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.