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.