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.