Emperor of
+Brazil, was glad to see the man who was known as a famous scientist and
+heaped all kinds of honors upon him. Better than all, he helped Agassiz
+get into many out-of-the-way places.
+
+If you want to know about a fish that has four eyes, about dragon-flies
+that are flaming crimson and green, and floating islands that are as
+large as a school playground, yet go sailing along like a ship, bearing
+birds, deer, and wild looking jaguars, read: _A Journey to Brazil_ by
+Professor and Mrs. Agassiz.
+
+When you have heard the story of all these strange things, you will
+agree that Louis Agassiz did certainly know how to keep his eyes open.
+
+
+
+
+DOROTHEA LYNDE DIX
+
+
+Doctor Elisha Dix of Orange Court, Boston, was never happier than when
+his pet grandchild, little Dorothea Dix, came to visit his wife and
+himself. Every morning he had to drive about the city, in his
+old-fashioned chaise, to see how the sick people were getting along, and
+he did love to have Dorothea sitting beside him, her tongue going, as he
+used to declare "like a trip-hammer." She was a wide-awake,
+quick-motioned creature and said such droll things that the doctor used
+to shout with laughter, until the dappled gray horse which he drove
+sometimes stopped short and looked round at the two in the chaise as if
+to say: "Whatever in the world does all this mean?"
+
+But when the time drew near for Dorothea to go back home, she always
+looked sober enough. One day she burst out: "Oh, Grandpa, I almost
+_hate_ tracts!"
+
+Doctor Dix glanced down at her in his kind way and answered: "I don't
+know as I blame you, Child!"
+
+You see, Joseph Dix, Dorothea's father, was a strange man. He had fine
+chances to make money because the doctor had bought one big lot of land
+after another and had to hire agents to look after these farms and
+forests. Naturally he sent his own son to the pleasantest places, but
+the only thing Joseph Dix, who was very religious in the gloomiest sort
+of a way, really wanted to do, was to repeat hymns and write tracts. To
+publish these dismal booklets, he used nearly all the money he earned,
+so that the family had small rations of food, cheap clothing, and no
+holidays.
+
+Besides having to live in such sorry fashion, the whole household were
+forced to stitch and paste these tracts together. Year after year Mrs.
+Dix, Dorothea, and her two brothers sat in the house, doing this
+tiresome work. No matter whether, as agent, Mr. Dix was sent to Maine,
+New Hampshire, Vermont, or Massachusetts; no matter whether their
+playmates in the neighborhood were berrying, skating, or picnicking; no
+matter how the birds sang, the brooks sparkled, the nuts and fruit
+ripened; the wife and children of Joseph Dix had no outdoor pleasures,
+no, they just bent over those old tracts, pasting and sewing till they
+fairly ached.
+
+When Dorothea was twelve, she decided to stand such a life no longer.
+Fortunately the family was then living in Worcester, near Boston, and it
+did not cost much to get there. Doctor Dix was dead, but Dorothea ran
+away to her grandmother, who still lived at Orange Court (now it is
+called Dix Place), and although Madam Dix was very strict, life was
+better there than with the tract-maker.
+
+At Orange Court, Dorothea was allowed no time to play. She was taught to
+sew and cook and knit and was sometimes punished if the tasks were not
+well done. "Poor thing," she said in after life, "I never had any
+childhood!" But she went to school and was so quick at her lessons that
+in two years she went back to Worcester and opened a school for little
+children. She was only fourteen and rather small for her age, so she
+put on long dresses and piled her hair on top of her head with a high
+comb. I think people never guessed how young she was. Anyway, she proved
+a good teacher, and the children loved her and never disobeyed her.
+
+After keeping this school for a year, she studied again in Boston until
+she was nineteen. Then she not only taught a day and boarding-school in
+that city, but looked after her brothers and opened another school for
+poor children whose parents could not afford to pay for their lessons.
+She took care of her grandmother's house, too. While every one was
+wondering how one young girl could do so much, she made them open their
+eyes still wider by writing three or four books.
+
+By and by her health broke down, and she began to think that she could
+never work any more, but after a long rest in England she came back to
+America and did something far greater than teaching or writing--she went
+through the whole country making prisons, jails, and asylums more
+comfortable. Up to the time of Dorothea Dix's interest, no one had
+seemed to bother his head about prisoners and insane people. Any kind of
+a place that had a lock and key was good enough for such to sleep in.
+And what did it matter if a wicked man or a crazy man _was_ cold or
+hungry? But it mattered very much to Dorothea Dix that human beings were
+being ill-treated, and she meant to start a reform. She talked with
+senators, governors, and presidents. She visited the places in each
+State where prisoners, the poor, and the crazy were shut up. She talked
+kindly to these shut-ins, and she talked wrathfully to the men who
+ill-treated them. She made speeches before legislatures; she wrote
+articles for the papers, and begged money from millionaires to build
+healthy almshouses and asylums. This was seventy years ago, when
+traveling was slow and dangerous in the west and south. She had so many
+delays on account of stage-coaches breaking down on rough or muddy roads
+that finally she made a practice of carrying with her an outfit of
+hammer, wrench, nails, screws, a coil of stout rope, and straps of
+strong leather. Some of the western rivers had to be forded, and many
+times she nearly lost her life. Once, when riding in a stage-coach in
+Michigan, a robber sprang out of a dark place in the forest through
+which they were passing and demanded her purse. She did not scream or
+faint. She asked him if he was not ashamed to molest a woman who was
+going through the country to help prisoners. She told him if he was
+really poor, she would give him some money. And what do you think?
+Before she finished speaking, the robber recognized her voice. He had
+heard her talk to the prisoners when he was a convict in a Philadelphia
+prison! He begged her to go on her way in peace.
+
+For twelve years Miss Dix went through the United States in the
+interests of the deaf and dumb, the blind, and the insane. Then she went
+to Europe to rest. But she found the same suffering there as here. In no
+time she was busy again. She tried to get audience with the Pope in Rome
+to beg him to stop some prison cruelties but was always put off. Any one
+else would have given up, but Dorothea Dix always carried her point.
+One day she met the Pope's carriage in the street. She stopped it, and
+as she knew no Italian, began talking fast to him in _Latin_. She was so
+earnest and sensible that he gave her everything she asked for.
+
+It was not long after her return to America before the Civil War broke
+out. She went straight to Washington and offered to nurse the soldiers
+without pay. As she was appointed superintendent, she had all the nurses
+under her rule. She hired houses to keep supplies in, she bought an
+ambulance, she gave her time, strength, and fortune to her country. In
+the whole four years of the Civil War, Dorothea Dix never took a
+holiday. She was so interested in her work that often she forgot to eat
+her meals until reminded of them.
+
+After this war was over, the Secretary of War, Honorable Edwin M.
+Stanton, asked her how the nation could show its gratitude to her for
+the grand work she had done. She told him she would like a flag. Two
+very beautiful ones were given her, made with special printed tributes
+on them. In her will Miss Dix left these flags to Harvard College. They
+hang over the doors of Memorial Hall.
+
+Nobody ever felt sorry that Dorothea ran away from those tiresome
+tracts. For probably all the tracts ever written by Joseph Dix never did
+as much good as a single day's work of his daughter, among the wounded
+soldiers. And as for her reforms--they will go on forever. She has been
+called the most useful woman of America. That is a great name to earn.
+
+
+
+
+ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT
+
+
+Once upon a time, at Point Pleasant, a small town on the Ohio River,
+there lived a young couple who could not decide how to name their first
+baby. He was a darling child, and as the weeks went by, and he grew
+prettier every minute, it was harder and harder to think of a name good
+enough for him.
+
+Finally Jesse Grant, the father, told his wife, Hannah, he thought it
+would be a good plan to ask the grandparents' advice. So off they rode
+from their little cottage, carrying the baby with them.
+
+But at grandpa's it was even worse. In that house there were four people
+besides themselves to suit. At last, the father, mother, grandfather,
+grandmother, and the two aunts each wrote a favorite name on a bit of
+paper. These slips of paper were all put into grandpa's tall, silk hat
+which was placed on the spindle-legged table. "Now," said the father to
+one of the aunts, "draw from the hat a slip of paper, and whatever name
+is written on that slip shall be the name of my son."
+
+The slip she drew had the name "Ulysses" on it.
+
+"Well," murmured the grandfather, "our dear child is named for a great
+soldier of the olden days. But I wanted him to be called Hiram, who was
+a good king in Bible times."
+
+Then Hannah Grant, who could not bear to have him disappointed,
+answered: "Let him have both names!" So the baby was christened Hiram
+Ulysses Grant.
+
+While Ulysses was still a baby, his parents moved to Georgetown, Ohio.
+There his father built a nice, new, brick house and managed a big farm,
+besides his regular work of tanning leather. As Ulysses got old enough
+to help at any kind of work, it was plain he would never be a tanner. He
+hated the smell of leather. But he was perfectly happy on the farm. He
+liked best of all to be around the horses, and before he was six years
+old he rode horseback as well as any man in Georgetown. When he was
+seven, it was part of his work to drive the span of horses in a heavy
+team that carried the cord-wood from the wood-lot to the house and shop.
+He must have been a strong boy, for at the age of eleven he used to hold
+the plow when his father wanted to break up new land, and it makes the
+arms and back ache to hold a heavy plow! He was patient with all animals
+and knew just how to manage them. His father and all the neighbors had
+Ulysses break their colts.
+
+In the winters Ulysses went to school, but he did not care for it as
+much as he did for outdoor life and work with his hands. Still he
+usually had his lessons and was decidedly bright in arithmetic. Because
+he was not a shirk and always told the truth, his father was in the
+habit of saying, after the farm chores were done: "Now, Ulysses, you can
+take the horse and carriage and go where you like. I know I can trust
+you."
+
+When he was only twelve, his father began sending him seventy or eighty
+miles away from home, on business errands. These trips would take him
+two days. Sometimes he went alone, and sometimes he took one of his
+chums with him. Talking so much with grown men gave him an old manner,
+and as his judgment was pretty good he was called by merchants a "sharp
+one." He would have been contented to jaunt about the country, trading
+and colt-breaking, all his life, but his father decided he ought to have
+military training and obtained for him an appointment at West Point (the
+United States' school for training soldiers that was started by George
+Washington) without Ulysses knowing a thing about it. Now Ulysses did
+not have the least desire to be a soldier and did not want to go to this
+school one bit, but he had always obeyed his father, and started on a
+fifteen days' journey from Ohio without any more talk than the simple
+statement: "I don't want to go, but if you say so, I suppose I must."
+
+He found, when he reached the school, that his name had been changed. Up
+to this time his initials had spelled HUG, but the senator who sent
+young Grant's appointment papers to Washington had forgotten Ulysses'
+middle name. He wrote his full name as Ulysses Simpson Grant, and as it
+would make much trouble to have it changed at Congress, Ulysses let it
+stand that way. So instead of being called H-U-G Grant (as he had been
+by his mates at home) the West Point boys, to tease him, caught up the
+new initials and shouted "Uncle Sam" Grant, or "United States"
+Grant--and sometimes "Useless" Grant.
+
+But the Ohio boy was good-natured and only laughed at them. He was a
+cool, slow-moving chap, well-behaved, and was never known to say a
+profane word in his life. At this school there was plenty of chance to
+prove his skill with horses. Ulysses was never happier than when he
+started off for the riding-hall with his spurs clanking on the ground
+and his great cavalry sword dangling by his side. Once, mounted on a big
+sorrel horse, and before a visiting "Board of Directors," he made the
+highest jump that had ever been known at West Point. He was as modest
+as could be about this jump, but the other cadets (as the pupils were
+called) bragged about it till they were hoarse.
+
+After his graduation, Grant, with his regiment, was sent to the Mexican
+border. In the battle of Palo Alto he had his first taste of war. Being
+truthful, he confessed afterwards that when he heard the booming of the
+big guns, he was frightened almost to pieces. But he had never been
+known to shirk, and he not only rode into the powder and smoke that day,
+but for two years proved so brave and calm in danger that he was
+promoted several times. But he did not like fighting. He was sure of
+that.
+
+At the end of the Mexican War, Ulysses married a girl from St. Louis,
+named Julia Dent, and she went to live, as soldiers' wives do, in
+whatever military post to which he happened to be sent. First the
+regiment was stationed at Lake Ontario, then at Detroit, and then, dear
+me! it was ordered to California!
+
+There were no railroads in those days. People had to go three thousand
+miles on horseback or in slow, lumbering wagons. This took months and
+was both tiresome and dangerous. Every little while there would be a
+deep river to ford, or some wicked Indians skulking round, or a wild
+beast threatening. The officers decided to take their regiments to
+California by water. This would be a hard trip but a safer one.
+
+It was lucky that Mrs. Grant and the babies stayed behind with the
+grandparents, for besides the weariness of the long journey, there was
+scarcity of food; a terrible cholera plague broke out, and Ulysses Grant
+worked night and day. He had to keep his soldiers fed, watch out for the
+Indians, and nurse the sick people.
+
+Well, after eleven years of army life, Grant decided to resign from the
+service. He thought war was cruel; he wanted to be with his wife and
+children; and a soldier got such small pay that he wondered how he was
+ever going to be able to educate the children. Farming would be better
+than fighting, he said.
+
+He was welcomed home with great joy. His wife owned a bit of land, and
+Grant built a log cabin on it. He planted crops, cut wood, kept horses
+and cows, and worked from sunrise till dark. But the land was so poor
+that he named the place Hardscrabble. Even with no money and hard work,
+the Grants were happy until the climate gave Ulysses a fever; then they
+left Missouri country life and moved into the city of St. Louis.
+
+In this city Grant tried his hand at selling houses, laying out streets,
+and working in the custom-house; but something went wrong in every place
+he got. He had to move into poorer houses, he had to borrow money, and
+finally he walked the streets trying to find some new kind of work.
+Nobody would hire him. The men said he was a failure. Friends of the
+Dent family shook their heads as they whispered: "Poor Julia, she didn't
+get much of a husband, did she?"
+
+Then he went back to Galena, Illinois, and was a clerk in his brother's
+store, earning about what any fifteen-year-old boy gets to-day. He
+worked quietly in the store all day, stayed at home evenings, and was
+called a very "commonplace man." He was bitterly discouraged, I tell
+you, that he could not get ahead in the world. And his father's pride
+was hurt to think that his son who had appeared so smart at twelve could
+not, as a grown man, take care of his own family. But Julia Dent Grant
+was sweet and kind. She kept telling him that he would have better luck
+pretty soon.
+
+In 1861 the Americans began to quarrel among themselves. Several of the
+States grew very bitter against each other and were so stubborn that the
+President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said he must have
+seventy-five thousand men to help him stop such rebellion. Ulysses Grant
+came forward, and said he would be one of these seventy-five thousand,
+and enlisted again in the United States Army. He was asked to be the
+colonel of an Illinois regiment by the governor of that State. Then, you
+may be sure, what he had learned at West Point came into good play. He
+soon showed that he knew just how to train men into fine soldiers. He
+did so well that he was made Brigadier-general.
+
+He stormed right through the enemies' lines and took fort after fort.
+Oh, his work was splendid--this man who had been called a failure!
+
+A general who was fighting against him began to get frightened, and by
+and by he sent Grant a note saying: "What terms will you make with us if
+we will give in just a little and do partly as you want us to?"
+
+Grant laughed when he read the letter and wrote back: "No terms at all
+but unconditional surrender!" Finally the other general did surrender,
+and when the story of the two letters and the victory for Grant was
+told, the initials of his name were twisted into another phrase; he was
+called Unconditional Surrender Grant. This saying was quoted for months,
+every time his name was mentioned. At the end of that time, he had said
+something else that pleased the people and the President.
+
+You see, the war kept raging harder and harder. It seemed as if it would
+never end. Grant was always at the front of his troops, watching
+everything the enemy did and planned, but he grew sadder and sadder. He
+felt sure there would be fighting until dear, brave Robert E. Lee, the
+southern general, laid down his sword. The whole country was sad and
+anxious. They said: "It is time there was a change--what in the world is
+Grant going to do?" And he answered: "I am going to fight it out on this
+line if it takes all summer!" No one doubted he would keep his word. It
+did take all summer and all winter, too. Then, when poor General Lee saw
+that his men were completely trapped, and that they would starve if he
+did not give in, he yielded. Grant showed how much of a gentleman he was
+by his treatment of the general and soldiers he had conquered. There was
+no lack of courtesy toward them, I can tell you. When the cruel war was
+ended, Grant was the nation's hero.
+
+Later, Grant was made President of the United States he had saved. When
+he had finished his term of four years, he was chosen for President
+again. After that he traveled round the world. I cannot begin to tell
+you the number of presents he received or describe one half the honors
+which were paid him--paid to this man who, at one time, could not get a
+day's work in St. Louis. This farmer from Hardscrabble dined with kings
+and queens, talked with the Pope of Rome, called on the Czar of Russia,
+visited the Mikado of Japan in his royal palace, and was given four
+beautiful homes of his own by rich Americans. One house was in Galena,
+one in Philadelphia, one in Washington, and another in New York. New
+York was his favorite city, and in a square named for him you can see a
+statue showing General Grant on his pet horse, in army uniform. On
+Claremont Heights where it can be seen from the city, the harbor, and
+the Hudson River, stands a magnificent tomb, the resting-place of the
+great hero who was born in the tiny house at Point Pleasant.
+
+There was always a good deal of fighting blood in the Grants. The sixth
+or seventh great-grandfather of Ulysses, Matthew Grant, came to
+Massachusetts in 1630, almost three hundred years ago; over in
+Scotland, where he was born, he belonged to the clan whose motto was
+"Stand Fast." I think that old Scotchman and all the other ancestors
+would agree with us that the boy from Ohio stood fast. And how well the
+name suited him which his aunt drew from the old silk hat--Ulysses--a
+brave soldier of the olden time!
+
+
+
+
+CLARA BARTON
+
+
+It was on the brightest, sunniest kind of a Christmas morning, nearly
+one hundred years ago, that Clara Barton was born, in the State of
+Massachusetts. Besides the parents, there were two grown-up sisters and
+two big brothers to pet the new baby. There was plenty of love and
+plenty of money in the Barton household, so the child knew nothing but
+happiness.
+
+Clara was a bright little thing. As she grew old enough to walk and
+talk, she followed the family about, repeating all their words and
+phrases like a parrot. She was not sure as to the meaning of all these
+words, but she liked the sound of them. Her father, who had fought in
+the French and Indian wars, had a fondness for the rules and forms that
+are used among soldiers. He taught her the names and rank of army
+officers. Also the name of the United States' president, the
+vice-president, and members of the president's cabinet.
+
+Clara's eyes looked so big, and her voice was so solemn when she babbled
+these names that her mother asked her one day what she thought these men
+looked like. "Oh," gasped Clara, "Papa always says 'the great president'
+so I guess he's almost a giant. I guess the president is as big as the
+meeting-house, and prob'ly the vice-president is the size of the
+school-house."
+
+The school-teacher sisters were busy with Clara so that she was reading
+and spelling almost as soon as she could talk. One of these gave her a
+geography, and Clara was so excited over it that she used to wake this
+poor sister up long before daylight, and make her hold a candle close to
+the maps so that she could find rivers, mountains, and cities.
+
+Stephen Barton, the older brother, was a wonder in arithmetic. It was he
+who taught Clara how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. She made
+such good figures and so often had the examples right that she enjoyed
+her little slate next best to riding horseback with her brother David.
+
+David did not care much for study, but did like farm work and horses. He
+taught Clara to ride, and the two used to gallop across the country at a
+mad pace. She felt as safe on the back of a horse as in a rocking-chair.
+She did not look much larger than a doll when the neighbors first
+noticed her dashing by on the back of a colt which wore neither saddle
+nor bridle, clinging to the animal's mane, keeping close to David's
+horse, and laughing with joy. Sometimes Button, the white dog, tore
+along after them, trying his best to keep up with them. Button belonged
+to Clara. He had taken care of her when she was a baby, and very gravely
+picked her up each time she fell in the days when she was learning to
+walk.
+
+Stephen and David went to a school that was several miles away. They
+wanted to take Clara with them. It was one of the old-fashioned,
+ungraded schools, and the pupils were all ages. The snowdrifts were
+high, and Stephen carried Clara on his shoulder. Clara sat very quiet
+with her slate until the primer class was called. Then she stepped
+before the teacher with the other little ones. The serious man pointed
+to the letters of different words for each child, then he asked them to
+spell short words like dog and cat. When Clara was asked to do the same,
+she smiled at the teacher and said: "But I do not spell _there_!"
+
+"Where do you spell?" he inquired.
+
+"I spell in _artichoke_," she answered, looking very dignified.
+
+"In that case," he laughed, "I think you belong with the scholars who
+spell in three and four syllables." So after that, she spelled in the
+class of her big brothers.
+
+When Clara was twelve, she was very shy of strangers, and her parents
+thought it might help her to get over it if she went away from home to
+school in New York. She was a bright pupil and decided she would like to
+be a teacher like her two sisters.
+
+Clara made an excellent teacher, but was not very well and went to
+Washington, D.C., to work. While there, the Civil War broke out, and
+she offered her services as a nurse. Nobody doubted she would be good at
+nursing, for when she was only ten years old, she took all the care of
+her dear brother David, who was sick for nearly two years. She really
+knew just exactly what sick people needed.
+
+Clara worked in hospitals, camps, and battlefields all the time the four
+years' war lasted. Sometimes she had to jump on to a horse whose rider
+had been shot and dash away for bandages or a surgeon, and she was glad
+enough that David had taught her to be such a fine horsewoman.
+
+Clara helped every sick and wounded man she came across, and some people
+thought she should only help the northerners. But she did not mind what
+anybody said or thought. She made all the soldiers as comfortable as she
+could. And she was delighted when, four years later, while she was in
+beautiful Switzerland for a rest, she heard of the Red Cross Society.
+This society helped every wounded person, no matter what color he was,
+no matter what cause or country he fought for.
+
+Clara Barton worked with this Swiss society all through the war between
+France and Prussia. The foreigners called her the Angel.
+
+When Clara Barton came back to America, she tried a long time to have a
+branch of the Swiss society started in this country, but it was eight
+years before the Red Cross Society was actually formed in America. Then,
+because there was often sickness and suffering from fires and floods, as
+well as from wars, Miss Barton persuaded Congress to say that the
+society might help wherever there had been any great disaster.
+
+Miss Barton's name is known in Europe as well as in America. She did Red
+Cross work until she was eighty years old. Almost every country on the
+globe gave her a present or medal. When we think what a heroine Clara
+Barton proved herself, it would seem as if the little girl born on the
+sunny December morning was a Christmas present to the whole world.
+
+
+
+
+ABRAHAM LINCOLN
+
+
+The more you find out about Abraham Lincoln, the more you will love him.
+
+Abraham was born in Kentucky and lived in that State with his parents
+and his one sister until he was eight years old.
+
+The Lincolns were very, very poor. They lived in a small log cabin on
+the banks of a winding creek. They need not have been quite so poor, but
+the truth of the matter is that Mr. Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father,
+was _lazy_. To be sure he fastened a few logs together for shelter, cut
+a little wood, and dug up some ground for a garden. But after the corn
+and potatoes were planted, they never received any care, and there is no
+doubt the family would have gone hungry many a day if Abraham had not
+hurried home with fish which he caught in a near-by stream, or if Mrs.
+Lincoln had not taken her rifle into the woods and shot a deer or a
+bear. The meat from these would last for weeks, and the skins of animals
+Mrs. Lincoln always saved to make into clothes for the children.
+
+Thomas Lincoln could not read or spell, and as near as I can find out,
+was not a bit ashamed of it, either. But his wife, Nancy Hanks Lincoln,
+was a fair scholar and taught Abraham and his sister, Sarah, to read and
+spell.
+
+There was no floor to the Lincoln's log cabin and no furnishings but a
+few three-legged stools and a bed made of wooden slats fastened together
+with pegs. Abraham and Sarah slept on piles of leaves or brush.
+
+Slates and pencils were scarce, and Abraham used to lie before the fire
+when he was seven or eight years old, with a flat slab of wood and a
+stick which he burned at one end till it was charred; then he formed
+letters with it on the wood. In that way he taught himself to write. His
+mother had three books, a Bible, a catechism, and a spelling-book. He
+had never had any boy playmate and was greatly excited when an aunt and
+uncle of his mother's, Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow, with a nephew, named Dennis
+Hanks, arrived at the creek and lived in a half-faced camp near by.
+Dennis and Abraham became fast friends.
+
+A fever swept the country, and Abraham's mother died. Three years later
+his father married a new wife. The second Mrs. Lincoln had been married
+before and had three children, a boy and two girls. So there were five
+children to play together. Mr. Lincoln had built a better cabin, and she
+brought such furniture as the Lincoln children had never seen. Their
+eyes opened wide at the sight of real chairs and tables. She made
+Abraham and Sarah pretty new clothes. They had neat, comfortable beds,
+and the two sets of children were very happy. Mrs. Lincoln loved Abraham
+and saw that there was the making of a smart man in him. She helped him
+study, and when there was school for a short time in a distant log hut,
+she sent Abraham every day. When the school ended, there were four years
+when there was no school anywhere near their settlement, so she read
+with Abraham and kept him at his lessons in reading and arithmetic all
+that time.
+
+Hunters and traders rode that way sometimes, and if a traveler had a
+book about him, Abraham was sure to get a look at it.
+
+A new settler had a _Life of Washington_. Abraham looked at the book
+hungrily for weeks and finally worked up courage to ask the loan of it.
+He promised to take good care of it. He was then earning money to give
+his parents by chopping down trees in the forests, and he had no time to
+read but in the evenings. One night the rain soaked through the cracks
+of the cabin, and the precious book that he had promised to take good
+care of was stained on every page. What was he to do? He had no money to
+pay for the book, but he hurried to the settler's cabin and told him
+what had happened. He offered to work in the cornfield for three days to
+pay Mr. Crawford for the loss of the book. It was heavy work, but he did
+it and, in the end, owned the stained _Life of Washington_, himself.
+
+Abraham had a fine memory. He could repeat almost the whole of a sermon,
+a speech, or a story that he had happened to hear. He had a funny way
+of telling stories, too, so when the farmers or woodchoppers were taking
+their noon rest, they always asked him to amuse them.
+
+When Abraham was sixteen years old, he was six feet tall and so strong
+that all the neighbors hired him whenever he was not working for his
+father. He joked and laughed at his work, and every one liked him. He
+did any kind of work to earn an honest penny. Once he had a fine time
+working for a man that ran a ferry-boat, because this man owned a
+history of the United States and took a newspaper, and Abraham had more
+to read than ever before in his life. But he had to take the time he
+should have slept to read, because when the boat wasn't running there
+was farm work, housework (for he helped this man's wife, even to tending
+the baby), and rail splitting. Then he kept store for a man. It was here
+that he won a nickname that he kept all his life--"Honest Abe." A
+woman's bill came to two dollars and six cents. Later in the day
+Abraham found he had charged her six cents too much. After he closed
+the store that night, he walked three miles to pay her back those six
+cents. Another time when he weighed tea for a woman, there was a weight
+on the scales so that she did not get as much tea as she paid for. That
+meant another long tramp. But he was liked for his honesty and good
+nature.
+
+When there was trouble with the Indians, Abraham proved that he could
+fight and also manage troops, so he was a captain for three months.
+
+Abraham was so well informed that the people sent him to legislature.
+They made him postmaster. They hired him to lay out roads and towns. It
+became the fashion, if there was need of some honest, skilful work, for
+people to say: "Why not get Abraham Lincoln to do it? Then you'll know
+it's done right."
+
+He studied law, went to legislature again, and became a circuit judge.
+This meant that he had to ride all round the country to attend different
+courts. He would start off on horseback to be away three months, with
+saddle-bags holding clean linen, an old green umbrella, and a few books
+to read as he rode along. When he came to woodchoppers, as he rode
+through forests, he liked to dismount, ask for an axe, and chop a log so
+quickly that the men would stare.
+
+Abraham Lincoln settled, with his wife and children, in Springfield,
+Illinois. He was a lawyer but would not take a case if he thought his
+client was guilty. He was still "Honest Abe." He loved children and
+usually when he went to his office in the morning, the baby was perched
+on his shoulder, while the others held on to his coat tails and followed
+behind. All the children in Springfield felt he was their friend. No
+wonder, for he was never too busy to help them. One morning as he was
+hurrying to his law office, he saw a little girl, very much dressed up,
+crying as if her heart would break. Her sobs almost shook her off the
+doorstep where she sat. Mr. Lincoln unlatched the gate and went up the
+walk, singing out: "Well, well, now what does all this mean?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Lincoln, I was going to Chicago to visit my aunt. I have my
+ticket in my purse and," here the sobs came faster than ever, "the
+expressman can't get here in time for my trunk."
+
+"How big is your trunk?"
+
+"This size," stretching her hands apart.
+
+"Pooh, I'll carry that trunk to the station for you, myself. Where is
+it?"
+
+The little girl pointed to the hall, and in a minute Mr. Lincoln, with
+his tall silk hat on his head, his long coat tails flying out behind,
+the trunk on his shoulder, was striding to the railroad station, as the
+now happy little girl skipped beside him. He was not going to have the
+child disappointed.
+
+[Illustration: "How big is your trunk?" _Page 88._]
+
+Mr. Lincoln had a big heart. It never bothered him to stop long enough
+to do a kindness. One bitterly cold day he saw an old man chopping wood.
+He was feeble and was shaking with the cold. Mr. Lincoln watched him for
+a few minutes and then asked him how much he was to be paid for the
+whole lot. "One dollar," he answered, "and I need it to buy shoes." "I
+should think you did," said the lawyer, noticing that the poor old man's
+toes showed through the holes of those he was wearing. Then he gently
+took the axe from the man's hands and said: "You go in by the fire and
+keep warm, and I'll do the wood." Mr. Lincoln made the chips fly. He
+chopped so fast that the passers-by never stopped talking about it.
+
+Abraham Lincoln was known to be honest, unselfish, and clear-headed. He
+had grown very wise by much reading and study. Finally the people of the
+United States paid him the greatest honor that can come to an American.
+They made him President. Yes, this man who had taught himself to write
+in the Kentucky log cabin was President of the United States!
+
+As President, Mr. Lincoln lived in style at the White House. But he was
+just the same quiet, modest man that he had always been. He was busier,
+that was all.
+
+When President Lincoln spoke to the people, or sent letters (messages,
+they are called) to Congress, every one said: "What a brain that man
+has!" But he used very short, simple words. Once he gave a reason for
+this. He said it used to make him angry, when he was a child, to hear
+the neighbors talk to his father in a way that he could not understand.
+He would lie awake, sometimes, half the night, trying to think what they
+meant. When he thought he had at last got the idea, he would put it into
+the simplest words he knew, so that any boy would know what was meant.
+This got to be a habit, and even in his great talk at Gettysburg the
+beautiful words are short and plain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day when Lincoln was running the ferry-boat for the man I have
+spoken of before, he saw at one of the river landings some negro slaves
+getting a terrible beating by their master. He was only a boy, but he
+never forgot the sight, and one of the things he brought about when he
+became President of the United States was the freedom of the black
+people.
+
+There are a great many lives and stories about Lincoln which you will
+read and enjoy, and it is certain that the more you know of this great
+man, Dear "Honest Abe," the better you will love him.
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT EDWARD LEE
+
+
+Small Robert Lee, of Virginia, aged five, was playing one day with
+another boy of his own age, whose mother was visiting Mrs. Lee. The Lees
+had lived for two centuries in the beautiful brick mansion, "Stratford,"
+on the Potomac River. While the boys played on the veranda, there was
+the sound of busy feet inside the house, and an air of bustle and
+hurrying to and fro. Robert knew the cause of this and was feeling very
+happy. His father, Colonel Robert E. Lee, was coming home from Mexico,
+where he had done brave things in the Mexican War. The story of this had
+been in the papers, and though Robert had not seen his father for two
+years and sometimes could not remember just how he looked, he knew from
+the way people mentioned Colonel Lee's name that he was a man to be
+proud of.
+
+When Eliza, Robert's black mammy, called him in to be dressed, there
+was trouble. He would not wear what she had ready for him. He was the
+Colonel's namesake, and if his father was coming home, nothing was nice
+enough but his best frock of blue and white.
+
+Small Robert had his way about the frock. His hair was freshly curled,
+and he rushed down to the broad hall, where the family were waiting for
+Colonel Lee. The lady visitor had pinned a rose in her hair, and the
+other little boy had been dressed in his prettiest clothes. Pretty soon
+there were shouts of "Here he comes--here he comes!" and they could see
+Colonel Lee, in a handsome uniform, riding his chestnut horse, Grace
+Darling.
+
+He sprang from the horse and up the steps, and when he had greeted the
+older ones, he sang out: "Where's my little boy--where's Robbie?" He
+seized the child nearest him and kissed him half a dozen times.
+
+But it wasn't Robert that he kissed. It was the other boy!
+
+For a minute Robert cried, but his father had plenty of kisses for him
+when he found what a mistake he had made, and he whispered something to
+Robert that made everything all right. There was a mustang pony on the
+way from Mexico for his little son!
+
+This pony was pure white. A faithful Irish servant taught Robert to ride
+in a short time, and he was the proudest boy in the world when he rode
+out on Santa Anna beside his father on Grace Darling. Robert bragged a
+good deal to his playmates about Grace Darling, because she had carried
+his father all through the Mexican War and had the scars of seven
+bullets on her sides.
+
+Colonel Lee loved animals and taught all his children to be kind to
+their pets. When the family lived in Arlington, "Spec," a lively black
+and tan terrier, went everywhere with them, even to church. Colonel Lee
+thought he made the children restless, so one Sunday, when they started
+for church, he shut Spec in a chamber in the second story. Spec looked
+out of the window for awhile. It was open, and he soon made up his mind
+that he would rather be with his friends. So he jumped to the ground,
+ran as fast as he could, and walked into the pew just behind the
+family. After that he was allowed to go to church every Sunday.
+
+Colonel Robert E. Lee was a very handsome man. When he and Mrs. Lee were
+going out in the evening, the children always begged to sit up and see
+them start. They never saw any man or any picture of a man they thought
+so beautiful as their own father.
+
+General Lee was not just a good leader of soldiers; he knew how to make
+everyone mind, and although he was the best playmate his children had,
+he was very firm with them. No slipshod ways were allowed in his house.
+No, indeed! If his boys and girls were not tidy about their clothes,
+faithful in their lessons, polite, and truthful, they found their father
+stern enough.
+
+When their father was so quick at sports and games and could plan such
+perfectly splendid holidays, it did seem pretty hard to the Lee children
+that he was so often sent away on war duties. But wherever he was, he
+found time from his military affairs to write long letters to his
+children, and these were so playful and told of so many strange things
+that it partly made up for his absence. The neighboring playmates used
+to watch for those letters almost as eagerly as the family, and probably
+they envied the Lee children sometimes when their father came for a
+visit, wearing some new honor or title. For as he was wise and good and
+brave, he did not fail to rise higher and higher in rank. His father had
+been a general under George Washington and had taught his son that there
+is no grander honor for a man than to defend his country. And in order
+that Robert should make a fine soldier, he had been trained at West
+Point. When he had proved how keen and skilful he was, Abraham Lincoln,
+then president of the United States, asked Robert E. Lee, who had become
+a general, to take command of all the armies of the Union.
+
+But general Lee was much troubled in his mind. Just then there was
+danger of the northern and southern States fighting against each other.
+If the people of the different States should really grow so angry that
+they came to blows, Lee felt he must stand by Virginia, because that
+was his father's State. Indeed, the Lees had lived there since 1642, and
+Robert Lee loved every inch of its soil. He felt sad enough when he
+found there must be fighting, but he could not accept Lincoln's offer,
+so he gave up his high place in the United States Army and took the post
+of Major-general among the Virginian soldiers.
+
+Then the Lee family had to do without their father and chum for four
+long years. They had grown up by this time, and all their childhood pets
+were dead. Grace Darling's place was taken by Traveller, an iron-gray
+horse with black points. He was so large and strong it did not seem
+possible to tire him out. He carried General Lee all through the Civil
+War. He often went cold and hungry, but he loved his master and would
+come when he heard the general's whistle or call, no matter how far away
+he might be. The soldiers loved Lee, too, and they obeyed his slightest
+wish.
+
+The Civil War was long and cruel, as all war is, and at the end Lee had
+to yield because his men were starving. But he is counted as one of the
+greatest generals known in history, and his fame will never die.
+
+The little Robert E. Lee, who rode the mustang pony, is now a
+gray-haired man. He has written the life of his father and has told how
+General Lee became a college president after the War. The students loved
+their president as well as the soldiers loved their general, and they
+always felt proud of him as he went galloping past them on dear old
+Traveller after the duties were over for the day. Good old Traveller
+deserved a medal, if ever a horse did, for sharing the dangers of her
+gallant master, General Robert E. Lee.
+
+
+
+
+JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
+
+
+Have you ever happened to see a book that cost a thousand dollars?
+
+A man who loved birds and knew a great deal about them drew pictures of
+all the kinds to be found in our country, calling these drawings, when
+they were colored and bound together _The Birds of North America_. It
+took four volumes to hold all these pictures, and each one of these
+books costs a thousand dollars. There were only seventy-five or eighty
+of these sets of bird books made, but you can see them in the Boston
+Public Library, the Lenox and Astor libraries in New York city, and at
+several colleges and private homes. Each one of these books is more than
+three feet long and a little over two feet wide, and is so heavy that it
+takes two strong men to lift it on to a rack when some one wants to look
+at the pictures. If you should look through all four books, you would
+see more than a thousand kinds of birds, all drawn as big as life, and
+each one colored like the bird itself.
+
+You may be sure it took the maker of these books many, many years to
+travel all over the United States to find such a number of birds. The
+man's name was John James Audubon. He slept in woods, waded through
+marshes and swamps, tramped hundreds of miles, and suffered many
+hardships before he could learn the colors and habits of so many birds.
+He always said his love for birds began when his pet parrot was killed.
+
+It happened this way.
+
+One morning when John James was about four years old and his nurse was
+giving him his breakfast, the little parrot Mignonne, who said a lot of
+words as plainly as a child, asked for some bread and milk. A tame
+monkey who was in the room happened to be angry and sulking over
+something. He sprang at Mignonne, who screamed for help. Little John
+James shouted too, and begged his nurse to save the bird, but before any
+one could stop the ugly monkey's blows, the parrot was dead.
+
+The monkey was always kept chained after that, and John James buried his
+parrot in the garden and trimmed the grave with shrubs and flowering
+plants. But he missed his pet and so roamed through the woods adjoining
+his father's estate, watching the birds that flew through them. By and
+by he did not care for anything so much as trying to make pictures of
+these birds, listening to their songs, finding what kind of nests they
+built, and at what time of year they flew north or south.
+
+John James lived in Nantes, France, when he was a small boy, although he
+was born in Louisiana. His father was a wealthy French gentleman, an
+officer in the French navy, and was much in America, so that John James
+was first in France and then in America until he was about twenty-five,
+at which time he settled in his native country for good. Few men have
+loved these United States better than he.
+
+John James did not care much for school. Figures tired his head. He
+loved music, drawing, and dancing. His father was away from home most of
+the time, and his pretty, young stepmother let the boy do quite as he
+pleased. She loved him dearly, and as he liked to roam through the
+country with boys of his age, she would pack luncheon baskets day after
+day for him, and when he came back at dusk, with the same baskets filled
+with birds' eggs, strange flowers, and all sorts of curiosities, she
+would sit down beside him and look them over, as interested as could be.
+
+Some years later, when John James's father put him in charge of a large
+farm near Philadelphia, the young man bought some fine horses, some
+well-trained dogs, and spent long summer days in hunting and fishing. He
+also got many breeds of fowl. It is a wonder that with all the leisure
+hours he had, and the large amount of spending money his father allowed
+him, he did not get into bad habits, but young Audubon ate mostly fruit
+and vegetables, never touched liquor, and chose good companions. He did
+like fine clothes and about this time dressed rather like a fop. I
+expect the handsome fellow made a pretty picture as he dashed by on his
+spirited black horse, in his satin breeches, silk stockings and pumps,
+and the fine, ruffled shirts which he had sent over from France.
+
+Anyway, a sweet young girl, Lucy Bakewell, lost her heart to him. Only
+as she was very young, her parents said she must not yet be married. And
+while he was waiting for her, he fixed over his house, and with a
+friend, Mr. Rozier, and a good-natured housekeeper, lived a simple,
+country life. You would have enjoyed a visit to him about this time. He
+turned the lower floor into a sort of museum. The walls were festooned
+with birds' eggs, which had been blown out and strung on thread. There
+were stuffed squirrels, opossums, and racoons; and paintings of gorgeous
+colored birds hung everywhere. Audubon had great skill in training
+animals and one dog, Zephyr, did wonderful tricks.
+
+When Audubon and Lucy married, they went to Kentucky, where he and his
+friend Rozier opened a store. But Rozier did most of the store work, as
+Audubon was apt to wander off to the woods, for he had already decided
+to make this book about birds. His mind was not on his business, as you
+can see when I tell you that one day he mailed a letter with eight
+thousand dollars in it and never sealed it! The only part of the
+business he enjoyed were the trips to New York and Philadelphia to buy
+goods. These goods were carried on the backs of pack horses, and a good
+part of the journeys led through forests. He lost the horses for a whole
+day once, because he heard a song-bird that was new to him, and as he
+followed the sound of the bird so as to get a sight of it, he forgot all
+about the pack horses and the goods.
+
+By and by his best friends said he acted like a crazy man. Only his wife
+and family stood by him. Finally when his money was gone, and there were
+two children growing up, things looked rather desperate. But Lucy, his
+wife, said: "You are a genius, and you know more about birds than any
+one living. I am sure all you need is time to show the world how clever
+you are. I will earn money while you study and paint!"
+
+So Audubon traveled to seek out the haunts of still more birds, while
+Lucy went as governess in rich families, or opened private schools where
+she could teach her own two boys as well as others. She earned a great
+deal of money, and when he had made all his pictures and was ready to
+publish the books, she had nearly enough to pay the expense, and gave it
+to him.
+
+"No," he said, "I am going to earn part of this myself. I will open a
+dancing class." He had danced beautifully ever since he was a child and
+could not understand how people could be so awkward and stupid as his
+class of sixty Kentuckians proved to be. In their first lesson he broke
+his bow and almost ruined his beautiful violin in his excitement and
+temper. "Why, watch me," he cried, and he danced to his own music so
+charmingly that the class clapped their hands and said they would do
+their best to copy him. By and by they did better, and before he left
+them, they quite satisfied him. And what was fortunate for him, they had
+paid him two thousand dollars. With this and Lucy's earnings, he went
+to England and had the famous drawings published. When they were done,
+he exhibited them at the Royal Institute, charging admission, and earned
+many pounds more.
+
+Audubon was a lovable, courteous man, never too poor to help others,
+very modest and gracious. He adored his wife, and as his books (he wrote
+many volumes of his travels, which I hope you will read some day)
+brought in quite a fortune, the two, with their sons, and their
+grandchildren, spent their last days in great comfort, on a fine estate
+on the Hudson River.
+
+
+
+
+ROBERT FULTON
+
+
+When Robert Fulton was a little boy in Pennsylvania, he never minded
+being called to his lessons with his mother, for she was a famous Irish
+beauty, and Robert loved to look at her. She was good-natured too and
+told him far more interesting stories than he found in the lesson books.
+It was quite a different matter when Robert was sent, at the age of
+eight, to a school kept by Caleb Johnson, a Quaker gentleman.
+
+With Mr. Johnson, Robert found lessons rather stupid affairs. He missed
+the stories his mother always wove in with the books they read together.
+Besides, Robert had taken some toys and old clocks to pieces, and he was
+busy planning how he could make some himself, if he but had the tools.
+Sometimes Caleb Johnson spoke to him two or three times before Robert
+heard him. The old Quaker thought the boy was wasting precious time, so
+he feruled him every day.
+
+This was way back, just before the Revolutionary War, and in those days
+every school-teacher kept a stout stick on his desk, called a ferule,
+with which to slap the naughty pupils' hands. The ferule always made the
+hand burn and sting, and if the teacher were harsh, he sometimes
+blistered a boy's hand. One time, after the Quaker had used the ferule
+on Robert until his own arm ached, he cried: "There, that will make you
+do something, I guess."
+
+"But," answered Robert, "I came here, Sir, to have something beaten into
+my head, not into my knuckles."
+
+Robert was keener on making things than on learning lessons. One morning
+he did not get to the schoolhouse until nearly noon, and Mr. Johnson
+exclaimed: "Now, Mr. Tardy-Boy, where have you been?"
+
+"At Mr. Miller's shop, pounding out a lead for my pencil. I want you to
+look at it. It is the best one I ever had!" And the teacher had to admit
+that he never saw a better one.
+
+Another time Robert told the Quaker teacher that he was so busy thinking
+up new ideas that he did not have any room in his mind for storing away
+what was in dusty books!
+
+Robert loved pictures. There was a large portrait of his beautiful
+mother, painted by Benjamin West, which hung in the parlor, and he had
+often wished to try and make one like it. He had not been long at school
+before a seat-mate brought to school some paints and brushes belonging
+to an older brother. As the war was waging, the people had hard work to
+get luxuries or money to buy them with, so Robert quite envied the boy
+such a prize. He begged to try them, and he made such wonderful
+pictures, pictures so much better than any one else in school could
+make, that the owner gave the whole outfit to him.
+
+About this time Robert was always buying little packages of quicksilver.
+He was trying experiments with it, but he wouldn't tell the other boys
+what they were. So they nicknamed him "Quicksilver Bob." Of course, the
+men in shops where firearms were made and repaired were very busy.
+"Quicksilver Bob" went to these shops every day. The men liked him, and
+as he talked with them, he often made suggestions that they were glad to
+follow. "That boy will do something big some of these days," they would
+say to each other.
+
+When Robert was fourteen, he met a boy who worked in a machine shop, by
+the name of Christopher Grumpf. This boy was eighteen, and his father
+was a fine fisherman who knew where the largest number of fish could be
+caught, and he took the two boys up and down the river in a
+flat-bottomed boat that was pushed along by the means of two long poles.
+The boat was clumsy, and this poling made the boys' arms ache. Robert
+kept thinking there must be a better way of getting that boat through
+the water. He went away to visit his aunt but worked all the time on a
+set of paddles and the model of a boat on which they could be built. He
+tried a set of these paddles on Mr. Grumpf's boat when he got home, and
+they worked so well that Mr. Grumpf never used the poles again on his
+fishing trips. He found the paddles saved him from having lame muscles.
+
+Robert and his playmates had fine times watching the two thousand troops
+stationed in Lancaster. These were British prisoners. Some of them were
+kept in the barracks, the officers lodged in private houses, and the
+Hessian troops (some of whom had their wives with them) lived in square
+huts of mud and sod. This colony of Hessians greatly interested the boys
+of the village, and Robert drew capital pictures of them, for he had
+been practising sketching and painting all his spare time. In fact, he
+decided, at the age of seventeen, to go to the city of Philadelphia and
+make a business of painting portraits and miniatures. For four years he
+lived there, earning a good deal of money and sending the greater part
+of it home to his mother.
+
+Among the many pleasant friends he made in Philadelphia was Benjamin
+Franklin. Mr. Franklin and most of his wealthy patrons advised Robert to
+go to Europe and take painting lessons of Benjamin West. Before he went,
+Robert bought a farm for his mother and sisters. He never forgot to see
+that his mother was comfortable.
+
+Robert had been thinking for years how fine it would be if boats did not
+have to depend on sails but could be sent through the water by steam.
+Over in Europe he met a lord who was making plans for canals, and while
+talking with him he grew more interested than ever in ways of traveling
+by water. So although he painted enough portraits to lay away money for
+a rainy day, he studied all the rules for building canals and about the
+machinery that goes in boats. Certainly he was busier than when, as a
+boy, he told Caleb Johnson there was no time for dusty books when his
+mind was holding so many new ideas, for he learned three or four
+languages, invented the first panorama ever shown in France, a machine
+for cutting marble, another for twisting rope, and a torpedo boat to be
+used in warfare.
+
+Only you must not think that because he had so many clever notions about
+the implements of war he believed in nations killing each other off--no,
+indeed. He stood for peace more than a hundred and fifty years ago,
+before there was so much said and done to encourage it. He said: "The
+art of Peace should be the study of every young American!"
+
+He stayed seven years in France and was pointed out wherever he went as
+"that talented young foreigner." He lived most of the time with an
+American gentleman, Mr. Joel Barlow, and his wife. They were very fond
+of Fulton and believed that the experiments he was trying,--to make
+vessels go by steam, would prove a success. They nicknamed him "Toot,"
+because every evening, in his room, he was running a tiny model of a
+steam-engine across his work table, which gave shrill whistles now and
+then.
+
+For as much as thirty years men in Europe and America had been trying to
+make vessels run by steam when Fulton finally succeeded in doing it. He
+built a boat which was fitted with a steam-engine and gave it a trial on
+the river Seine. Something broke, which let the vessel down on to the
+river's bottom, but Fulton soon had another puffing its way up and down
+a section of the Seine, while the people on the banks cheered and
+wondered.
+
+Fulton returned to America and built a steamer which he intended to run
+on the Hudson River. He named it the _Clermont_, but it was generally
+spoken of as "Fulton's Folly" by the crowds who watched its building.
+The loungers who stood about jeering at the inventor were so
+disrespectful as they watched the last few days' work that Fulton feared
+they would smash it in pieces and hired a guard to protect it.
+
+It was four years after Fulton had shown the model boat on the Seine, in
+France, that he started the _Clermont_ up the Hudson River, in his own
+country. There were not thirty people in New York city who believed the
+steamer would go a mile in an hour. A few friends went aboard with the
+inventor, to make the trial trip, but they looked frightened and
+worried. The _Clermont_ was a clumsy affair; its machinery creaked and
+groaned; no whistle seemed to work, so a horn was blown whenever the
+boat approached a landing. The crew carried on enough wood at each
+landing to last till they reached another. This wood was pine, and
+whenever the engineer stirred the coals, a lot of sparks flew into the
+air, and black smoke poured from the funnel. The crews on the ordinary
+sailing vessels were afraid of this strange craft that went chugging by
+them, and some of the sailors were in such a panic that they left their
+vessels and ran into the woods, declaring there was a horrible monster
+afloat on the water.
+
+Well, the _Clermont_ proved a great convenience on the Hudson River. It
+ran as a packet boat for years, and Fulton built other steamers. He
+realized that it would mean a great deal to America if some quick, cheap
+method of carrying people and freight along the great Missouri and
+Mississippi rivers could be used. His invention of the steamboat has
+given him the name of the "Father of Steam Navigation," and it has been
+a blessing to the whole world.
+
+Besides being a wonderful inventor, Robert Fulton was a polished
+gentleman. He was tall and handsome, like his mother, as gentle as a
+child, and he had a charming way of talking, so whether he spoke of
+America, France, steamboats, or pictures, there was always silence in
+the room.
+
+Think of the old Quaker teacher, Caleb Johnson, trying to ferule a few
+ideas into Robert Fulton's head! No doubt Mr. Johnson was worried, but
+Robert's head proved to be an uncommonly wise one.
+
+
+
+
+GEORGE PEABODY
+
+
+It was quite a while before you and I were born that a boy by the name
+of George Peabody lived in Danvers, Massachusetts. He had such good
+lessons in school that his teachers rather thought he would go to
+college, but one day he took his books out of his desk and said he must
+leave school and go to work, because his mother was very poor. The
+teacher said: "We shall miss you, George, and hope you will have much
+good luck!"
+
+George was only eleven when this happened. He was a round-faced, plucky,
+little fellow, with the good manners that generally go with a kind
+heart, and there wasn't a lazy bone in his body. Mr. Proctor, the
+grocer, thought he was just the kind of a boy he needed in his store. So
+he hired him.
+
+Right away the housekeepers in Danvers agreed that George Peabody was
+the nicest grocer-boy they ever saw. They said to each other it was
+worth the walk to the store to have him hand out their packages with his
+sunny smile, his pleasant words, and polite bow. When he carried the
+heavier things, like a bag of meal, or a gallon of molasses home for
+them, they would coax him to rest awhile and eat some fruit or cake.
+They all liked to talk with him.
+
+George stayed with Mr. Proctor four years. Then he went to Vermont to
+help his grandfather. Mr. Proctor almost cried when he saw the big
+stage-coach rattle away in a cloud of dust, while the boy who had been
+so faithful to his duties waved good-by with his handkerchief as long as
+he could see.
+
+When George was sixteen, he joined his brother David, who had a store in
+Newburyport. The young people in this old sea-port town made friends
+with him at once. They asked him to every fishing-party and picnic they
+had, but he was usually too busy to go, for besides selling goods all
+day, he often wrote cards in a clear, neat hand, in his room evenings.
+He spent almost nothing on himself, but was as happy as could be when
+his letters to his mother held more money than usual. His being poor
+did not matter. The rich boys in Newburyport were glad to pay his share
+in games and excursions any time he could take a holiday, just for the
+sake of having his lively company.
+
+A fire destroyed David's store, and George had to make a fresh start in
+Georgetown. It was the same story there. It was no time at all before
+the mayor of Georgetown said to the doctor and the minister: "I tell
+you, George Peabody is a comfortable person to have round!"
+
+At twenty George did not have a dollar of his own, but after the fire
+plenty of men offered to lend him money, and he kept on working in his
+happy way until he was thirty-five, when he found himself rich enough to
+go to London and not only have stores but to open a bank, too. Then
+Englishmen began to find out what a comfortable man George Peabody was
+to have round. He had no wife and lived rather simply himself, but was
+glad to spend a great deal on other folks. He found the working men
+lived in filthy, unhealthy places, so he built a great square--almost a
+little village--of neat, pretty, working men's homes. (In his will he
+left the poor of London half a million dollars.) Then, when it was
+feared that Sir John Franklin, the great arctic explorer, was lost, and
+there was need to send men to search for him, George Peabody said: "Let
+me help--I'll fit out a ship," and he paid for everything that went
+aboard the _Advance_. You understand, now, why you find on the geography
+maps a point, way up north, called Peabody's Land!
+
+The Englishmen took a strong liking to this sociable American who had
+settled among them, and it was thought a great treat to go round to his
+rooms in the evening and have a game of backgammon or whist after a
+jolly dinner, at which Mr. Peabody always told funny stories. He had a
+fine memory and a real gift for story-telling. He loved music and was
+delighted when people would sing Scotch songs for him.
+
+Living in England many years did not make Mr. Peabody love America any
+the less. When the great Crystal Palace was built in which to hold a
+sort of World's Fair, there were to be shown samples of things made by
+different countries. The papers were full of talk about this grand
+affair. One morning Mr. Peabody opened his paper at the breakfast table
+and read an article which ridiculed the looks of the rooms or stalls set
+apart for American products. I tell you it did not take him long to eat
+his breakfast. He said: "I guess I'll see about this. I guess my own
+country is not going to be made fun of!" He did not abuse the man who
+wrote the article, but he went right to the Crystal Palace to find out
+how our things did look. He knew the minute he got there that our agents
+did not have money enough to work with. So he just opened his purse and
+wrote letters and offered advice, until in the end the American stalls
+were decorated in exquisite taste, and when there were such things shown
+as Powers's "Greek Slave" (a wonderful statue), the very useful reaping
+machine of McCormack's, Colt's revolvers, and the printing press of Hoe,
+with many other interesting things, the visitors to the fair agreed
+that few countries had more to their credit than America. Then the
+English papers behaved very handsomely and spoke so well of our exhibit
+that I expect if George Peabody read the last article at his breakfast
+table, he may have chuckled to himself and said: "I'll risk America
+every time!"
+
+He noticed, while at the fair, how well the Crystal Palace was suited
+for large gatherings (it is mostly of iron and glass--with two immense,
+glittering towers) and decided he would give a big dinner on the Fourth
+of July to all the Americans in London. This dinner proved a grand
+affair. The Duke of Wellington and many famous English people were
+present. It was such a success that ever after, as long as he lived,
+George Peabody gave a Fourth of July dinner in Crystal Palace.
+
+Queen Victoria so deeply esteemed Mr. Peabody that she sent a message to
+him that she wished to make him a baronet, and confer the Order of the
+Bath upon him. And what word do you suppose he sent back? Why, he said:
+"I am going over to America pretty soon to visit the town where I was
+born, and as I do not care one bit about titles and such things, but do
+value your interest and friendship, I wish you would just write me a
+letter which I may read to my friends in America, who love you as I do!"
+The queen wrote a long, affectionate letter to him, saying what a
+blessing he had been to England, and asked him to accept her portrait.
+
+So when Danvers, a part of which had been set off into a new town by
+itself and named Peabody (for the faithful grocer boy, who had become
+the rich banker) was to have its hundredth birthday, George Peabody
+crossed the ocean to be there. He gave to his native town a free library
+and lecture hall and the portrait of Queen Victoria. This miniature was
+so set with gold and jewels as to cost fifty thousand dollars! The
+queen's letter is kept there to this day.
+
+Mr. Peabody gave money for museums at Yale and Harvard, an Academy of
+Science at Salem, a memorial church at Georgetown, the birthplace of his
+mother, and large sums of money for schools in the South, because he
+realized that after the Civil War there would be much disorder and
+poverty. Some men could not have kept perfectly friendly with two
+countries, but Mr. Peabody loved both England and America and in all he
+did and said tried to bind the two nations together. The very last time
+he spoke in public was at the National Peace Jubilee in Boston.
+
+When George Peabody died, the queen wanted him buried in Westminster
+Abbey, and when she found he had left a request to be taken to America,
+she sent a ship, the _Monarch_, across the Atlantic Ocean with his body.
+
+A good many lives and stories have been written about George Peabody,
+and he has earned several names like The Great Philanthropist--The
+Merchant Prince--the Ambassador of Peace--the Friend of the Poor--and so
+forth, but none fit him any better than the saying: "He was a
+comfortable man to have round!"
+
+
+
+
+DANIEL WEBSTER
+
+
+Before New England became such a busy, hurried sort of a place--say a
+hundred years ago--its men and women had time to listen to sermons that
+were more than an hour long, or to lecturers who talked three or four
+hours. When a public speaker used very fine words and could keep the
+people who listened to him wide awake and eager to hear more, he was
+called a great orator. An orator who dazzled our grandfathers and
+grandmothers was named Daniel Webster. He has been dead a long time, but
+the public speeches he made will never be forgotten.
+
+Down in the business part of Boston can be seen, on a large building, a
+tablet which reads "The Home of Daniel Webster." On the terraced lawn of
+Massachusetts' State house stands a bronze statue of Daniel Webster. And
+in old Faneuil Hall, Boston (which is called the Cradle of Liberty),
+there is a huge painting, as long as--well--as long as a street-car,
+which is called "Webster's Reply to Hayne." In this picture there are
+the portraits of one hundred and thirty senators and other men, but all
+of them are watching Daniel Webster. This is a picture well worth
+seeing, and Webster was well worth hearing.
+
+Daniel Webster was born in New Hampshire. When he was a year old, his
+parents moved onto a farm which they called "The Elms" on account of the
+fine old trees which grew there. The older Webster boys did all kinds of
+heavy work, but as Daniel was not very strong, he was petted, and as he
+grew up, was asked to do only very light work. He rode the plow horse in
+the fields, drove the cows to pasture, and tended logs in his father's
+sawmill. When he was sent to do this last, he always took a book along,
+because it took twenty minutes for the saw to work its teeth through one
+of the tree-trunks, and he could not bear to waste all that time. He
+learned to read from his mother and sister almost as soon as he could
+talk, and he pored over the Bible for hours at a time.
+
+Daniel's father kept a tavern, besides carrying on his farm. The
+teamsters who got their dinners there used to ask Daniel to read to
+them. His voice was deep and musical, and he gave such meaning to the
+words of the Bible that they thought him a wonder. His eyes were like
+black velvet, and his hair was as black and shiny as the feathers of a
+crow. Every one called him "little black Dan."
+
+Daniel read everything he could find, and could recite whole poems and
+chapters of books when he was quite small. At a country store, just
+across the road from his father's tavern, he bought a cotton
+pocket-handkerchief on which the Constitution of the United States was
+printed. After looking at the eagles and flags which were printed as a
+border, he sat down under one of the giant elm trees and learned by
+heart every word printed there.
+
+Daniel liked to wander along the banks of the Merrimac River, and as he
+played in the fields and woods, he learned a great deal about animals
+and plants. Robert Wise taught him to fish for the salmon and shad that
+were plenty about there. Robert Wise was an old English sailor, who
+lived with his wife in a cottage on the Webster farm. He told Daniel
+famous stories of the strange countries he had sailed to. This man could
+not read, so he felt well repaid for carrying little black Dan on his
+shoulder, or paddling him up and down streams half a day at a time, if
+the boy would go after supper to his cottage and read aloud to him from
+books or newspapers.
+
+Daniel loved all outdoor beauty, the sun, moon, and stars, the ocean,
+and the wind. In almost every one of the great speeches that he made, as
+a middle-aged, or old man, he mentioned them.
+
+In the state of New Hampshire, when Daniel was a boy, teachers and
+schools were scarce. A man or a woman would teach a few weeks in one
+town and then move on to another. They were called traveling teachers.
+This was done because there were not anywhere near enough teachers to go
+round, and it was thought only fair that each little village or town
+should get its few weeks. Daniel followed these traveling teachers a
+long time every year, sometimes walking two or three miles a day, at
+other times boarding away from home. Nothing was taught in these schools
+but reading and writing. Daniel was an almost perfect reader but a poor
+writer.
+
+One of Daniel's teachers wanted his pupils to know good poems and
+chapters of books by heart. He offered a prize--a jack-knife--to the one
+who should learn the most verses from the Bible. One after another was
+called upon to recite. They had found it rather hard, and many of them
+had learned but eight or ten verses at the most. When it was Daniel's
+turn, he recited chapter after chapter. He kept on and on until it was
+time for the teacher to dismiss school. Mr. Tappan said: "Well, there is
+no doubt you deserve the prize. How many more chapters did you learn?"
+
+"Oh, a lot more," answered Dan, laughing.
+
+After Daniel was twelve, he began to grow stronger and did his share of
+work on the farm. One day when he was helping his father in the
+hayfield, Mr. Webster said: "Daniel, it is the men who have fine
+educations that succeed in this world. I do not intend that you shall be
+a drudge all your days. I am going to send you through college."
+
+[Illustration: He rode there on horseback. _Page 129._]
+
+Daniel was so pleased at this that he sat right down on the hay and
+cried.
+
+When Daniel was fitting for college at Exeter, he was about the
+brightest pupil there, but it did seem funny that the boy who was to one
+day be a great orator could not then declaim or recite before the
+school. He would learn the nicest pieces and practise them in his own
+room, but when he stood up before all the scholars and teachers, his
+courage left him. Sometimes, when his name was called, he could not rise
+from his seat. He was very much ashamed of himself and shed a good many
+tears over his shyness. But he persevered and finally did better than
+any of the boys. There is nothing like trying things enough times.
+
+When Daniel went to Dartmouth College, he rode there on horseback,
+carrying his feather-bed, blankets, clothes, and books on his horse. He
+was still such a dark looking person that the students thought he was an
+Indian.
+
+Daniel studied law and made very fine pleas in the courtrooms. He was a
+senator in Congress, a secretary of state, and a public speaker who was
+admired in England as well as in America.
+
+Mr. Webster had a wife and children. He bought a large estate at
+Marshfield in Massachusetts, where the family spent many summers. He
+loved children and animals, was kind to the poor, and bought the freedom
+of several slaves. He was very neat in dress. His favorite costume for
+court and senate was a blue coat with brass buttons, a buff waistcoat,
+and black trousers.
+
+Daniel Webster always liked to look up old friends and was never cold or
+haughty to any one. Once when he was going through the West, making
+famous speeches in the different cities, a man crowded forward to speak
+to him, saying: "Why, is this little black Dan that used to water my
+horses?" The dignified orator did not mind a bit. "Yes," he laughed,
+"I'm little black Dan grown up!"
+
+Daniel was a good son to the father, who had tried hard to make him a
+fine scholar. Only once did he disappoint him. That was when he refused
+to be clerk of court. When his father begged him to take that place, he
+said: "No, father, I am going to use my tongue in courts, not my pen. I
+mean to be an orator!" He proved to be one of America's great ones.
+
+
+
+
+AUGUSTUS ST. GAUDENS
+
+
+Augustus St. Gaudens was a sculptor. He made wonderful figures of our
+American heroes. No matter how often we are told of the brave deeds of
+Lincoln, Sherman, Shaw, and Farragut, we shall remember these men longer
+because of St. Gaudens's statues of them.
+
+Although Augustus was the son of a French shoemaker, named Bernard Paul
+St. Gaudens, and a young Irish girl of Dublin, who lost her heart to
+Bernard as she sat binding slippers in the same shop where he made
+shoes, we call him an American, for a great famine swept Ireland when
+little Augustus was only six months old, and the young parents sailed to
+America with all haste. They landed in Boston, where the mother and baby
+waited for the father to find work in New York. He soon sent for them,
+and as Augustus and his two brothers grew up in that city and always
+lived in this country, he seems to belong to us.
+
+Shoemakers, as a rule, are not rich men, and Mr. St. Gaudens did not pay
+very strict attention to his work, for he joined so many societies and
+clubs that these took his time. His patrons would never have had their
+shoes made or mended if he had not hired help. Then, also, his sons
+learned to cobble shoes very young.
+
+Before Augustus went into his father's shop to work, and when he had a
+good many hours out of school, he found the busy streets of New York
+exciting enough. He was laughing and merry, so that he made friends from
+the Bowery to Central Park. He had only to sniff hungrily at the bakery
+to have the good-natured German cook toss him out brown sugar-cakes, and
+if he fell off the wharves, or ran too near big fire-engines, some kind
+policeman rescued him. He was not a bad boy. Probably the worst thing he
+did was to join some other boys in the string joke. They used to tie
+strings from the seats of the bakery-wagons to the posts of high stoops
+and watch these strings knock off hats as men hurried by.
+
+Sundays were gala days. If the sun shone, all the boys in the
+neighborhood went over to New Jersey on the ferry-boat. Augustus's
+father always gave him and his brothers five cents each. Two cents took
+a boy over to New Jersey, two cents brought him back, and there was the
+other cent for candy or gum. It was good sport to chase each other
+through the green fields, hunt birds' nests, and climb trees, but the
+best fun came on the way back, when the boys sat in a long row at the
+front of the boat, letting their legs dangle over the edge, watching the
+life on the river.
+
+When Augustus went to school, at the age of ten, he did more drawing on
+his slate than arithmetic. How the pupils craned their necks to see his
+pictures! He did not draw just one man, a bird, or a single house, but
+whole armies shooting guns and cannon. These soldiers looked alive. On
+his way home, Augustus was apt to draw charcoal sketches on every white
+house he passed. The sketches were fine, but the housekeepers scolded.
+Few people noticed the real talent of the boy, but one old doctor became
+much excited and urged Augustus's father to let him study art. His
+father had seen very lifelike pictures of his own workshop and cobblers
+which Augustus had drawn, and agreed that he would do what he could to
+help him. Only Augustus must for a few more years earn money for the
+family. So while he went to a night school for drawing lessons, he cut
+cameos through the day.
+
+My, but the man who taught him cameo cutting was cross! Augustus was
+scolded and driven to work faster all day long.
+
+In spite of the terrible rages into which this stonecutter would go, he
+was very artistic, and Augustus learned how to cut wonderful heads of
+dogs, horses, and lions, for scarf pins. He made hundreds of lions'
+heads, and twenty years later, when he was helping his brother model the
+lion figures for the Boston Public Library, his hands fairly flew, he
+knew all the lines so well.
+
+When Augustus went in the evenings to the drawing classes at Cooper
+Union, he began drawing human figures and was so eager about his art
+that he would have forgotten to eat or sleep if his mother had not
+watched him. As he grew older, he loved art more and more. The only
+thing else that attracted his eye was the city-full of soldiers, at the
+beginning of the Civil War. He read the bulletin boards, heard groups of
+men telling about battles, and his heart ached with love for America. He
+wanted to go to war to show that love. But his father was now sure that
+Augustus was a genius and insisted upon his going to Europe to study.
+The father could not give him much money, hardly more than enough to get
+him across the ocean, but he could cut cameos to pay for his lessons.
+
+Augustus stayed in Paris a year. He made friends among the artists just
+as he had made them when a child in New York. Then he worked four years
+in Rome. He had a hard time there and grew thin for want of food and
+sleep, but he was as eager as ever and worked faster and harder than
+before. People began to visit his studio and always went away full of
+praise for the talented young man. Rich Americans visiting in Rome urged
+him to return to this country. They gave him orders, and he finally came
+back to America, where he was kept busy on busts and medallions until he
+began to have orders for monuments of great Americans. This was work he
+liked. He loved America, and he was proud of her heroes. Perhaps he
+loved Abraham Lincoln best of all. He had seen Lincoln a good many
+times, and he had read and studied about his beautiful life until every
+line of that man's face and figure was clear in his mind. Still, when he
+was asked to make a statue of Lincoln for the city of Chicago, he worked
+on it many years. On his statue of General Sherman which stands in
+Central Park, New York, he labored eleven years. On the beautiful Robert
+Gould Shaw monument which stands in front of the State House in Boston,
+he spent twelve years. This does not mean that he stood with clay in his
+hands all this time, but that from the time he began to plan what he
+would draw into the statue, what size it ought to be, and whether the
+man should be standing or sitting, until it stood all finished, he
+thought and worked a long, long time. His work is almost perfect, and
+fine work always takes time and patience.
+
+When busy on the Gould Shaw monument, St. Gaudens often stood on a
+scaffolding ten hours at a time in the hottest summer days, not eating
+anything but an apple. He was so eager over his work that he did not
+want to lose a minute. But he had some fun as well. The horse he used as
+a model used to get terribly tired of standing so long and would snort
+and prance and paw the ground until it took several men to hold him. And
+some of the negroes who posed nearly fainted when they saw St. Gaudens
+make faces that looked exactly like them with just a few pinches of his
+fingers on the soft clay. They thought he was in league with Satan, they
+said. When you see this monument, you will notice how brave Colonel Shaw
+looks, riding on his large horse, and how eagerly the colored troops
+march behind him.
+
+St. Gaudens was very fond of Phillips Brooks, the good Bishop, and
+because of their friendship, his statue of Brooks at Trinity Church,
+Boston, is so like the man that you almost expect to hear him speak, as
+you stand before it. St. Gaudens had been to concerts with Bishop
+Brooks, had heard him preach, had seen him merry and sad, knew how
+unselfish he was, and how much he liked to cheer people up, and somehow
+managed to make his statue tell us all these traits. There is no doubt
+St. Gaudens was one of the world's great sculptors, but he would never
+have been great if he had not loved his art so well that he could go
+hungry, cold, and tired year after year for the sake of learning it. And
+he was great because he was so determined to do his work over and over
+again until he felt it was just right. He always urged students to do
+the same. "You can do anything you please," he often said; "it's the
+_way_ it's done that makes the difference."
+
+Besides becoming famous, the shoemaker's son was happy and rich in the
+end. He had a wife and a son who, among other books, has written a life
+of his father. From this book and by the stories St. Gaudens's friends
+tell of him, we know that the sculptor was a gentle, loving man who
+tried to help the world to be better and wiser. It will not matter
+whether it is the statue of Sherman, Logan, Lincoln, or Shaw by St.
+Gaudens that you are fortunate enough to see; it will be the way any
+piece of his is done which makes it so beautiful, and which makes
+Americans glad that almost every bit of his work has stayed in this
+country.
+
+
+
+
+HENRY DAVID THOREAU
+
+
+Concord, Massachusetts, is one of the New England towns that everybody
+likes to visit. When tourists reach Boston they usually make a point of
+going to Concord, either by electric or steam train, because they have
+read about its famous battle ground, where the first British soldiers
+fell in the great Revolutionary War, and because they want to see the
+very house in which Louisa May Alcott wrote _Little Women_, and the
+homes of Hawthorne, Emerson, and Thoreau.
+
+Henry Thoreau, who was born in Concord, loved the town so well that he
+spent most of his life tramping through its fields and forests. You
+might say the business of his life was walking, for he never had any
+real profession, and he walked from four to eight hours a day--across
+lots, too. He used to say roads were made for horses and business men.
+"Why, what would become of us," he would ask, "if we walked only in a
+garden or a mall? What should we see?"
+
+When Mr. Thoreau started out for a long saunter in the woods, he wore a
+wide-brimmed straw hat, stout shoes, and strong gray trousers that would
+not show spots too easily, and would stand tree-climbing. Under his arm
+he usually carried an old music book in which to press plants, and in
+his pocket he kept a pencil, his diary, a microscope, a jack-knife, and
+a ball of twine. He and a friend, William Ellery Channing, agreed that a
+week's camping was more fun than all the books in the world. Once they
+tried tramping and camping in Canada. They wore overalls most of the
+time, and wishing not to be bothered with trunks or suitcases, they tied
+a few changes of clothing in bundles, and each man took an umbrella.
+They called themselves "Knights of the Umbrella and Bundle."
+
+The Thoreaus were rather a prominent family in Concord. There were six
+of them, all told. The father, Mr. John Thoreau, was a pencil-maker. A
+hundred years ago this was a trade that brought good money. Mr. Thoreau
+could turn out a great many pencils because all the children helped him
+make them. He was a small man, quite deaf, and very shy. He did not talk
+much. But his wife, Mrs. Cynthia Thoreau, who was half a head taller
+than he, could, and did, talk enough for both. She was handsome,
+wide-awake, and had a strong, sweet, singing voice. She took part in all
+the merry-makings and also in all the church affairs in Concord. She was
+bitter against slavery. She used to call meetings at her house to talk
+over ways of putting an end to it, and when slaves ran away from the
+South, she often hid them in her home and helped them get further away.
+She knew a great deal about nature, bought a good many books for her
+children, and was determined that they should have good educations.
+Henry, his brother John, and the two sisters, Helen and Sophia, all
+taught school. And Helen helped Henry earn money to go to Harvard
+College.
+
+The whole Thoreau family were proud of Henry, and his mother never tired
+of telling what fine letters and essays he could write. She and Sophia
+went one day to call on an aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson's, Miss Mary
+Emerson, who was eighty-four. Mrs. Thoreau began to talk about Henry
+right away. Miss Emerson nodded her head and said: "Very true," now and
+then, but kept her eyes shut every minute her callers stayed. When they
+rose to go, Miss Emerson said: "Perhaps you noticed, Mrs. Thoreau, that
+I kept my eyes closed during your call. I did so because I did not wish
+to look on the ribbons you are wearing--so unsuitable for a child of God
+and a woman of your years!" Poor Mrs. Thoreau was seventy, and her
+bonnet was as bright and gay as it had been possible to buy, for she
+loved rich colors and silks and velvets. She did not mind Miss Emerson's
+rebuke a bit, but Sophia stuffed her handkerchief in her mouth to keep
+from laughing aloud.
+
+When Henry was a boy, he used to delight in his Uncle Charles Dunbar,
+who paid the family a visit every year. Mr. Dunbar was not a worker like
+his sister, Cynthia Thoreau. He did not have any business but drifted
+about the country, living by his wits. One of his favorite tricks was to
+pretend to swallow all the knives and forks, and a plate or two, at a
+tavern, and offer to give them back if the landlord would not charge for
+his dinner. He was a great wrestler and could do sleight-of-hand tricks.
+Henry used to watch him and ask question after question, and he learned
+how to do a few tricks himself.
+
+Just as his mother hoped, when Henry grew up, he decided to be a writer.
+To be sure he taught school a while and gave lectures which people did
+not understand very well, for he had strange ideas for those times, but
+he wrote page after page, sitting in the woods, and liked that better
+than all else. He first wrote an account of a week's trip on the Concord
+and Merrimac rivers. This book did not sell very well, and one time he
+carried home from the publishers seven hundred copies that no one would
+buy, saying: "Well, I have quite a respectably sized library now--all my
+own writing, too!"
+
+But four or five years later Thoreau built a hut on the shore of Walden
+Pond and lived there all alone, like a hermit, for two years. He did
+this for two reasons: because he wanted to prove that people spend too
+much time and money on food and clothes and because he wanted a
+perfectly quiet chance, with no neighbors running in, to write more
+books. He said he spent but one hundred dollars a year while he lived in
+this hut. He raised beans on his land, ate wild berries, caught
+fish--and "went visiting" now and then. I should not wonder if he often
+took a second helping of food, when visiting. To buy his woodsman's
+clothes and a few necessities, he planted gardens, painted houses, and
+cut wood for his friends. He wrote a book called _Walden_ which tells
+all about these seven or eight hundred days he went a-hermiting, and
+after that, several other books. These sold very well. In all of them he
+was rather fond of boasting that he had found the only sensible way to
+live. "I am for simple living," he would say, and always was declaring
+"I love to be ALONE!" But sometimes people passing by the pond used to
+hear him whistling old ballads, or playing very softly and beautifully
+on a flute, and they thought he sounded lonely. Although he makes you
+feel, when you read his books, that it is fine to roam the fields,
+sniffing the wild grape and the yellow violets, and that no one can find
+pleasure like the man who rows, and skates, and swims, and tills the
+soil, yet the question is bound to come: "_Is_ a man all alone in a hut
+any better off than a jolly father in a big house, playing games with
+his children?"
+
+Let me tell you, too, that after all Thoreau's talk about wanting to be
+alone, the last year he lived in the hut, he used to steal off, just at
+twilight, to a neighbor's house where there were little children. While
+they curled up on a rug, in front of the open fire, he would draw near
+in a big rocking-chair and sit for an hour or more telling them stories
+of his childhood. He would pop corn, make whistles for them with his
+jack-knife, or, best of all, do some of the juggling tricks, which he
+had learned, as a boy, from his uncle Charles. And one day he appeared
+at the door with a hay-rack to give them a ride. He had covered the
+bottom of the rack with deep hay, then spread a buffalo robe over the
+hay to make it comfortable. He sat on a board placed across the front
+and drove the span of horses, and as he drove, he told funny stories and
+sang songs till the children thought a hermit was a pretty good sort of
+a chum.
+
+The hut went to pieces years ago, and only a pile of stones marks the
+place where it stood, but if you go to Concord, you will find a pleasant
+street named for Thoreau, and the house in which he lived the last
+twelve years of his life, half hidden by tall trees. And also you can
+read his books and learn how he enjoyed the woods and what beautiful
+things he found in them.
+
+
+
+
+LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
+
+
+As much as seventy years ago, in the city of Boston, there lived a small
+girl who had the naughty habit of running away. On a certain April
+morning, almost as soon as her mother finished buttoning her dress,
+Louisa May Alcott slipped out of the house and up the street as fast as
+her feet could carry her.
+
+Louisa crept through a narrow alley and crossed several streets. It was
+a beautiful day, and she did not care so very much just where she went
+so long as she was having an adventure, all by herself. Suddenly she
+came upon some children who said they were going to a nice, tall ash
+heap to play. They asked her to join them.
+
+Louisa thought they were fine playmates, for when she grew hungry they
+shared some cold potatoes and bread crusts with her. She would not have
+thought this much of a lunch in her mother's dining-room, but for an
+outdoor picnic it did very well.
+
+When she tired of the ash heap she bade the children good-by, thanked
+them for their kindness, and hop-skipped to the Common, where she must
+have wandered about for hours, because, all of a sudden, it began to
+grow dark. Then she wanted to get home. She wanted her doll, her kitty,
+and her mother! It frightened her when she could not find any street
+that looked natural. She was hungry and tired, too. She threw herself
+down on some door-steps to rest and to watch the lamplighter, for you
+must remember this was long before there was any gas or electricity in
+Boston. At this moment a big dog came along. He kissed her face and
+hands and then sat down beside her with a sober look in his eyes, as if
+he were thinking: "I guess, Little Girl, you need some one to take care
+of you!"
+
+Poor tired Louisa leaned against his neck and was fast asleep in no
+time. The dog kept very still. He did not want to wake her.
+
+Pretty soon the town crier went by. He was ringing a bell and reading in
+a loud voice, from a paper in his hand, the description of a lost
+child. You see, Louisa's father and mother had missed her early in the
+forenoon and had looked for her in every place they could think of. Each
+hour they grew more worried, and at dusk they decided to hire this man
+to search the city.
+
+When the runaway woke up and heard what the man was
+shouting--"Lost--Lost--A little girl, six years old, in a pink frock,
+white hat, and new, green shoes"--she called out in the darkness:
+"Why--dat's ME!"
+
+The town crier took Louisa by the hand and led her home, where you may
+be sure she was welcomed with joy.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Alcott, from first to last, had had a good many frights
+about this flyaway Louisa. Once when she was only two years old they
+were traveling with her on a steamboat, and she darted away, in some
+moment when no one was noticing her, and crawled into the engine-room to
+watch the machinery. Of course her clothes were all grease and dirt, and
+she might have been caught in the machinery and hurt.
+
+You won't be surprised to know that the next day after this last affair
+Louisa's parents made sure that she did not leave the house. Indeed, to
+be entirely certain of her where-abouts, they tied her to the leg of a
+big sofa for a whole day!
+
+Except for this one fault, Louisa was a good child, so she felt much
+ashamed that she had caused her mother, whom she loved dearly, so much
+worry. As she sat there, tied to the sofa, she made up her mind that she
+would never frighten her so again. No--she would cure herself of the
+running-away habit!
+
+After that day, whenever she felt the least desire to slip out of the
+house without asking permission, she would hurry to her own little room
+and shut the door tight. To keep her mind from bad plans she would shut
+her eyes and make up stories--think them all out, herself, you know.
+Then, when some of them seemed pretty good, she would write them down so
+that she would not forget them. By and by she found she liked making
+stories better than anything she had ever done in her life.
+
+Her mother sometimes wondered why Louisa grew so fond of staying in her
+little chamber at the head of the stairs, all of a sudden, but was
+pleased that the runaway child had changed into such a quiet,
+like-to-stay-at-home girl.
+
+It was a long time before Louisa dared to mention the stories and rhymes
+she had hidden in her desk but finally she told her mother about them,
+and when Mrs. Alcott had read them, she advised her to keep on writing.
+Louisa did so and became one of the best American story-tellers. She
+wrote a number of books, and if you begin with _Lulu's Library_, you
+will want to read _Little Men_ and _Little Women_ and all the books that
+dear Louisa Alcott ever wrote.
+
+At first Louisa was paid but small sums for her writings, and as the
+Alcott family were poor, she taught school, did sewing, took care of
+children, or worked at anything, always with a merry smile, so long as
+it provided comforts for those she loved.
+
+When the Civil War broke out, she was anxious to do something to help,
+so she went into one of the Union hospitals as a nurse. She worked so
+hard that she grew very ill, and her father had to go after her and
+bring her home. One of her books tells about her life in the hospital.
+
+It was soon after her return home that her books began to sell so well
+that she found herself, for the first time in her life, with a great
+deal of money. There was enough to buy luxuries for the Alcott
+family--there was enough for her to travel. No doubt she got more
+happiness in traveling than some people, for she found boys and girls in
+England, France, and Germany reading the very books she herself, Louisa
+May Alcott, had written. Then, too, at the age of fifty, she enjoyed
+venturing into new places just as well as she did the morning she
+sallied forth to Boston Common in her new green shoes!
+
+
+
+
+SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE
+
+
+Some of these days when you are learning about countries, mountains, and
+rivers, you may like to know that a minister by the name of Morse was
+called the Father of American Geography. He wrote all the first
+geographies used. Some were hard, others much easier. But whatever he
+wrote, he had to have the house very quiet. Between the sermons he had
+to get ready for Sundays and the books he had to make for schools, he
+was nearly always writing in his study, so his little boy "Sammy" had
+been taught to tiptoe through the rooms and to be quiet with his toys.
+He could not remember the time when his mother was not whispering, with
+a warning finger held up, "Sh--Sh--Papa's writing!"
+
+Sammy liked to draw, especially faces! One day an old school-teacher had
+come to see his father about a geography. This man had a large,
+queer-shaped nose. Sammy wondered if he could draw a picture of it. He
+did not dare disturb any one by asking for paper and pencil, so he took
+a large pin and scratched a picture on his mother's best mahogany
+bureau. The scratches looked so like the man that Sammy clapped his
+hands and shouted with laughter. His mother came running to see what had
+happened and when she looked ready to cry and said: "Oh, Samuel Finley
+Breese Morse--what _have_ you done?" he knew right away that something
+was wrong. She usually called him just Sammy. It was only when she was
+displeased that she used the whole long name. After this he was watched
+pretty closely until he went to school. Then he grew so fond of reading
+that there did not seem to be time for anything else.
+
+In school it was noticed that Samuel Morse had better lessons than most
+of the boys, and that when it came to questions in history or questions
+about pictures and artists, it was Samuel who was able to answer them.
+When he was fourteen, he wrote a life of a noted Greek scholar. It was
+not published, but it was very good. He also painted pictures in water
+colors of his home and portraits of all the family. These were so
+perfect that every one said he should go to Europe and study with the
+famous Benjamin West. Finally his parents agreed that this was the right
+thing for him to do, but they said he would have to live very simply,
+because the Morses were not rich.
+
+Samuel did not mind working hard, eating little, or dressing shabbily,
+if he could just study with a fine teacher. West noticed how willing
+Samuel was to do his pictures over and over again, so he took much pains
+with him. Samuel won several prizes and medals, and his pictures were
+talked of everywhere.
+
+Morse came back to Boston when he was twenty-four, poor and threadbare,
+but famous. People flocked to see his pictures but did not buy them. So
+he went to New York to try his luck in that city. From a little boy he
+had liked to try experiments with magnets and electricity, so he often
+went to lectures on electricity and thought about different things that
+might be done with such a force, if only people could learn how to use
+it. These lecturers that he heard often made the remark: "If only
+electricity could be made to _write_!"
+
+This sentence kept going through Samuel's head, as he sat at his easel,
+painting. It stayed in his mind when he went to Europe for the second
+time. It followed him aboard ship when he was returning from that second
+trip, sad and discouraged, because a big picture on which he had spent
+much time and money had not sold. Poor Samuel Morse felt like crying,
+but he said to himself: "Well, I won't sit by myself and sulk just
+because I have had more hard luck. I will be sociable and talk with the
+other passengers." It was fortunate he did, for a group of men were
+telling about some experiments they had seen in Paris with a magnet and
+electricity. Samuel asked some questions and then began to pace the deck
+and think. Pretty soon he took out a notebook from his pocket and began
+to make marks in it. He got more and more excited as the hours went by,
+for he knew he had thought of something wonderful. He had invented an
+alphabet for sending dispatches from one part of the world to another!
+When it was daylight, he had written out an alphabet of dots and dashes
+that stood for every letter and number in the English language!
+
+Morse expected others to be as pleased as he with his invention, but
+they did not even believe in it. "The idea," said they, "that a man in
+New York can talk with another in San Francisco!"
+
+Of course, if people did not believe Morse's idea was right, they
+naturally would not give any money to try it out, so for years this man
+almost starved while he lived in one small room that had to serve for
+work-shop, bedroom, kitchen, and artist's studio, while he took pupils,
+did small pictures, anything, in fact, to get money for his machine and
+to pay for his room and food. You see he needed one beautifully made
+machine, and he must have a long line of poles and wires built before he
+could prove that with his dots and dashes people could talk to each
+other, although they were miles apart. And this would cost a lot of
+money. He sent many letters to Washington, asking Congress to help him.
+The men in Congress were not interested. His letters were not answered.
+"Poor old chap," they laughed, "he's gone crazy over his scheme!"
+
+Finally, as no attention was paid to his letters, Mr. Morse saved up a
+little money and went to Washington himself. One senator agreed to ask
+Congress to advance him some money. But the time kept slipping by, and
+nothing was done.
+
+One night when it was late, and all the senators were eager to get
+through with bills and business, the senator who liked Mr. Morse saw him
+sitting away up in the gallery, all alone. He went up to him and said:
+"I _know_ your bill (or request) will not pass. Oh, do give it up and go
+home!"
+
+When Mr. Morse went out of the building, he had given up all hopes of
+getting help. He went to his boarding-house, and when he had paid for
+the room and his breakfast the next morning, (he never ran in debt--for
+he had a horror of it!) he had just thirty-seven cents left in the
+world. After he had crept up the many flights of stairs, he shut the
+door of his small room and knelt down beside his bed. He told God that
+he was going to give up his invention--that perhaps it was not right for
+him to succeed. He had tried to do something which he thought would be a
+help in the world, and if he could not, he would try to be brave and
+sensible about it. Then, being very tired, he fell asleep like a tired
+child.
+
+But the next morning--what do you think?--a young lady, the daughter of
+the friendly senator, came rushing into the room where Mr. Morse was
+eating his breakfast, and holding out both hands, said joyfully: "I've
+come to congratulate you. Your bill has passed!"
+
+"It cannot be," he answered.
+
+"Oh, it is true. My father let me be the bearer of the good news."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Morse, trembling with delight, "you, my dear
+message-bearer, shall send the first message that ever goes across the
+wires."
+
+It did not take long to convince the world that Professor Morse (as he
+was now called) had invented a fine thing. In less than a year a line
+was completed from Washington to Baltimore, and Miss Ellsworth, the kind
+senator's daughter, sent the first message ever heard over a recording
+telegraph.
+
+People found it a great blessing to be able to send quick news, and
+Samuel Morse was soon called the greatest benefactor of the age. The man
+who had lived in one room and who had gone for two days at a time
+without food received so many invitations to banquets that he could not
+go to half of them. The ten powers of Europe held a special congress and
+sent the inventor eighty thousand dollars for a gift. The Sultan of
+Turkey, the King of Prussia, the Queen of Spain, the Emperor of the
+French, the King of Denmark, all sent decorations and presents. The name
+of Samuel F. B. Morse was on every lip.
+
+But all this success did not spoil him one bit. He was the same modest,
+lovable man he had always been. Very few Americans have had so much
+honor paid to them as he. When he was an old man, the telegraph people
+all over the world wanted to show their esteem for him and so erected a
+statue to his memory in Central Park, New York. An evening reception was
+held in a large hall, and when Samuel Morse came upon the stage, how the
+audience rose and cheered! He was led to a table on which had been
+placed the first telegraph register ever used. In some clever way this
+had been joined to every telegraph wire in America and to those in
+foreign lands. Mr. Morse put his fingers on the keys, and after thanking
+his friends for their gift, spelled out, with his own dots and dashes,
+his farewell greeting; it was this--Glory to God in the highest, and on
+earth peace, good will toward men!
+
+When Jedediah Morse wrote his geographies of the United States, he
+little thought the small boy Samuel, who tried so hard not to disturb
+him, would one day bind all the countries on the globe together!
+
+
+
+
+WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
+
+
+George Washington was a daring soldier himself and of course noticed how
+other men behaved on a battlefield. He liked a man who had plenty of
+courage--a real hero. There was a certain Colonel Prescott who fought at
+the battle of Bunker Hill whom Washington admired. He always spoke of
+him as Prescott, the brave.
+
+Colonel Prescott had a grandson, William Hickling Prescott, who was
+never in a battle in his life and did not know the least thing about
+soldiering, but he deserved the same title his grandfather
+won--"Prescott, the brave"--as you will see.
+
+William was born in Salem, in 1796. His father, a lawyer who afterwards
+became a famous judge, was a rich man, so William and his younger
+brothers and sisters had a beautiful home; and as his mother was a
+laughing, joyous woman, the little Prescotts had a happy childhood.
+
+William was much petted by his parents. His mother taught him to read
+and write, but when he was very small he went to school to a lady who
+loved her pupils so well that she never allowed people to call her a
+school-teacher--she said she was a school-_mother_. Between his pleasant
+study hours with Miss Higginson, this school-mother, and his merry play
+hours at home, the days were never quite long enough for William.
+
+When he was seven, he was placed in a private school taught by Master
+Knapp. And there he was asked to study rather more than he liked. He had
+loved story books almost from his cradle, and what he read was very real
+to him. Sometimes, when he was only a tiny boy, he felt so sure the
+goblins, fairies, and giants of which he had been reading might suddenly
+appear, unless his mother were at hand to banish them, that he would
+follow her from room to room, holding on to her gown. Still these books
+were much nicer, he thought, than the ones Master Knapp told him to
+study. He was full of fun and frolic and took all Master Knapp's rebukes
+so cheerfully that the teacher could not get angry with him. His
+schoolmates adored him. Even if he did play a good many jokes on them,
+they were not mean, vicious jokes. He had altogether too kind a heart to
+hurt a person or to say unkind things. He did manage to get his history
+lessons, and he liked to read lives of great men. But he did not study
+any great amount until after his father moved to Boston, and William
+began to fit himself for Harvard College. He was proud of his father and
+fancied that he would like to be a lawyer like him.
+
+[Illustration: The poor fellow fell to the floor as if he were dead.
+
+_Page 166._]
+
+Young Prescott had been in college but a short time when, one night at
+dinner, a rough, rude student hurled a hard crust of bread across the
+table, not aiming at any one in particular. But it hit Prescott in his
+left eye and destroyed the sight in it. The poor fellow fell to the
+floor as if he were dead and was very ill for weeks. Then it was that he
+began to earn his title of Prescott, the brave. He did not complain, he
+did not say: "Well, of course, I shall never try to do anything now that
+I have only one eye to use." Instead, he kept up his spirits and
+finished his course at Harvard gayly. Everybody talked of his pluck. He
+was asked to be orator of his class, and he wrote for graduation day a
+Latin poem on Hope, which he recited with such a happy face and manner
+that the people clapped their hands and cheered. His parents were so
+pleased that William could finish his college work, in spite of his
+accident, and that he could keep right on being a rollicking, laughing
+boy, that they spread a great tent on the college grounds and feasted
+five hundred friends who had come to see William graduate.
+
+Then William went on a wonderful visit to the Azores. His mother's
+brother, Thomas Hickling, was United States Consul at St. Michael. This
+uncle had married a Portuguese lady, and there was a large family of
+cousins to entertain the New England boy. Mr. Hickling had a big country
+house and a lot of spirited horses. As William drove over the lovely
+island, he used to laugh at the funny little burros the working people
+rode and the strange costumes they wore. Of course, he found St. Michael
+a different looking place from Boston, with its brick, or sober-colored
+houses. At the Azores, you know, everything is bright and gay. A
+salmon-pink castle stands next a square, box-like house, painted yellow;
+a blue villa and a buff villa probably adjoin dainty green and lavender
+cottages, and occasionally a fancy little dwelling, all towers and
+balconies, will be painted cherry red. Then the mountain peaks behind
+all these houses are vivid green. So William felt almost as if he were
+in fairyland.
+
+When he had been looking at these beautiful things about six weeks, he
+found suddenly, one morning, that they had turned black. He could not
+see a bit with his well eye! A doctor was sent for and he said: "A
+perfectly dark room for you, William Prescott, for three months, and
+only enough food to keep you alive!" In all the ninety-five days the
+doctor kept him shut in, William was never heard to utter one word of
+complaint. His cousins sat with him a good deal (thankful that he could
+not see them cry), and he told them funny stories, sang songs, and paced
+back and forth for exercise, with his elbows held way out at his sides
+to avoid running into the furniture. He finally saw again but had to be
+very careful of that one useful eye all the rest of his life. The minute
+he used it too much, the blindness would come on again.
+
+As studying law was out of the question for him, he thought he would
+write histories. He had already learned a good deal about the different
+countries but knew most about Spain. So he set about learning all he
+could of that country as far back as the days of Christopher Columbus.
+Of course, this brought in King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (you
+remember she offered to sell her jewels to help Columbus) and stories of
+Peru and Mexico, so that William Prescott spent most of his life
+gathering facts together about the Spanish people. And the histories of
+them he wrote (eight large books) sound almost like story books; when
+you read them you seem to see the banquet halls, the queens followed by
+their pages and ladies-in-waiting, the priests chanting hymns in their
+monasteries, and the Mexican generals in their showy uniforms.
+
+Think how hard it was for William Prescott to make these histories. He
+dared use his eye but a few hours a week. So he hired people to read to
+him, to go to libraries to look at old papers and letters, and to copy
+the notes he made on a queer machine. You can see this instrument that
+he contrived at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Some pieces of
+wood held sheets of paper in place; other strips of wood kept the pencil
+going in fairly straight lines. But sometimes when he used this at
+night, or when his eye was bandaged, he would forget to put in a fresh
+sheet of paper and would scribble ahead for a long time, writing the
+same lines over and across until his secretaries would have a hard time
+to find out what he meant. He did not want to waste time by asking to
+have the same thing read twice to him, so he trained his memory until he
+could carry the exact words on a page in his mind, and after a while he
+could repeat whole chapters without a mistake. But it was slow work
+making books this way. He was ten years getting his first one, the
+history of Ferdinand and Isabella, ready for the publisher.
+
+Prescott did not talk about this work. No one but his parents and the
+secretaries knew that he was busy at all, because in his resting hours
+he was often seen at balls and parties, laughing and chatting in his own
+lively way. And one day one of his relatives drew him aside (this was
+when he had been grinding away in his library for eight years) and said:
+"William, it seems to me you are wasting your time sadly. Why don't you
+stop being so idle and try some kind of work?"
+
+This same relation and all Prescott's friends were astonished and proud
+enough when, two years later, three big volumes of Spanish history were
+for sale in the book-stores, with William Hickling Prescott's name given
+as the author. That season every one who could afford it gave their
+friends a Christmas present of the Prescott books. He had compliments
+enough to turn his head, but he was too sensible to be vain. He wrote
+several other books and soon became famous. When he was in London, he
+had many honors shown him.
+
+Prescott was fond of children and always kept a stock of candy and
+sweets on hand for small people. His servants adored him and so did his
+secretaries. They used to tell how he would frolic, even at his work.
+Sometimes when he had got to a place in one of the books where he must
+describe a battle scene, he would dash about the room, singing at the
+top of his lungs some stirring ballad like: "Oh, give me but my Arab
+steed!" And then when he felt he really "had his steam up" he would
+begin to write. He was kind and generous and showed so much courtesy to
+rich and poor alike that he has been called the finest gentleman of his
+time. No doubt he was, but it is true, too, that he was Prescott, the
+Brave!
+
+
+
+
+PHILLIPS BROOKS
+
+
+One of the greatest preachers in America was a Boston boy. His name was
+Phillips Brooks, and there is a fine statue of him near Trinity Church,
+where he was rector for twenty-two years.
+
+When Phillips was a little boy, he and his five brothers made quite a
+long row, or circle, when they sat at the big library table learning
+their lessons for the next day's school, while their happy-faced mother
+sat near with her sewing, and their father read.
+
+The Brooks boys had all the newest story-books, games, music, and
+parties, so they were a very jolly lot, but it is Phillips I want to
+tell you the most about.
+
+Phillips liked books better than play and was such a bright pupil that
+his teachers were always praising him. In fact, he was a favorite
+everywhere. It did not make much difference whether he was spending his
+vacation in Andover with his Grandma Phillips, walking across Boston
+Common with his mother, or hurrying in the morning sunshine to the
+Boston Latin School, people who looked at his handsome face and his big
+brown eyes said to themselves: "There goes a boy to be proud of!"
+
+It was just the same when he went to Harvard College. He was such a
+likeable chap that he was asked to join all the clubs and invited to the
+merry-makings of the students. But he was rather shy. Perhaps he had
+grown too fast, for he was only fifteen years old and six feet, three
+inches tall--think of it! He stayed in his own room a good deal, writing
+and trying for prizes. He won several. He did not like arithmetic or
+figures of any kind, but anything about the different countries or the
+lives of men and women would keep him bending over a book half the
+night.
+
+Things had gone pretty easily for Phillips up to the time he graduated
+from Harvard. He had always found faces and voices pleasant. So you can
+see how hurt he must have been when the very first time he tried to
+teach school the pupils were ugly and rude to him. It almost broke his
+heart that they did not _want_ to mind him. The smaller boys loved him
+and took pride in learning their lessons, but the older ones hardly
+opened their books. Instead of that they spent their time making the
+young teacher's life miserable. He was only nineteen! Poor fellow, he
+must have wished many a day that he was at the North Pole or the South
+Seas instead of in Boston. These rowdies threw heads of matches on the
+floor and grinned when they exploded; they piled wood in the stoves
+until every one gasped for breath; they fired wads of paper at each
+other; and once they threw shot in Phillips's face.
+
+The principal of the school beat his boys when they did not behave, and
+he had no patience with Phillips for not doing the same. But Phillips
+could not do that. He finally said he would resign. Some principals
+would have said to the young teacher: "Now, don't mind it if you have
+not done very well at teaching; there are, no doubt, other things that
+you will find you can do better than this. Good luck to you--my lad.
+Remember you have always a friend in me!" But Phillips's principal
+glared at him and declared: "Well, if you have failed to make a good
+teacher, you will fail in everything else."
+
+Just then Phillips did not think of much else but his own
+disappointment. His father and his five brothers were very successful at
+their work and it shamed him to think he was not.
+
+Phillips's brown eyes were very serious in those days. The same ones who
+had once sighed: "There's a boy to be proud of," now showed no pity in
+their looks, and often hurried down a side street to avoid bowing to
+him. Dear me--and it was the very same boy they had praised when he was
+taking prizes!
+
+Phillips began to feel that he would like to help the people in the
+world who had the heartache. There seemed to be plenty to help the
+happy, rich folks, but there were many others who he was sure needed a
+friendly word and hand-clasp to give them new courage. His pastor
+advised him to become a preacher.
+
+This meant more study. So he went to a seminary down in Virginia, where
+men fit themselves for the ministry. He got there after school had
+begun, so he had to take a room in an attic. There was no fire in it,
+poor light, and he, with his six feet and three inches, could not stand
+up straight in it without bumping his head against the rafters. And his
+bed was not nearly long enough for him. It _is_ a nuisance, sometimes,
+to be as tall as Phillips was. But he never minded all these things. He
+only felt in a hurry to finish his studies so that he could preach and
+work among the poor.
+
+After he had preached at two churches in Philadelphia, he was asked to
+be the rector of Trinity Church in Boston. He was rector there for
+twenty-two years--until he was made Bishop of Massachusetts. He spoke so
+beautifully from the pulpit that strangers traveled from all parts of
+the country to hear him. So many flocked to Trinity Church that the pews
+would not hold them. Chairs were packed in the aisles, and a few more
+people managed to hear him by squeezing on to the pulpit steps.
+
+Phillips Brooks's sermons were wonderful, but his work among the sick
+and the poor was more wonderful still. He carried help and good cheer
+with him every day. The more good he did, the happier he grew himself.
+His laugh rang out like a boy's. By the time he was made Bishop, he was
+so merry that he could hardly contain himself. He helped poor men find
+work; he held sick children while their mothers rested; he coaxed young
+men away from bad habits, and, like his Master, he went about doing
+good. He did not look sober or bothered with all this, either. There was
+always a smile on his face.
+
+Phillips Brooks had no wife or children but several nieces. At his home,
+on Clarendon Street, he kept a doll, a music-box, and many toys for them
+to play with. Every little while, when he was all tired out with his
+preaching and his cheering-up work, he would take a long trip to some
+distant country, and from all these strange places he would write
+letters to these nieces which made them nearly explode with laughter
+when their mothers read them aloud. All the funny sights in Venice were
+described, and the stories about the children in India made the eyes of
+Susie and Gertrude Brooks open their widest. At the end of almost every
+letter he would charge the little girls "not to forget their Uncle
+Phillips." As if any one who had ever known Bishop Brooks _could_ forget
+him! But Christmas time was the best of all for these little girls.
+Their uncle Phillips took them right along with him to buy the presents
+for the whole family. This would be weeks and weeks before it was time
+for Santa Claus, so he would make them promise not to lisp a word of
+what was in the packages that arrived at the rectory. They loved sharing
+secrets with him and would not have told one for any money. That was a
+strange thing about Phillips Brooks--he made people trust-worthy. He
+always believed the best of every one, and no one wanted to disappoint
+him.
+
+Sometimes when the girls and their uncle started on one of these
+entrancing shopping tours, it did seem as if they would never reach the
+shops. So many passers-by wanted a word with the great preacher they
+had to halt every other minute. I have no doubt his smile was as sunny
+for the Irish scrub-woman who hurried after him to ask a favor as it had
+been for good Queen Victoria when she thanked him for preaching her a
+sermon in the Royal Chapel at Windsor Castle.
+
+Because his heart was filled with love and sympathy, Phillips Brooks
+left the world better and happier than he found it. Now, if every one
+who passes his statue at Trinity Church should say: "I really must do
+some kind, generous thing myself, each day in the week," there would be
+sort of a Christmassy feeling all the year round, and we should keep a
+little of the sunshine which the Bishop of Massachusetts shed, still
+shining.
+
+
+
+
+SAMUEL CLEMENS Better Known as MARK TWAIN
+
+
+John Clemens, Samuel's father, was a farmer, merchant, and postmaster in
+a Missouri town, called Florida. His wife, Jane Clemens, was a stirring,
+busy woman, who liked to get her work out of the way and then have a
+real frolic. Her husband did not know what it meant to frolic. He was
+not very well to begin with, and when he had any spare time, he sat by
+himself figuring away on an invention, year after year. He spent a good
+deal of time, too, thinking what fine things he would do for his family
+when he sold a great tract of land in Tennessee. He had bought
+seventy-five thousand acres of land when he was much younger, for just a
+few cents an acre, and when that land went up in price, he expected to
+be pointed out as a millionaire, at least. John Clemens was a good man
+and something of a scholar, but he was not the least bit merry. His
+children never saw him laugh once in his whole life! Think of it!
+
+Mrs. Clemens did not like to have any one around when she was bustling
+through the housework, so the six children spent the days roaming
+through the country, picking nuts and berries. When it came night and
+they had had their supper, they would crowd around the open fire and
+coax Jennie, a slave girl, or Uncle Ned, a colored farm-hand, to tell
+them stories.
+
+Uncle Ned was a famous story-teller. When he described witches and
+goblins, the children would look over their shoulders as if they half
+expected to see the queer creatures in the room. All these stories began
+"Once 'pon a time," but each one ended differently. One of the children,
+Sam Clemens, admired Uncle Ned's stories so that he could hardly wait
+for evening to come.
+
+Sam was a delicate child. The neighbors used to shake their heads and
+declare he would never live to be a man, and every one always spoke of
+him as "little Sam."
+
+When Mr. Clemens moved to another town some distance away, the mother
+said instantly: "Well, Hannibal may be all right for your business, but
+Florida agrees so well with little Sam, that I shall spend every summer
+here with the children, on the Quarles farm."
+
+The children were glad she held to this plan, for Mr. Quarles laughed
+and joked with them, built them high swings, let them ride in ox-teams
+and go on horseback, and tumble in the hayfields all they wished. They
+had so much fun and exercise that they were even willing to go to bed
+without any stories. Sam grew plump.
+
+A funny thing happened the first summer they went to nice Mr. Quarles's.
+Mrs. Clemens, with the older children, the new baby, and Jennie, went on
+ahead in a large wagon. Sam was asleep. Mr. Clemens was to wait until he
+woke up and then was to carry him on horseback, to join the rest. Well,
+as Mr. Clemens was waiting for Sam to finish his nap, he got to thinking
+of his invention, or his Tennessee land, and presently he saddled and
+bridled the horse and rode away without him. He never thought of Sam
+again until his wife said, as he reached the Quarles's dooryard: "Where
+is little Sam?"
+
+"Why--why--" he stammered, "I must have forgotten him." Of course he was
+ashamed of himself and hurried a man off to Hannibal, on a swift horse,
+where Sam was found hungry and frightened, wandering through the locked
+house.
+
+Sam was sent to school when he was five. He certainly did not like to
+study very well but did learn to be a fine reader and speller.
+
+At the age of nine, Sam was a good swimmer (although he came very near
+being drowned three different times, while he was learning) and loved
+the river so that he was to be found on its shore almost any hour of the
+day. He longed to travel by steamer. Once he ran away and hid on board
+one until it was well down the river. As soon as he showed himself to
+the captain, he was put ashore, his father was sent for, and he received
+a whipping that he remembered a long time.
+
+At nine he had a head rather too large for his body, and it looked even
+bigger because he had such a lot of waving, sandy hair. He had fine
+gray eyes, a slow, drawling voice, and said such droll things that the
+boys listened to everything he said. His two best chums were Will Bowen
+and John Briggs. These three friends could run like deer, and what time
+they were not fishing or swimming they usually spent in a cave which
+they had found.
+
+At twelve he was just a careless, happy, barefoot boy, often in
+mischief, and only excelling in two things at school. He won the weekly
+medal for spelling, and his compositions were so funny that the teachers
+and pupils used to laugh till the tears came, when they were read aloud.
+His teachers said he ought to train himself for a writer, but it did not
+seem to him that there was anything so noble or desirable in this world
+as being a pilot. And he loved the great Mississippi River better than
+any place he had known or could imagine.
+
+Sam's father died, whispering: "Don't sell the Tennessee land! Hold on
+to it, and you will all be rich!"
+
+After his death Sam learned the printer's trade. He was very quick in
+setting type and accurate, so that he soon helped his older brother
+start a newspaper. He worked with his brother until he was eighteen, and
+then he told his mother that he wanted to start out for himself in the
+world. Jane Clemens loved him dearly and hated to part with him, but
+when she saw his heart was set on going, she took up a testament and
+said: "Well, Sam, you may try it, but I want you to take hold of this
+book and make me a promise. I want you to repeat after me these
+words--'I do solemnly swear that I will not throw a card or drink a drop
+of liquor while I am gone!'"
+
+He repeated these words after her, bade her good-by, and went to St.
+Louis. He meant to travel, and as he earned enough by newspaper work, he
+visited New York, Philadelphia, and was on his way to South America when
+he got a chance to be a pilot on the Mississippi River. While he was
+learning this trade, he was happier than he had ever been in his life.
+If you want to know what happened to him at this time you must read a
+book he wrote, _Life on the Mississippi River_. He wrote a great many
+books and signed whatever he wrote with a queer name--MARK TWAIN. This
+was an old term used by pilots to show how deep the water is where they
+throw the lead. His writings, like his boyish compositions, made people
+laugh. So that now, although he has been dead several years, whenever
+the name of Mark Twain is mentioned, a smile goes around. If you want to
+know more about the actual doings of Sam and his chums, Will Bowen and
+John Briggs, read _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_, for in those
+books Sam has set down a pretty fair account of their escapades.
+
+Mr. Clemens had a wife and children of whom he was very fond. As he made
+much money from his books and lectures, they were all able to travel in
+foreign countries, and his best book of travel is _Innocents Abroad_. It
+seems to me that even his father would have laughed over that book.
+Speaking of his father again reminds me to tell you that the Tennessee
+land never brought any luxuries to the Clemens family. It was sold for
+less than the taxes had amounted to.
+
+
+
+
+JOE JEFFERSON
+
+
+Joseph, or as he was always called, Joe Jefferson was a great actor. And
+there is never much talk of theaters, actors, and plays but some one is
+apt to say: "Ah, but you should have seen Joe Jefferson in Rip Van
+Winkle!" All Americans are very proud of the fact that this man was born
+in the United States; that he lived and died here. There have been four
+actors in the Jefferson family by the name of Joseph, but it was Joe
+Jefferson Number Three who played the part of the queer old Dutchman,
+Rip Van Winkle, for thirty years, whose life is told of now.
+
+Joe was born in Philadelphia, but his parents went to Washington soon
+after. They lived in a house whose back hall led right into the side
+entrance of a theater. As soon as he could walk about by himself, little
+Joe used to run through this hall and play all day long in the empty
+theater, behind the scenes. Out in that part of the old building there
+were all kinds of stage settings piled up behind the wings. There were
+large pieces of canvas painted to look like an Italian lake, or an
+English garden, or a Roman palace. There was a tiny cottage, with a real
+door just big enough for Joe to squeeze through and slam behind him. He
+used to pretend that he owned this cottage. There were throne chairs for
+the make-believe kings and queens to sit in, a robber's cave, and a
+lovely board and canvas bank, covered with moss and flowers. Two or
+three children often joined Joe here, and they gave plays which they
+made up themselves. Oh, it was such an odd, exciting place to play in!
+
+In the dressing-room of this old theater was a large mirror, and Joe
+loved to stand before this and act little bits of certain plays which he
+had heard his parents recite. His mother was a singer, and his father
+both an actor and manager, so Joe, being just across the hall, was often
+carried on to the stage when some play called for a baby or small
+child. Then, too, some evenings he would escape from his nurse, and, in
+his night-dress, peep in through the door of the dressing-room and watch
+the actors making up for their parts.
+
+When Joe was four, a friend of the family was making a great success of
+a negro part called "Jim Crow." A good deal of dancing and singing went
+with it, and it was no time at all before little Joe could copy the man
+perfectly. This made Rice, the friend, pleased enough, and he insisted
+that Joe should go through the part in public. Rice was more than six
+feet tall, and Joe was a tiny four-year-old child. You don't wonder, I
+am sure, when the two stood on the stage, side by side, dressed exactly
+alike, that the audience shouted with laughter. First the big Jim Crow
+would sing a verse and dance, and then the tiny Jim would do the same.
+The people in the audience kept clapping their hands for more and threw
+silver coins on to the stage for the child, until stage hands, after the
+curtain went down, picked up twenty-four dollars and gave them to Joe.
+
+In spite of Joe's being most carefully trained by his parents to tell
+the truth and say his prayers, he did, when he was small, let his fancy
+run away with him sometimes, and to a dear old lady, always dressed in
+stiffly starched frills, black gown and mitts, who kept a book and
+notion store, he told stories of horrors that never really happened. No
+doubt he liked to see her hold up her hands in dismay as he described
+some imaginary runaway accident, and no doubt he liked to have her run
+to bring him a nice, cool drink to "steady his nerves after such a
+shocking sight!"
+
+Belonging to an actor's family means, of course, living in many
+different cities. Joe had known Philadelphia, Washington, and New York
+well when the Jefferson family went to Illinois. As Springfield was the
+capital of that State, and the men attending the legislature would swell
+the audiences, Joe's father decided to build a theater there. Just as it
+was finished, the ministers of the place began to preach against
+allowing a theater there at all. They preached to such good effect that
+the city council put a tremendous tax on the building, so big a tax that
+poor Mr. Jefferson could not begin to pay it, for he had used every
+dollar he had in building the theater. While he was wondering what he
+would do, a young lawyer of Springfield came to him and said that, as he
+thought the tax was out of all reason, he would agree to bring the
+matter before the council, free of charge. Well--this lawyer made such a
+strong plea, and got the members of the council into such gales of
+laughter with his funny stories, that the tax was removed, and Mr.
+Jefferson opened his playhouse and made a good deal of money.
+
+The young lawyer's name was Abraham Lincoln!
+
+Tennessee proved an unlucky State for the Jeffersons. At Memphis there
+had been a money panic, and people had no heart for theaters. Joe's
+father had always known how to paint scenery, and now he advertised to
+paint signs, but did not get many orders. Joe heard that a law was
+passed that all carts, drays, and carriages in the city of Memphis must
+bear numbers. He went to the mayor's house and rang the bell. "Please,
+Mr. Mayor," he said, "I'm Joe Jefferson's son."
+
+"Oh, yes, my boy; I've seen both you and your father on the stage."
+
+"Well, Sir, my father can paint signs as well as act, and now that the
+theaters are closed he is glad of outside work. Couldn't you please give
+him the contract to paint the numbers on your city carriages?"
+
+The mayor's eyes twinkled. He was pleased with the business-like way of
+the boy and granted his request. The money from this work was a help,
+and right after that a rich man hired Joe's father to paint Scottish
+scenes on the walls of his reception hall, so they were getting on quite
+comfortably when poor Mr. Jefferson was taken ill and died. This meant
+that Joe and his sister must leave school and go to work. Mrs. Jefferson
+opened a boarding-house, and the two children joined a traveling
+theatrical company. They did fancy dancing and sang comic duets, and
+ever so many times when they pretended to laugh, they were so tired and
+homesick that they wanted to cry. Sometimes Joe would be given a few
+lines to speak in some play. It seemed as if he would never get a chance
+to show what talent he really had. But he studied all his spare time and
+watched great actors carefully, because he intended to win a high place
+on the stage some day.
+
+By and by Laura Keene, an actress who had a theater of her own in New
+York, let him try a leading character in a play that ran one hundred and
+fifty nights. There was not one of these performances at which the
+audience did not applaud young Joe Jefferson and say they wanted to see
+him in something else. And when they did see him in Dickens's _Cricket
+on the Hearth_, as dear old Caleb Plummer, and as Bob Acres in _The
+Rivals_, they exclaimed: "This young man is a wonder! Why, he knows the
+whole art of acting!" But Joe Jefferson did not think he knew half
+enough. He kept on studying for he meant to improve still more.
+
+Finally, after he had become quite famous in half a dozen different
+parts, in this country, in England, and Australia, he began giving the
+most wonderful play of all--the one always called his masterpiece--"Rip
+Van Winkle." In a few years he had all the fame, wealth, and praise that
+a man could ask for. The little fellow who, at four years of age, was
+blacked up to dance "Jim Crow" and gathered twenty-four dollars for his
+queer antics, forty years later could easily count on a thousand dollars
+for one night's appearance in Rip Van Winkle. But we must not forget how
+hard and patiently he had worked for this. We must not forget what he
+had actually done. He had educated himself so that he had friends among
+the most cultivated people in the world; he was quoted as one of the
+most polished and finished actors in America; and he had earned enough
+money to bring up his own children in luxury.
+
+Joe Jefferson had a lovely old age. He bought a large southern estate,
+where he spent the winter months, and he owned a summer home at
+Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, where he fished and painted pictures to
+his heart's content, and where he entertained many distinguished
+people. After he stopped playing, except once in a while, and intended
+to retire from the stage, every now and then there would be such a call
+for him that he would consent to give "Rip Van Winkle" just once more.
+He must have been about perfect in this play, else how is it that old
+theater-goers look so happy and satisfied when they say: "Ah, you should
+have seen the great Joe Jefferson in Rip Van Winkle!"
+
+
+
+
+HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
+
+
+When Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet, was a boy, he lived in
+Portland, Maine. In those days Portland did much trading with the West
+Indies, and Henry and his boy friends liked to stay down at the wharves
+when the Portland vessels came in. It was sport to watch the burly
+negroes unload the hogsheads of molasses, the barrels of sugar, and the
+spices. The boys used to wish they were sailors or captains, so that
+they could sail across the water and perhaps have great adventures.
+Henry also thought it would suit him to be a soldier, and when he was
+five years old, and there was much talk about the great war which is
+called the War of 1812, he sent a letter to his father, who happened to
+be away at the time, that he had a toy gun already, and if his father
+would please buy him a drum, he would start right off for the
+battle-field. Probably he was not as warlike as he fancied he was, for
+one Fourth of July just after that, he jumped every time a cannon went
+off and begged his mother to stuff his ears with cotton, so that he
+would not hear the banging.
+
+Henry liked music and books far better than fighting. He read a great
+deal with his mother, and they took long walks together, for they both
+loved flowers and birds. Twice every Sunday Henry went to church with
+his mother. In the cold weather he carried her foot-stove for her (a
+funny little box which held coals) and in the summer her nosegay,
+because she never went to service, after the flowers began to bloom,
+without a bunch of sweet smelling blossoms. This odd foot-warmer can be
+seen any time in the old Wadsworth-Longfellow house in Portland.
+Visitors from all over the world, even from India and Turkey, have
+wandered through this home of the poet to look at the desk at which he
+wrote, the rich mahogany chairs, and the old-fashioned mirrors.
+
+Henry was willing to do errands or any tasks that his mother wished him
+to do. He did not mind even driving the cow to pasture, for as he
+walked along, he was usually making up rhymes. And although he had very
+good lessons in school, he often scribbled little jingles in his copy
+book. When he was thirteen, he told his sister that he was going to send
+a poem to the Portland newspaper. He did not tell any one but her, and
+he only signed "Henry" at the end of the poem, so although the editor
+printed it, the other school children did not find out for a long time
+that it was his. Henry and his sister read the printed verses until they
+wore the newspaper to shreds and felt they had a lovely secret.
+
+After Henry graduated from college, his father wanted him to be a
+lawyer, like himself, but Henry was sure he wanted to be an author. He
+said: "Don't ask me to study law, father; I think I can write books.
+Anyway, if you will let me have my way, I will promise to be famous at
+something." So his parents let him travel through Europe, and when he
+sent long, happy letters home, telling about the different things he
+saw, they were so charming that all the neighbors wanted to borrow the
+letters, and Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow agreed that Henry would probably be
+famous with his pen.
+
+When Henry came home again, he was chosen for a college professor. He
+was only twenty-two, and it began to look as if the Portland boy would
+be a success even if he did not study law.
+
+The students at Harvard College loved young Professor Longfellow. He was
+so handsome, so lively, so exquisitely neat in dress, that they were
+very proud to introduce him to their parents, and best of all, he made
+their lessons so interesting that they were actually sorry when the
+class was dismissed. He proved a fine teacher. But, besides teaching in
+the college, Henry wrote poem after poem. It was not long before his
+verses were liked in other countries as well as in America. French
+people began to say: "Why, we want our children to know Henry Wadsworth
+Longfellow's poems!" And Spanish ladies and Italian noblemen declared
+they were beautiful. Finally so many countries were asking for these
+poems they were translated into fifteen languages.
+
+Longfellow was soon called "The Poet of Every Land."
+
+You will think that was the right name for him, when you hear what
+happened on a big ocean steamer. Once a large party of travelers were
+sailing from Greece to France. As they sat talking one evening, somebody
+praised the great French poet, Victor Hugo. A lovely Russian lady spoke
+up: "Victor Hugo is fine, but no poet is so well known as the American
+Longfellow. I want to go to Boston to see the Bridge about which he
+wrote." Then she repeated every word of "I stood on the Bridge at
+Midnight." Upon that, an English captain just back from the Zulu war,
+recited a Longfellow poem. A gray-haired Scotchman said another, an
+American remembered one, a Greek sang some verses of Longfellow's that
+had been set to music, and when the French captain of the steamer
+declaimed "Excelsior", there was great handclapping, and it showed that
+Henry Longfellow was indeed a favorite poet.
+
+Henry Longfellow liked Cambridge. He boarded in a fine old place,
+Craigie House, where General George Washington had once stayed. And when
+he was married to a Boston girl, her father gave them Craigie House for
+a wedding present. Longfellow was so happy as the years went on, that he
+wrote better than ever. You will like his "Hiawatha", which tells about
+the Indians, his "Evangeline", and the story of Myles Standish. Do not
+forget to read "The Children's Hour." Longfellow was never too busy to
+play with his children and saw to it that they were kept happy. Once
+when he took the three girls to England, Charles Dickens, the great
+English writer, asked them to visit at his grand place, Gads Hill. He
+sent a wonderful coach, all glittering with gold trimmings and driven by
+men in scarlet livery, to the station for them, and had a Swiss chalet
+in his garden for them to use as a playhouse. Many great people gave
+them dinners and parties. But what pleased them most of all was the
+respect shown their father. One of the daughters still lives in Craigie
+House, which is often visited by people who love Longfellow's poems and
+who wish to see the rooms in which he lived.
+
+Longfellow could sell his verses as fast as he wrote them. A New York
+editor once paid Longfellow three thousand dollars for one short poem.
+And imagine how proud his wife and children must have been to overhear
+people saying: "I wonder if Mr. Longfellow has written anything lately.
+If he has, I must read it!" Imagine how happy it made his father that he
+had kept his word: "If you will let me have my way, I will promise to be
+famous in something." And surely all the Americans who were on that
+steamer and heard the Russian, the Greek, and other foreigners reciting
+Longfellow's poems must have been proud that a man from their own
+country had won the name of "The Poet of Every Land."
+
+
+
+
+JAMES McNEILL WHISTLER
+
+
+It was about seventy-five years ago that the Emperor of Russia, Nicolas
+I., made up his mind that he wanted a railroad between Moscow and St.
+Petersburg. He meant to have it one of the best in the world. So he
+called an officer into his council chamber and said: "Now take plenty of
+time to look about in the different countries, have all the men you want
+to help you, but find me, somewhere, an engineer that will lay out a
+perfect railroad line." Men appointed by this colonel traveled some
+months. They visited many cities, wrote letters, and asked advice. Then
+the colonel went back to the emperor and said: "The man you need to do
+this piece of work lives in the United States of America."
+
+"What's his name?" asked Nicolas.
+
+"He is Major George Washington Whistler. He is one of the founders of
+the city in which he lives, Lowell, Massachusetts. He is a
+distinguished army officer and a fine engineer."
+
+"He is named for a great officer," answered Nicolas, remembering our
+General Washington, and he dispatched a letter to the Lowell engineer.
+
+The major made haste to start for Russia, because the honor was great,
+and the payment would be generous. He left his boys and his wife behind,
+because he did not know just how comfortable he could make them in the
+far-off country, but he told the boys to be good and to mind their
+mother.
+
+These boys were named James McNeill, William, and Charles. Their mother
+was a fine woman, but sometimes they wished she would not be quite so
+strict. She used to say on Saturday afternoons: "Come, boys, empty your
+pockets and gather up your toys; we will put the knives and marbles away
+and get ready for Sunday." All day Sunday they were not allowed to read
+any book but the Bible. But James liked the stories he found there, and
+when he was only nine could say almost half the Bible by heart.
+
+James was the oldest in the family. He was born in Lowell and was such a
+cunning baby that everybody wanted his picture. One of his uncles, who
+loved him dearly, used to say: "It's enough to make Sir Joshua Reynolds
+(this was a great English painter, who had died years before) come out
+of his grave to paint Jimmie asleep!" Jimmie had delicate features and
+long, silky, brown curls that hung about his face. In among these was
+one white lock that dropped straight down over his forehead. This looked
+like a tiny feather. More than all his playthings he liked a pencil and
+paper. From the time he could scribble at all he drew pictures of
+everybody and everything in sight. These pictures were very good, and
+when he was large enough to go to school the other children were apt to
+ask him to make animals and birds for them on the blackboard.
+
+Major Whistler soon sent for his family to join him in Russia. It was a
+long, hard voyage there, and poor little Charlie died on the way. The
+two other boys were better sailors and were as well as could be when
+they met their father. They did enjoy the strange sights in St.
+Petersburg! They were not long in getting acquainted with the little
+Russian children or in learning the language. They went skating, dressed
+in handsome furs; they learned the folk and fancy dances, joined in the
+winter sports, and voted Russia a fine country. Still their parents did
+not let them forget they were little Americans.
+
+The climate did not agree with James, and every time he caught cold he
+had touches of rheumatism, so that often he had to stay in the house and
+have his feet put in hot water. Instead of making a fuss about this, he
+used to call for pencil and paper and practise drawing feet until he
+could make very perfect ones. Major Whistler sent him to the Art Academy
+in St. Petersburg, where he was praised by his teachers. That old,
+tiresome rheumatism kept bothering him, and by and by he had a long
+rheumatic fever. He was a dear, patient boy, however, and afterwards
+declared he was almost glad he had it because some one who pitied the
+small invalid sent him a book of Hogarth's engravings. I want you to be
+sure and remember about this gentleness and patience, because when he
+was older people often accused him of being cross and rude. But at this
+time I am sure no one could have been nicer.
+
+James was very careful of his mother, too. One evening she had taken the
+boys in a carriage to see a big illumination. Bands were playing and
+rockets flying. The horses next their carriage were frightened, and
+reared and plunged as if they would hit the Whistler party. James shoved
+his mother down on the seat behind him, and standing in front of her,
+beat the horses back from them. He always was as polite to her as if she
+were the emperor's wife.
+
+The major worked too hard on the great railway and died before James was
+fifteen. The emperor was fond of the two boys and wanted them to stay on
+in Russia and be trained in the school for pages of the Court. But their
+mother said they must grow up in America and hurried back to her own
+land. She did not have much money to spend but thought James should go
+to West Point to get the military training his father had had. At this
+academy he found he did not like to draw maps and forts nearly as well
+as he did human figures and faces. Once, when he had been sent to
+Washington to draw maps for the Coast Survey, he forgot what he was
+about and filled up the nice, white margins with pert little dancing
+folks. He was well scolded for this, I can tell you.
+
+James was a tall, handsome young fellow at this time, and liked to go
+about to dancing-parties in the evening. He earned very little making
+maps and could not afford to buy the real, narrow-tailed coat which was
+proper. So he used to take his frock coat that he wore all day and pin
+it back to look like a dress coat and start off for big balls, where
+nobody was much shocked, because he was always doing droll things and
+was so lively that he was welcome in any dress.
+
+In Paris strangers used to ask who the young artist was who had the
+snow-white lock among his black curls, for the brown curls had grown as
+black as jet, and the map-drawing had grown so tiresome that James had
+given up West Point and settled down to painting and etching in Paris.
+He had decided that there was nothing in the world which suited him but
+the life of an artist. He worked quite steadily and people began to say:
+"I think young Whistler is going to do great things some day." But
+suddenly he packed up and went to London.
+
+In this city he was praised even more, but he did not sell enough
+pictures to pay his bills, and once, when he had kept men waiting a long
+time for money that he owed them, officers came and took everything away
+but his pictures. The room looked so bare and homely that Whistler
+painted a very good imitation of furniture round the walls of his room.
+So good, in fact, that a rich man who came to look at the pictures sat
+down in one of the imitation chairs and found himself on the floor.
+
+It was fortunate that James could go a long time without food, for it
+took nearly all he could earn from his pictures to buy paint and canvas
+for others. I dare say that quite often when it was said: "James
+McNeill Whistler is growing rude and cross," the real truth of the
+matter was that James McNeill Whistler was hungry and worried.
+
+However, he began to make money at last, and just as life seemed bright,
+an art critic, Mr. John Ruskin, declared that the Whistler pictures,
+which were being bought at big prices, were poor--very poor! Mr. Ruskin
+spoke, and what was worse, printed his opinion. "I never expected," he
+wrote, "to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of
+paint in the public's face!" Well, it did not look for a while as if
+there was any more good luck in the world for James Whistler. He did not
+lose any time in getting a lawyer to sue Mr. Ruskin for spoiling the
+sale of his pictures. There was a trial in London, and the court-room
+was crowded. Some were there because they already owned Whistler
+pictures and wanted to find out if they had paid good money for bad
+pictures; others because they were warm friends of the artist or the
+critic; but even more men and women went to hear the sharp questions of
+the lawyers and the clever answers of Ruskin and Whistler. Whistler won
+the case. When the judge awarded one farthing for damages (this is only
+a quarter of a cent in our money!), Whistler laughed and hung the
+English farthing on his watch-chain for a charm. Mr. Ruskin had to pay
+the costs of the trial, which had mounted up to nineteen hundred
+dollars. Some of his friends insisted on raising that sum for him. One
+of them said it was worth nineteen hundred dollars to have heard the
+talk that went on in the court-room.
+
+Later, Mr. Whistler received much more than two hundred guineas for a
+single picture. Two famous ones, of which we often see prints, are
+"Portrait of my Mother" and the Scotch writer, "Carlyle." James
+Whistler's mother lived to be an old woman, as one can guess from the
+picture, and her son loved her just as dearly as he did when he beat the
+prancing horses away from her, in Russia. The French nation bought this
+portrait, and it hangs in the Luxembourg Museum, Paris. The Scotch
+people wanted to own the portrait of Carlyle, and the city of Glasgow
+was glad to pay five thousand dollars for it.
+
+Mr. Whistler married a woman who was herself an artist, and she was very
+proud of him. "The Duet", one of his pictures, shows his wife and her
+sister at the piano. Two portraits by this American artist hang in the
+Boston Museum of Fine Arts, but most of them are owned in England.
+
+James Whistler was always kind to young artists and liked to have them
+sit by him while he worked. They were very proud to be noticed by him,
+for long before he died he had received all kinds of honors and medals
+from foreign academies; and France, Germany, and Italy made him an
+Officer of the Legion of Honor, a Commander, and a Chevalier. He loved
+art so well that he made water-colors, pastels, etchings, and
+lithographs, as well as oil paintings. He did not get his fame without
+much hard work. You remember how many times he copied his own foot when
+he was a child. Well, he was just as patient and thorough when he was
+older. For a long time he made a practice of drawing a picture of
+himself every night before he went to bed. He traveled a great deal,
+painting views in many countries and studying the pictures of other
+artists. But Hogarth was his favorite, and it is interesting to know
+that James McNeill Whistler lies buried very near Hogarth, in London,
+for he had thought him a model ever since his boyhood days in St.
+Petersburg.
+
+
+
+
+RALPH WALDO EMERSON
+
+
+You can't think how hard fathers and mothers used to work and plan to
+get their children educated in the old days when there were no public
+schools. The Emersons did some planning, I can assure you.
+
+All the pictures of Ralph Waldo Emerson that I have happened to see show
+him as a man of middle age, with very smooth hair, and plain but very
+nice-looking clothes. He looks in these pictures as nurse Richards used
+to say of my father,--"as if he had just come out of the top bureau
+drawer."
+
+Well, Ralph Emerson did not always wear fine clothes, but I would not be
+a bit surprised if he always looked middle-aged. Boys who had as little
+fun as the Emerson boys had when they were growing up would not be
+expected to look young.
+
+In the end, Ralph became a minister, as well as a writer, and a
+lecturer, and a philosopher. His father and his grandfather had
+been ministers, too. I fancy it was trying to send all these
+minister-Emersons to school and college that kept each set of parents so
+poor.
+
+Ralph's father, William Emerson, did not care to be a minister. He
+wanted to live in a city and teach school, play his bass viol, and
+belong to musical or singing clubs. But his mother looked ready to cry
+when he told her this and said: "Why, William, it has taken all the
+money I had to send you through Harvard College. What good will it do
+you, if you do not become a preacher?" So, rather than grieve his
+mother, he agreed to fit himself for preaching. How he hoped he might be
+sent to some large town! But instead of that, he settled in a small
+place where neighbors lived two or three miles from each other. He was
+as lonesome as he could be. He was too poor to buy a horse and too busy
+to spend half his time walking, so he could not get very well acquainted
+with the families that came to hear him preach. Besides, his pay was
+small, and if the kind-hearted farmers had not brought him a ham, a leg
+of lamb, or a load of wood now and then, I don't see how he would have
+managed.
+
+In spite of all these hindrances, William saved a little money in five
+years. He bought a small farm and got married. As the years went by and
+there were children to feed, his preaching did not bring half the money
+they needed, so he taught school, his wife took boarders, and
+he--even--sold--his--beloved bass viol. And I do not think they felt
+that anything was too hard if only these children could go to college.
+Mrs. Emerson was very proud of her husband when he stood in the pulpit
+on Sundays, and used to shut her eyes and try to imagine how their boys
+would look in a pulpit.
+
+Finally good luck came their way. Mr. Emerson was asked to preach in
+Boston. Then he had the city life he loved, he heard good music, and
+could call on his friends three times a day if he wished, and the boys
+had fine schools.
+
+None of the children were over ten when this good man, Minister William,
+died. And then came the widow's struggle to educate them. The church
+members were kind to her; she took boarders again, and sewed and mended
+with never a complaint, so long as the boys could go to the Latin
+School. They saw how tired she got and kept wishing they could grow up
+faster, so they could earn money and let her rest. They helped her wash
+dishes, and they chopped wood and cleaned vegetables, while the other
+school-boys played ball, or swam, or skated. There were no play hours
+for them. They had but one overcoat between them. So they took turns
+wearing it. Some of the mean, cruel boys at school used to taunt them
+about it, singing out, when they came in sight: "Well, who is wearing
+the coat to-day?"
+
+A spinster aunt, Miss Mary Emerson, came to see the family often. She
+urged the boys to stand high in their classes and thought it would not
+hurt them to do without play. She read all the fine books aloud to them
+that she could borrow. Once a caller found her telling the boys stories
+of great heroes, late at night, so that they might forget that they had
+been without food for a day and a half! They were as poor as that!
+
+Ralph began to go to school when he was three and so was able to enter
+Harvard College when he was fourteen. He did not have to pay for his
+room at the president's house because he did errands for him. And to pay
+for his meals, he waited on tables. That was working to get an
+education, wasn't it?
+
+Ralph did not find fault because he had to work all the time that he was
+not studying; he was thinking of his mother. When he won a prize of
+thirty dollars for declaiming well, he sent it to his mother as fast as
+the mails could take it and asked her to buy a shawl for herself. But
+she had to take it to buy food for the smaller children! Ralph used to
+tell his brothers that he could not think of anything in this world that
+would make him so happy as to be able some day to buy a house for his
+dear mother and to see her living easily.
+
+The other boys,--Waldo, Charles, Buckley, and Edward,--proved to be fine
+scholars, like Ralph, but they were never strong. They were always
+having to hurry south, or across the ocean to get over some illness. The
+truth is they did not have enough to eat when they were little. Old maid
+aunts can tell stories of heroes every night in the year, but that will
+never take the place of bread and potatoes, eggs and milk.
+
+Ralph's mother was very happy that he became a minister, and like his
+father, preached in Boston. After some years of preaching, he traveled
+in Europe. Then he lectured. He had a beautiful, clear voice, and all
+the things he told were so interesting that his name became famous, even
+before he wrote books. He settled in Concord, where Thoreau and Louisa
+May Alcott lived. He knew so much that by and by people called him "The
+Sage of Concord." He said he could never think very well sitting down.
+So when he wanted to write a poem, or sermon, or essay, (and you can
+hardly step into a New England home where there is not a book called
+_Emerson's Essays_) he put on his hat and went out for a walk. When he
+had walked three or four hours, he had usually decided just what he
+wanted to write down. On this account he generally went out alone. It
+was after a stroll in the woods near Concord, where the squirrels are
+thick, that he wrote the fable about the mountain and the squirrel. It
+begins this way:
+
+   "The Mountain and the Squirrel
+   Had a quarrel.
+   The Mountain called the Squirrel 'Little Prig'--"
+
+[Illustration: He generally went out alone. _Page 221._]
+
+It is rather nice to remember that after William Emerson had sold his
+bass viol, after all the pinching and saving of Mrs. William, and after
+going with half a coat, Ralph Waldo Emerson proved, in the end, to be
+such an uncommon man and scholar that his name is known the world over.
+Perhaps if all of us were as willing to study and work, and to keep
+studying and working, as the Sage of Concord was, there would be ever so
+many more famous Americans than there are to-day.
+
+
+
+
+JANE ADDAMS
+
+
+When Jane Addams was a little girl about seven years old, out in
+Cedarville, Illinois, her father used to wonder why she got up in the
+morning so much earlier than the other children. She explained to him
+politely that it was because she had so much to do. Her mother was dead,
+but her father looked after the children very carefully, and to make
+sure that Jane read something besides fairy stories, gave her five cents
+every time she could tell him about a new hero from _Plutarch's Lives_
+and fifteen cents for every volume of Irving's _Life of Washington_. She
+would have read what he asked her to without a cent of pay, for she
+almost worshiped him. He was tall and handsome and a man of great
+importance in the west. Jane was very proud of him, and as she was
+plain, toed in when she walked, and had rather a crooked back, she
+imagined that he must really be ashamed of her, only he was too kind to
+say so. So she tried to keep out of his way.
+
+The Honorable John Addams (her father) taught a Bible class in
+Sunday-school, and Jane was so afraid it would mortify him if she walked
+home with him that she always ran ahead with an uncle, urging him to
+hurry. "My," she used to say, "he would be too ashamed to hold his head
+up again, if I should speak to him on the street." No one knew she felt
+this way, and she had been dodging him some years when one morning, over
+in the neighboring town, she saw him coming down the steps of a bank
+building across the street from her. There was no place to hide, so she
+stood there blushing and breathing pretty hard. But he lifted his tall
+silk hat to her, smiled, and waved his hand. He looked so pleased to see
+her that she never worried any more about meeting him on the street.
+
+Across the road from Jane's house was a nice green common, and beyond
+this a narrow path led to her father's mills. He owned two, a flour-mill
+and a sawmill. In the sawmill great trees from the Illinois forests
+were sawed into lumber. Jane used to sit on a log that was every minute
+being drawn nearer the great teeth of the saw and jump off it when she
+was within a few inches of the saw.
+
+Jane and the other children had great fun in the flour-mill, too. They
+made believe the bins were houses, and down in the basement played on
+the tall piles of bran and shorts as they would on sand piles.
+
+Jane's home was pretty and all the stores where she bought candy and
+toys were fascinating places. She fancied the whole world was pleasant
+and gay. She supposed that everybody in Cedarville had as good a home as
+she, until one day she went down in the part of the town where the mill
+hands lived. There the houses were shabby and untidy, the children
+ragged and dirty. They looked hungry, too. Jane ran home, and when her
+father came to dinner she asked him why any one had to live in such a
+pitiful way. He could not explain it so that she felt any better about
+it. "When I grow up," she declared, "I will build a lovely house right
+in the middle of those poor huts, so that the children may have
+something beautiful to look at; and I will see that they have clean
+clothes and good food."
+
+Only a few Sundays later Jane dashed into her father's room ready for
+church. "See my new cloak," she called, "isn't it handsome?"
+
+Her father admired it and then answered: "Yes, it is so much nicer than
+any other girl has that it may make some of the poorer ones unhappy.
+Perhaps you had better wear your old one."
+
+Jane was a child that could not bear to hurt another's feelings, so she
+hung the new coat away and wore the other. But as she walked to church,
+she asked her father why every child could not have the same kind of
+things. He told her probably there would always be a difference in the
+clothing families wore, but in religion and education there was no
+reason why all should not have equal chances. "And, Jane dear," he
+added, "I think it is a mistake ever to make other people unhappy by
+dressing too much."
+
+Jane never dropped her plan to have a fine house in the midst of poor
+ones. The back gave her a good deal of trouble as she grew older, and
+sometimes she had to lie still in bed for a year at a time. But she
+managed to fit for college and to graduate. Then she traveled abroad.
+But never for a day had she given up that house she had planned when she
+was a child of seven.
+
+Jane started to study medicine but was not strong enough to become a
+doctor. So she traveled some more, but she could never find a city where
+poor people were not suffering. It saddened her, and she said: "I can't
+wait any longer. I must have a few people made happy." So with a girl
+friend she went to the big city of Chicago and hired a fine old house
+that had been built by a millionaire, a Mr. Hull. This house had a wide
+hall, open fireplaces, a lot of windows for the sun to stream through,
+and was on Halstead Street. This street is thirty-two miles long, and in
+it live people from about every country in the world.
+
+Jane Addams made the house so cheerful and pretty that it was a joy to
+peep into it. Miss Addams and her friend asked the people about there
+to come in and have coffee and cocoa, read books aloud to them, taught
+the poor children to sew and cook, visited the sick, and made them
+understand--all these poor, tired, discouraged people--that at Hull
+House there were friends who wanted to help them in every way.
+
+By and by there were clubs for boys at Hull House, kindergartens for
+children, parties for old folks, and Halstead Street began to look
+cleaner, for Miss Addams went up and down those thirty-two miles of
+street and made it understood that she was there to help people grow
+healthy and clean. All the time, she was helping to nurse the sick and
+urging the rich people at their end of the city to come down to Halstead
+Street to see how the poor lived. At Hull House an idiot child or a
+drunken woman was helped as quickly and willingly as if they had been a
+clean member of the royal family.
+
+The more Miss Addams found out about what goes on in big cities, the
+harder she worked. She remembered what her father said about every one
+in this world deserving an equal chance, and she tried to help factory
+workers, mill hands, girls and boys who had done wrong, ignorant mothers
+who did not know how to keep house and take care of their children, men
+who were out of work, and the blind and crippled.
+
+Miss Addams's work set other people to thinking, and to-day there is
+hardly a large city but has built a handsome house down in the slums
+which offers help and comfort to the poor. But Hull House is the leading
+settlement house in the United States.
+
+Jane Addams still dresses simply. She does not care to have the best
+clothes in the neighborhood, or jewels, or luxuries for herself. She
+does not believe in talking a great deal about what she intends to do
+later on. She has found that the world needs busy workers more than
+ready talkers. She is a busy, good woman who has done noble work in
+America. She is still getting up very early in the morning, and I fancy
+that when she is asked why she rests so little, she gives the same
+polite answer that her father heard: "Because I have so much to do!"
+
+
+
+
+LUTHER BURBANK
+
+
+A few years ago every one who went to California tried to see Luther
+Burbank, for the newspapers and magazines were filled with stories of
+the wonderful things he was doing. Plenty of men make houses,
+automobiles, ships to go on the water, and ships that sail through the
+air, clothing, and toys, but this man makes new fruits and flowers. It
+is not an easy thing to do, and Mr. Burbank has found that he needs all
+his strength and time for his work. So now, at his small farm at Santa
+Rosa and at his big farm at Sebastopol, strangers find a sign like this:
+
+   +-----------------------------+
+   |  ALL VISITORS ARE LIMITED   |
+   | TO FIVE MINUTES EACH UNLESS |
+   |   BY SPECIAL APPOINTMENT    |
+   +-----------------------------+
+
+And during the six busiest months of the year, from April to October,
+other signs tell that it will cost ten dollars to stay one hour. These
+signs are not put up because Mr. Burbank is cross or rude, but because
+these strange new plants have to be watched as carefully as tiny babies.
+He can't leave them for visitors.
+
+Luther Burbank was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts. When he was a baby
+in his cradle, his mother and sisters found that nothing made him dimple
+and crow with delight like a flower. They noticed, too, that he never
+crushed a flower, and once, when a petal fell off a flower he was
+holding, he tried for hours with his tiny fingers to put it back in
+place. And when he was big enough to run about the house and yard,
+instead of carrying a toy or a dog or cat in his arms, he was usually
+hugging a potted plant of some kind, for as people saw his great love
+for such things, they were on the lookout for cunning plants for the
+dear little Burbank boy.
+
+One day Luther was trudging across the yard, clasping a small
+lobster-cactus in an earthen pot, when he stumbled and fell, breaking
+the pot and plant. He cried for days over the accident.
+
+At school, Luther was a delight to his teachers. There were few black
+marks against his name. He liked all his lessons, but the books that
+told him about birds, trees, and flowers pleased him most.
+
+When Luther was old enough to go to Leicester Academy, he had for his
+dearest chum a boy cousin who knew Agassiz, and who through him became
+interested in science. This boy wanted to study about rocks and caves,
+rivers and fish, while Luther watched the birds that perched on the
+rocks and the trees that grew near the rivers. But the two spent many
+weeks tramping over the country together.
+
+Luther worked several summers in a factory near his home. He was quick
+to understand machinery and invented a machine that saved the manager of
+the factory a great deal of money, for it would do the work of six men.
+Luther's family and friends were sure he would be an inventor. But he
+himself wanted to raise flowers.
+
+Luther saved a little money and started a vegetable garden. He tried
+experiments with the potato plants until he raised an entirely
+different kind than had ever grown before. Of course this made him want
+to experiment with other plants, and he stayed in the hot sun so much
+looking after them that he had a bad sunstroke. This led to his going to
+a climate where he might live outdoors during more months of the year,
+and where he would not be apt to have such attacks.
+
+When Luther reached California, he had only a few dollars, rather poor
+health, and was among strangers. He tried to get work on farms or
+orchards, because he wanted to experiment with vines and vegetables. But
+if he got work, it was usually for only a few days at a time. Finally he
+was obliged to work on a chicken ranch, where the only place for him to
+sleep was in one of the chicken coops. The pay was small, and he did not
+have as much or as good food as some pet dogs get. But all the time he
+was saying to himself: "If I can have patience, I shall yet get a farm
+of my own."
+
+By and by he was hired to look after a small nursery (this is what a big
+plantation of trees is called). He would have been perfectly happy
+there if sleeping in a damp room had not given him a fever. He was poor,
+sick, and almost alone, but not quite, for a very poor woman, who had
+only the milk of one cow to sell, found him one day lying on a bed of
+straw, and ever after that insisted on his drinking a pint of her milk
+each day. He declared that this milk saved his life.
+
+For some years Luther took one odd job after another until he saved
+enough to buy a small piece of ground. Then he was soon raising plants
+and making new varieties. He read and studied and tried experiments.
+Sometimes he failed, and even when he succeeded there was a good deal of
+fun made of him. Some people thought Luther Burbank was crazy. It seemed
+such an odd thing for a man to think of doing--making a fruit or a
+flower that had not been heard of or dreamed of before! But he did not
+pay any heed to all this sneering. He worked harder than ever. And
+before long, the first new plants were in great demand, so that by
+selling them he got money to buy more land. To-day some of the largest
+orchards in California are growing from one of Luther Burbank's
+experiments. And our country is millions of dollars richer from his new
+kinds of plums, potatoes, and prunes.
+
+Mr. Burbank bought acres of land, hired armies of workmen, denied
+himself pleasures and visitors, and did not mind how tired he was, so
+long as old plants were being made better, or new plants were being
+created. Pretty soon letters began to come from Russia, France, Japan,
+England, South America, and Africa, asking for some Burbank plants and
+some Burbank advice as to their care.
+
+Mr. Burbank has made more new forms of plant life than any other man. He
+has worked on two thousand, five hundred species of plants. Besides
+making flowers more beautiful and of sweeter fragrance, he has done
+wonders with the cactus plants that grow on prairies. Once all these
+plants were covered with thorns and prickles, so that the cattle who bit
+into them rushed away with bleeding mouths, feeling much the same as we
+should if we put our teeth into a stalk of celery and bit on to
+fish-hooks and needles. Well, Mr. Burbank has changed all that. The
+fruit of some of his cactus plants is almost as sweet as oranges; the
+thorns are all gone so that the stalks are fine food for cattle; some of
+the leaves make good pickles or greens; and the small plants are used
+for hedges. So the plants that were in old times a pest and nuisance are
+to-day, thanks to Mr. Burbank, a comfort to the world.
+
+Luther Burbank is a handsome, courteous gentleman, fond of fun, of young
+people and children, but you can see how busy he has been in the odd
+science of making new plants and trees, and as he has plans for a great
+many more, you will also understand why he really has to have those
+signs put up around his farm at Santa Rosa.
+
+
+
+
+EDWARD ALEXANDER MACDOWELL
+
+
+On a lovely Sunday morning, some years ago, when all the sweet June
+smells came in through the open church window, an old man with silvery
+white hair played such a soft, entrancing little air on the organ, as
+the ushers took the weekly offering, that the listeners held their
+breath. "What is it?" they whispered. "What is the dainty thing called?"
+They asked the organist at the close of the service, and he answered:
+"That was MacDowell's 'To a Wild Rose'--and MacDowell is a composer of
+whom America may well be proud."
+
+Edward MacDowell was born in New York. He had his first piano lessons
+when he was eight years old. But as soon as he had learned the notes,
+his mother noticed that it was not exercises that he played, but merry,
+rollicking airs. When she asked him where he found them, he replied: "In
+my head and heart." He was even then composing music of his own. His
+mother did not run to the neighbors at once, crying "My son is a
+genius." Instead of that she thought: "Dear me, I am afraid Edward will
+be a Jack-of-all-trades and good at none, for he writes beautiful
+stories and poems and draws exact likenesses of people. What in the
+world shall we do with him?"
+
+All his music teachers said it would be wicked not to keep him at the
+piano. But that was easier said than done. When, at the age of fifteen,
+he went with his mother to Paris, he passed fine examinations for
+entrance to the French Conservatory and learned the French language in
+no time, so as to understand the teachers and lecturers. But he was
+still apt to forget that he went to his classes to listen and spent much
+time sketching the faces of teacher or pupils on the margin of his
+note-book. MacDowell was busy one day, over a picture of a teacher who
+had a large, queerly shaped nose, when the teacher, seeing that the boy
+was paying no attention to the lesson, darted to his seat and seized the
+sketch. MacDowell was frightened and imagined he would be punished. But
+the teacher was not a bit angry when he saw how true the lines were. He
+asked to keep the paper and a few days later called on Mrs. MacDowell.
+"Madam," he said, "I have shown the picture your son drew of me to an
+artist of the School of Fine Arts, and this gentleman is so sure Edward
+is meant for a portrait painter that he offers to pay all his expenses
+for three years and to give him lessons free of charge." This was a
+grand chance for a poor boy. Mrs. MacDowell did not want to make any
+mistake. She looked at the teacher a minute and asked: "What would _you_
+do?"
+
+"Why, I am sure he will make a famous piano player."
+
+There was the same old tiresome question: if Edward could do three or
+four things well, how was any one to know which he might do best?
+
+Finally the matter was left to Edward. After a good many days of
+thinking, he decided his life should be given to music. Art was given
+up, and Edward promised to waste no more time on his drawing. But he
+was a great reader and liked good books to the end of his days.
+
+After study of the piano in Paris, MacDowell went to Frankfort for two
+years. He had many pupils there, and to one of them he was married.
+
+The young married couple crossed the ocean and stayed in Boston long
+enough for MacDowell to give some concerts. His fingers were like velvet
+on the keys of the piano, and every one declared he must take part in a
+grand American concert that was to be given during the Paris Exposition.
+He did as he was asked, and the French people waved their handkerchiefs
+and cried in their language: "Good for the little American!" The French
+people invited him everywhere and begged him to remain in Paris, but
+from first to last Edward MacDowell was a loyal American, and he
+returned to Boston, where for eight years he played in concerts, took
+pupils, and best of all wrote much of the music which makes Americans so
+proud of him. He became a professor of music in Columbia College, and
+his piano pieces were played the world over.
+
+Many men who write music try to give it a style like some old Italian or
+German composer, but MacDowell's music does not remind one of any
+German, Italian, or French writers; it is just itself--it is MacDowell.
+Some of his music is heavy and grand, but more of it is delicate. It was
+wonderful to hear MacDowell himself play "To a Wild Rose." A friend who
+knew how much the composer liked that said once: "Mac, something
+dreadful happened a few weeks ago. I heard your 'Wild Rose' played at a
+high school graduation, on a high school piano, by a high school
+girl--awful!"
+
+MacDowell laughed and answered: "I suppose she pulled it up by the
+roots, didn't she?"
+
+MacDowell loved outdoor life, and after he bought a farm at Peterboro,
+New Hampshire, he built a log cabin way off in the woods, had a grand
+piano carried there, and in the quiet of that forest wrote some of his
+sweetest musical sketches.
+
+The names of MacDowell's compositions show he loved life under the sky.
+There are "The Woodland Sketches", "Sea Pieces", "From a Log Cabin", and
+single titles like "The Eagle", "A Water Lily", and "The Bars at
+Sunset."
+
+MacDowell worked too steadily and died when he was quite young, but he
+had written enough music to be remembered as a great American composer.
+He said any man who wanted to write music that described his country
+must love that country so well that he would put into his notes what the
+nation had put into its life. He felt that America was a happy, brave,
+hopeful nation, and he tried to make his music show that.
+
+MacDowell was shy and modest and was quite surprised when different
+colleges made him a Doctor of Music, when great concert players meekly
+asked him if they played his sonatas as he wished them played, and when
+medals and jewels were sent him as gifts.
+
+A good many studios are now built near MacDowell's log cabin in
+Peterboro, and musicians and authors stay in the forest through the
+summer months, liking the quiet spot and hoping the sight of his log
+cabin may make them work as faithfully for the glory of America as
+Edward MacDowell did.
+
+Even the French artist who wished to make a portrait painter of him must
+have been glad that MacDowell clung to music, and Mrs. MacDowell found
+that her Jack-of-all-trades was really master of one.
+
+
+
+
+THOMAS ALVA EDISON
+
+
+If ever there was a busy boy, Thomas Edison, who was born in Milan,
+Ohio, was one. He wanted to do everything that he saw others doing, and
+more than that, he liked to contrive new ways of doing things. The
+grown-up people wished he would not ask so many questions or stay always
+at their elbows, watching their work. But it came out all right in the
+end, these busy ways of his, for to-day he is one of the world's
+greatest inventors.
+
+Thomas was a sunny, laughing, little boy, and pretty, too, except when
+he was trying to think how something was made; then he would scowl and
+pucker up his mouth until you would hardly know him. He always wanted to
+know how machinery worked and asked his father, or any one near by, to
+explain it to him. Sometimes his father would get all tired out
+answering questions, and to get rid of the little chap would say: "I
+don't know." Then Thomas would stare at his father and say: "You don't
+know! _Why_ don't you know?" Then, if Mr. Edison did not answer, Thomas
+would perhaps run down by the water, along the tow-path for the canal.
+
+There were shipyards by the water, and he would pick up the different
+tools and ask the workmen what the name of each was, how it was used and
+why it was used, and get in their way generally until they drove him
+home. He built fine houses and tiny villages, with plank sidewalks, from
+the bits of wood these ship-builders gave him. The belts and wheels in
+the saw and grist mills pleased him. He watched them often. Once, in one
+of the mills, he fell into a pile of wheat in a grain elevator and had
+nearly smothered before he was found. Several times he fell into the
+canal and came near drowning.
+
+When Thomas was six years old, he watched a goose sitting on her eggs
+and saw them hatch. He wanted to understand this strange thing better,
+so he gathered all the goose and hen's eggs he could and made a big
+nest in his father's barn. Then all of a sudden, he was missing. The
+family rushed to the canal, the village, and the mills, and finally
+found him sitting on the nest of eggs in the barn. He wanted to see if
+he could hatch those eggs out!
+
+The only person who did not get out of patience with Thomas was his
+mother. He and she adored each other. She had been a school teacher and
+was used to children. She saw that Thomas had a keen mind and was always
+ready to explain things to him. When he went to school, the teacher did
+not know what to make of his strange remarks and almost broke Thomas's
+heart one day by telling the principal that she thought the little
+Edison boy was "addled." Thomas ran home crying. He could not bear to go
+again to the school, so his mother taught him at home. He had a
+wonderful memory and must have paid close attention to what was said,
+for he never had to be told a thing the second time. Thomas quite often
+had his lessons with his mother on the piazza. They seemed so happy
+that the children who went to school often wished they could study with
+Mrs. Edison. She was fond of children and was apt to run down to the
+gate with some cookies or apples for them.
+
+Sunny days Thomas liked to go with his father and mother into a tower
+Mr. Edison had built near the house. It was eighty feet high, and from
+its top one could see the broad river and hills beyond.
+
+At the age of nine, Thomas was more fond of reading than of playing.
+When he was twelve, he got the notion in his head that it would be a
+fine thing to read every book that was in the Public Library in Detroit.
+He kept at it for months! But when he had read every book on the first
+fifteen feet of shelves, he saw that some were very dry and stupid and
+gave up his plan. After that he chose the books that told of interesting
+things.
+
+When Thomas was eleven, he felt he ought to be doing something besides
+reading. He wanted to earn some money. His mother did not agree with
+him, but after he had teased for whole weeks, she said: "Well, you may
+try working part of each day." He sold papers and candy on the trains
+running between Port Huron and Detroit. At first Mrs. Edison was very
+nervous. She imagined that perhaps his train was getting wrecked, that
+he had fallen under the wheels of the engine, and all sorts of horrid
+things, but as he kept coming back home every night, safe and happy, she
+stopped worrying. He was bright, and the men who talked and laughed with
+him paid him a good deal of money for the papers and the nuts and
+candies which he carried in a basket. He was a proud boy to hand over to
+his mother the earnings of a week, which sometimes counted up to twenty
+dollars.
+
+Thomas was such a very busy person that the lessons he had with his
+mother early in the mornings and his paper work on the train were not
+enough to satisfy him, so he bought some old type, a printing-press, and
+some ink rollers, and began making a little newspaper of his own. This
+newspaper was only the size of a lady's pocket-handkerchief, but it was
+so clever that he soon had five hundred subscribers, and he made ten
+more dollars a week on that. The great English engineer, Stephenson, was
+traveling on Thomas's train one day and was so pleased with the paper
+that he bought a thousand copies. He said there were many newspapers
+edited by grown-up men that were not one half as good. Remember about
+this paper, and if ever you see Thomas Edison's beautiful home at
+Orange, New Jersey, ask to look at a copy of it. Mr. Edison thinks as
+much of it as of anything in the fine library.
+
+Well, Thomas's business on the trains grew so that he had to hire four
+boys to help him. Then he bought some chemicals, and in one corner of
+the baggage car, in spare moments, he began trying experiments. He was
+just getting hold of some pretty exciting ideas, when one day the train
+ran over something rough and spilled a bottle that held phosphorus. This
+set the woodwork on fire, and while poor Thomas was trying to beat out
+the flames, the conductor, in a rage, threw boy, press, bottles, and all
+off the train. And that was the end of the newspaper.
+
+The next thing to interest Thomas was the system of telegraphing. He had
+not lost the habit of asking questions and quizzed the operator at Mt.
+Clemens, Mr. McKenzie, every chance he had. As he stood on the station
+platform one day, asking Mr. McKenzie something, he noticed the
+operator's little child playing on the tracks right in front of a coming
+train. And that train was an express! Thomas rushed out and seized the
+child just as the train almost touched his coat. Mr. McKenzie was so
+grateful that he said: "Look here, I want to do something for you. Let
+me teach you to be a telegraph operator." Thomas was delighted and after
+that used to take four lessons a week. At the end of three months he was
+an expert.
+
+Thomas could not have learned so quickly if he had not worked very
+steadily. He always put his heart and mind on whatever he was learning,
+and he did not sleep more than four or five hours at night all the time
+he was studying the dots and dashes that are used in sending telegraph
+messages.
+
+At the age of sixteen, Thomas Edison took his first position as
+telegraph operator. He did not earn very much at this work, at first,
+and usually tried to get places where he had night hours. This was so
+that he would have part of the daytime to read in public libraries and
+to try experiments. There were so many wonderful things to learn or to
+understand in this world that it was a pity, he thought, to waste much
+time in eating or sleeping.
+
+When Thomas was twenty-two, he had made his ideas worth three hundred
+dollars a month. Probably the school teacher who thought the little
+Edison boy was "addled" never earned that much at any age! From that
+time until now Thomas Edison's experiments have meant a fortune to him
+and no end of pleasure and comfort to the world. You cannot go into a
+city in the United States that is not fitted with electric
+lights--_Edison_ lights. When you hear a phonograph, remember it is an
+Edison invention; when you go sight-seeing in a new city, the guide of
+the motor carriages will shout the names of places to you through a
+megaphone,--another Edison idea. He has patents on fourteen hundred
+ideas. No wonder he has had to keep busy! There is no telling how many
+more patents his brain will win, for he is only sixty-seven, and that is
+young in the Edison family. Thomas's great-grandfather lived to be a
+hundred and four, and his grandfather lived to be a hundred and two. And
+he himself is just as busy to-day as he was when he drove every one but
+his mother nearly crazy with his questions. Only to-day he stays in his
+workshop, getting answers to them.
+
+He never loses his interest in telegraph matters; many of his inventions
+have been along that line. In fun, he called his first girl and boy
+"Dot" and "Dash." And in that fine home in New Jersey, hanging near the
+funny little newspaper, is a picture of Thomas Edison when he sold
+newspapers on the train and sent telegraph news about the great Civil
+War to all the stations along the way. The picture shows a bright, merry
+face. America's greatest inventor still laughs like a boy and takes a
+day off now and then for music, fishing, and reading. But he is the
+busiest man living.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+
+The following changes have been made to the text:
+
+Page 60: "often she forget to eat" changed to "often she forgot to eat".
+
+Page 141: "electrics or steam train" changed to "electric or steam
+train".
+
+Page 206: "forhead" changed to "forehead".
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILD'S BOOK OF AMERICAN
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