UPWARD AND ONWARD.
It was winter,--about three months after the sale of the squashes. The
district school was in progress, and a male teacher presided over it.
"Scholars," said the teacher one day, "it is both pleasant and
profitable to have an occasional declamation and dialogue spoken in
school. It will add interest, also, to our spelling-school exercises in
the evening. Now who would like to participate in these exercises?"
Nat was on his feet in a moment; for he was always ready to declaim, or
perform his part of a dialogue. The teacher smiled to see such a little
fellow respond so readily, and he said to Nat,
"Did you ever speak a piece?"
"Yes, sir, a good many times."
"Do you like to declaim?"
"Yes, sir, and speak dialogues too."
"What piece did you ever speak?"
"'My voice is still for war,'" replied Nat.
"A great many boys have spoken that," added the teacher, amused at Nat's
hearty approval of the plan.
"Will you select a piece to-night, and show it to me to-morrow morning?"
he asked.
"Yes, sir; and learn it too," answered Nat.
Only four or five scholars responded to the teacher's proposition, and
Frank Martin was one, Nat's "right hand man" in all studies and games.
The teacher arranged with each one for a piece, and the school was
dismissed. As soon as school was out.
"Frank," said Nat, "will you speak 'ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND A
ROBBER' with me?"
"Yes, if the teacher is willing. Which part will you take?"
"The 'robber,' if you are willing to be great Alexander."
Frank agreed to the proposition, and as the dialogue was in Pierpont's
First Class Book, which was used in school, they turned to it, and
showed it to the teacher before he left the school-house. It was
arranged that they should speak it on the next day, provided they could
commit it in so short a time.
"Going to speak a dialogue to-morrow," said Nat to his mother, as he
went into the house.
"What are you going to speak?"
"Alexander the Great and a Robber," replied Nat. "And I shall be the
robber, and Frank will be Alexander."
"Why do you choose to be the robber?" inquired his mother. "I hope you
have no inclination that way."
"I like that part," replied Nat, "because the robber shows that the king
is as much of a robber as himself. The king looks down upon him with
scorn, and calls him a robber; and then the robber tells the king that
he has made war upon people, and robbed them of their property, homes,
and wives and children, so that he is a worse robber than himself. The
king hardly knows what to say, and the last thing the robber says to him
is, 'I believe neither you nor I shall ever atone to the world for half
the mischief we have done it.' Then the king orders his chains to be
taken off, and says, 'Are we then so much alike? Alexander like a
robber?'"
"That is a very good reason, I think, for liking that part," said his
mother. "Many people do not stop to think that the great can be guilty
of crimes. They honor a king or president whether he has any principle
or not."
"That is what I like to see exposed in the dialogue," said Nat. "It is
just as bad for a king to rob a person of all he has, in war, as it is
for a robber to do it at midnight."
Nat always felt strongly upon this point. He very early learned that
rich men, and those occupying posts of honor, were thought more of by
many people, whether they were deserving or not, and it seemed to him
wrong. He thought that one good boy ought to stand just as high as
another, though his parents were poor and humble, and that every man
should bear the guilt of his own deeds whether he be king or servant.
Out of this feeling grew his interest in the aforesaid dialogue, and he
was willing to take the place of the robber for the sake of the pleasure
of "showing up" the king. It was this kind of feeling that caused him to
sympathize, even when a boy, with objects of distress and suffering,--to
look with pity upon those who experienced misfortune, or suffered
reproach unjustly. It was not strange that he became a professed
Democrat in his youth, as we shall see; for how could such a democratic
little fellow be other than a true Jeffersonian Democrat?
Nat's part of the dialogue was committed on that evening before eight
o'clock. He could commit a piece very quick, for he learned any thing
easily. He could repeat many of the lessons of his reading book, word
for word. His class had read them over a number of times, so that he
could repeat them readily. At the appointed time, on the next afternoon,
both Nat and Frank were ready to perform.
"I have the pleasure this afternoon," said the teacher, "to announce a
dialogue by two of the boys who volunteered yesterday. Now if they shall
say it without being prompted, you will all concede that they have done
nobly to commit it so quickly Let us have it perfectly still. The title
of the dialogue is 'Alexander the Great and a Robber.' Now boys, we are
ready."
Frank commenced in a loud, pompous, defiant tone, that was really
Alexander-like. It was evident from the time he uttered the first
sentence that, if he could not be "Alexander the Great," he could be
Alexander the Little.
Nat responded, and performed his part with an earnestness of soul, a
power of imitation, and a degree of eloquence that surprised the
teacher. The scholars were not so much surprised because they had heard
him before, but it was the first time the teacher had seen him perform.
"Very well done," said the teacher, as they took their seats. "There
could not be much improvement upon that. You may repeat the dialogue at
the spelling-school on Friday evening; and I hope both of you will have
declamations next week."
"_I_ will, sir," said Nat.
The teacher found a reluctance among the boys to speak, and one of them
said to him,
"If I could speak as well as Nat, I would do it."
This remark caused him to think that Nat's superiority in these
rhetorical exercises might dishearten some of his pupils; and the next
time he introduced the subject to the school, he took occasion to
remark,
"Some of our best orators were very poor speakers when they began to
declaim in boyhood. It is not certain that a lad who does not acquit
himself very well in this exercise at first, will not make a good orator
at last. Demosthenes, who was the most gifted orator of antiquity, had
an impediment in his speech in early life. But he determined to overcome
it, and be an orator in spite of it. He tried various expedients, and
finally went to a cave daily, on the sea-shore, where, with
pebble-stones in his mouth, he declaimed, until the impediment was
removed. By patience and perseverance he became a renowned orator. It
was somewhat so, too, with Daniel Webster, whom you all know as the
greatest orator of our land and times. The first time he went upon the
stage to speak, he was so frightened that he could not recall the first
line of his piece. The second time he did not do much better; and it was
not until he had made several attempts, that he was able to get through
a piece tolerably well. But a strong determination and persevering
endeavors, finally gave him success."
In the course of the winter Nat spoke a number of pieces, among which
were "Marco Bozzaris," "Speech of Catiline before the Roman Senate on
Hearing his Sentence of Banishment," and "Dialogue from Macbeth," in all
of which he gained himself honor. His taste seemed to prefer those
pieces in which strength and power unite. At ten and twelve years of
age, he selected such declamations and dialogues as boys generally do at
the age of sixteen or eighteen years. It was not unusual for the teacher
to say, when visitors were in school,
"Come, Master ---- [Nat], can you give us a declamation?" and Nat was
never known to refuse. He always had one at his tongue's end, which
would roll off, at his bidding, as easily as thread unwinds from a
spool.
About this time there was some complaint among the scholars in Nat's
arithmetic class, and Samuel Drake persuaded one of the older boys to
write a petition to the teacher for shorter lessons. This Samuel Drake
was a brother of Ben, a bad boy, as we shall see hereafter, known in the
community as Sam. When the petition was written, Sam signed it, and one
or two other boys did the same; but when he presented it to Nat, the
latter said,
"What should I sign that for? The lessons are not so long as I should
like to have them. Do you study them any in the evening?"
"Study in the evening!" exclaimed Sam. "I am not so big a fool as that.
It is bad enough to study in school."
"I study evenings," added Nat, "and you are as able to study as I am.
The lessons would be too long for me if I didn't study any."
"And so you don't mean to sign this petition?" inquired Sam.
"Of course I don't," replied Nat. "If the lessons are not too long,
there is no reason why I should petition to have them shorter."
"You can sign it for our sakes," pleaded Sam.
"Not if I think you had better study them as they are."
"Go to grass then," said Sam, becoming angry, "we can get along without
a squash peddler, I'd have you know. You think you are of mighty
consequence, and after you have killed a few more bugs perhaps you will
be."
"I won't sign your petition," said Frank, touched to the quick by this
abuse of Nat.
"Nor I," exclaimed Charlie Stone, another intimate associate of Nat's,
and a good scholar too.
Nat was sensitive to ridicule when it proceeded from certain persons,
but he did not care much for it when its author was Sam Drake, a boy
whom every teacher found dull and troublesome. He replied, however, in a
pleasant though sarcastic manner, addressing his remark to Frank and
Charlie,
"Sam is so brilliant that he expects to get along without study. He will
be governor yet."
Sam did not relish this thrust very much, but before he had a chance to
reply, Frank added, "I suppose you will make a speech, Sam, when you
present your petition." All laughed heartily at this point, and turned
away, leaving Sam to bite his lips and cogitate.
Sam was certainly in a predicament. He had several signers to his
petition, but they were all the lazy, backward scholars, and he knew it.
To send a petition to the teacher with these signatures alone, he knew
would be little less than an insult. If Nat, Frank, and Charlie, would
have signed it, he would not have hesitated. As it was, he did not dare
to present it, so the petition movement died because it couldn't live.
The teacher, however, heard of the movement, and some days thereafter,
thinking that his dull scholars might need a word of encouragement, he
embraced a favorable opportunity to make the following remarks:--
"It is not always the case that the brightest scholars in boyhood make
the most useful or learned men. There are many examples of distinguished
men, who were very backward scholars in youth. The great philosopher
Newton was one of the dullest scholars in school when he was twelve
years old. Doctor Isaac Barrow was such a dull, pugnacious, stupid
fellow, that his father was heard to say, if it pleased God to remove
any one of his children by death, he hoped it would be Isaac. The father
of Doctor Adam Clarke, the commentator, called his boy 'a grievous
dunce.' Cortina, a renowned painter, was nicknamed, by his associates,
'Ass' Head,' on account of his stupidity, when a boy. When the mother of
Sheridan once went with him to the school-room, she told the teacher
that he was 'an incorrigible dunce,' and the latter was soon compelled
to believe her. One teacher sent Chatterton home to his mother as 'a
fool of whom nothing could be made.' Napoleon and Wellington were both
backward scholars. And Sir Walter Scott was named the 'The Great
Blockhead' at school. But some of these men, at a certain period of
youth, changed their course of living, and began to apply themselves
with great earnestness and assiduity to the acquisition of knowledge,
while others, though naturally dull, improved their opportunities from
the beginning, and all became renowned. No one of them advanced without
close application. It was by their own persevering efforts that they
finally triumphed over all difficulties. So it must be with yourselves.
The dullest scholar in this room may distinguish himself by application
and dint of perseverance, while the brightest may fail of success, by
wasting his time and trusting to his genius. The motto of every youth
should be 'UPWARD AND ONWARD.'"