"I have it," he cried at last. "Not far from here lives a knight. It was

but a few days ago that I made him a knight and gave him a castle. I

will go to him, and he will be glad enough to clothe his king."

The proud king wove some reeds into a mat and bound the mat about him,

and then he walked to the castle of the knight. He beat loudly at the

gate of the castle and called for the porter. The porter came and stood

behind the gate. He did not draw the bolt at once, but asked:--

"Who is there?"

"Open the gate," said the proud king, "and you will see who I am."

The porter opened the gate, and was amazed at what he saw.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Wretch!" said the proud king; "I am the emperor. Go to your master. Bid

him come to me with clothes. I have lost both clothes and horse."

"A pretty emperor!" the porter laughed. "The great emperor was here not

an hour ago. He came with his court from a hunt. My master was with him

and sat at meat with him. But stay you here. I will call my master. Oh,

yes! I will show him the emperor," and the porter wagged his beard and

laughed, and went within.

He came forth again with the knight and pointed at the proud king.

"There is the emperor!" he said. "Look at him! look at the great

emperor!"

"Draw near," said the proud king to the knight, "and kneel to me. I gave

thee this castle. I made thee knight. I give thee now a greater gift. I

give thee the chance to clothe thy emperor with clothes of thine own."

"You dog!" cried the knight. "You fool! I have just ridden with the

emperor, and have come back to my castle. Here!" he shouted to his

servants, "beat this fellow and drive him away from the gate."

The porter looked on and laughed.

"Lay on well," he said to the other servants. "It is not every day that

you can flog an emperor."

Then they beat the proud king, and drove him from the gate of the

castle.

"Base knight!" said the proud king. "I gave him all he has, and this is

how he repays me. I will punish him when I sit on my throne again. I

will go to the duke who lives not far away. Him I have known all my

days. He will know me. He will know his emperor."

So he came to the gate of the duke's great hall, and knocked three

times. At the third knock the porter opened the gate, and saw before him

a man clad only in a mat of reeds, and stained and bleeding.

"Go, I pray you, to the duke," said the proud king, "and bid him come to

me. Say to him that the emperor stands at the gate. He has been robbed

of his clothes and of his horse. Go quickly to your master."

The porter closed the gate between them, and went within to the duke.

"Your Grace," said he, "there is a madman at the gate. He is unclad and

wild. He bade me come to you and tell you that he was the emperor."

"Here is a strange thing indeed," said the duke; "I will see it for

myself."

So he went to the gate, followed by his servants, and when the porter

opened it there stood the proud king. The proud king knew the duke, but

the duke saw only a bruised and beaten madman.

"Do you not know me?" cried the proud king. "I am your emperor. Only

this morning you were on the hunt with me. I left you that I might bathe

in the lake. While I was in the water, some wretch took both my clothes

and my horse, and I--I have been beaten by a base knight."

"Put him in chains," said the duke to his servants. "It is not safe to

have such a man free. Give him some straw to lie on, and some bread and

water."

The duke turned away and went back to his hall, where his friends sat at

table.

"That was a strange thing," he said. "There was a madman at the gate. He

must have been in the wood this morning, for he told me that I was on

the hunt with the emperor, and so I was; and he told me that the

emperor went apart to bathe in the lake, and so he did. But he said that

some one stole the clothes and the horse of the emperor, yet the emperor

rode back to us cool and fresh, and clothed and on his horse. And he

said"--And the duke looked around on his guests.

"What did he say?"

"He said that he was the emperor."

Then the guests fell to talking and laughing, and soon forgot the

strange thing. But the proud king lay in a dark prison, far even from

the servants of the duke. He lay on straw, and chains bound his feet.

"What is this that has come upon me?" he said. "Am I brought so low? Am

I so changed that even the duke does not know me? At least there is one

who will know me, let me wear what I may."

Then, by much labor, he loosed the chains that bound him, and fled in

the night from the duke's prison. When the morning came, he stood at the

door of his own palace. He stood there awhile; perhaps some one would

open the door and let him in. But no one came, and the proud king lifted

his hand and knocked; he knocked at the door of his own palace. The

porter came at last and looked at him.

"Who are you?" he asked, "and what do you want?"

"Do you not know me?" cried the proud king. "I am your master. I am the

king. I am the emperor. Let me pass"; and he would have thrust him

aside. But the porter was a strong man; he stood in the doorway, and

would not let the proud king enter.

"You my master! you the emperor! poor fool, look here!" and he held the

proud king by the arm while he pointed to a hall beyond. There sat the

emperor on his throne, and by his side was the queen.

"Let me go to her! she will know me," cried the proud king, and he tried

to break away from the porter. The noise without was heard in the hall.

The nobles came out, and last of all came the emperor and the queen.

When the proud king saw these two, he could not speak. He was choked

with rage and fear, and he knew not what.

"You know me!" at last he cried. "I am your lord and husband."

The queen shrank back.

"Friends," said the man who stood by her, "what shall be done to this

wretch?"

"Kill him," said one.

"Put out his eyes," said another.

"Beat him," said a third.

Then they all hustled the proud king out of the palace court. Each one

gave him a blow, and so he was thrust out, and the door was shut behind

him.

The proud king fled, he knew not whither. He wished he were dead. By and

by he came to the lake where he had bathed. He sat down on the shore. It

was like a dream, but he knew he was awake, for he was cold and hungry

and faint. Then he knelt on the ground and beat his breast, and said:

"I am no emperor. I am no king. I am a poor, sinful man. Once I thought

there was no one greater than I, on earth or in heaven. Now I know that

I am nothing, and there is no one so poor and so mean. God forgive me

for my pride."

As he said this, tears stood in his eyes. He wiped them away and rose to

his feet. Close by him he saw the clothes which he had once laid aside.

Near at hand was his horse, eating the soft grass. The king put on his

clothes; he mounted his horse and rode to his palace. As he drew near,

the door opened and servants came forth. One held his horse; another

helped him dismount. The porter bowed low.

"I marvel I did not see thee pass out, my lord," he said.

The king entered, and again saw the nobles in the great hall. There

stood the queen also, and by her side was the man who called himself

emperor. But the queen and the nobles did not look at him; they looked

at the king, and came forward to meet him.

This man also came forward, but he was clad in shining white, and not in

the robes of the emperor. The king bowed his head before him.

"I am thy angel," said the man. "Thou wert proud, and made thyself to be

set on high. Therefore thou hast been brought low. I have watched over

thy kingdom. Now I give it back to thee, for thou art once again humble,

and the humble only are fit to rule."

Then the angel disappeared. No one else heard his voice, and the nobles

thought the king had bowed to them. So the king once more sat on the

throne, and ruled wisely and humbly ever after.

413

Eva March Tappan (1854--) has compiled many

books for children, including the popular

collection in ten volumes called _The

Children's Hour_. Among her most delightful

books is _Robin Hood: His Book_, from which the

following story is taken, (by permission of the

publishers, Little, Brown & Co., Boston). Some

few moralists have been distressed about giving

stories of an outlaw to children, but Robin

Hood was really the champion of the people

against tyrannous oppression and injustice.

This is the fact that children never miss, and

the thing that endears Robin and his followers

in Lincoln green. There is, of course, the

further interesting fact that these stories

take place out in the open and have the charm

that comes from adventures and wanderings

through the secrecies of ancient Sherwood

Forest. Against this outdoor background are

displayed the good old "virtues of courage,

forbearance, gentleness, courtesy, justice, and

championship."

ROBIN AND THE MERRY LITTLE OLD WOMAN

EVA MARCH TAPPAN

"Monday I wash and Tuesday I iron,

Wednesday I cook and I mend;

Thursday I brew and Friday I sweep,

And baking day brings the end."

So sang the merry little old woman as she sat at her wheel and spun; but

when she came to the last line she really could not help pushing back

the flax-wheel and springing to her feet. Then she held out her skirt

and danced a gay little jig as she sang,--

"Hey down, down, an a down!"

She curtseyed to one side of the room and then to another, and before

she knew it she was curtseying to a man who stood in the open door.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the merry little old woman. "Whatever shall I do? An

old woman ought to sit and spin and not be dancing like a young girl.

Oh, but it's Master Robin! Glad am I to set eyes on you, Master Robin.

Come in, and I'll throw my best cloak over the little stool for a

cushion. Don't be long standing on the threshold, Master Robin."

"It'll mayhap come to pass that I'll wish I had something to stand on,"

said Robin, grimly, "for the proud bishop is in the forest, and he's

after me with all his men. It's night and day that he's been following

me, and now he's caught me surely. You've no meal chest, have you, and

you've no press, and you've no feather-bed that'll hide me? There's but

the one wee bit room, and there's not even a mousehole."

The little woman's heart beat fast. What could she do?

"I mind me well of a Saturday night," said she, "when I'd but little

firewood and it was bitter cold, that you and your men brought me such

fine logs as the great folks at the hall don't have; and then you came

in yourself and gave me a pair of shoon and some brand-new hosen, all

soft and fine and woolly--I don't believe the king himself has such a

pair--oh, Master Robin, I've thought of something. Give me your mantle

of green and your fine gray tunic, and do you put on my kirtle and

jacket and gown, and tie my red and blue kerchief over your head--you

gave it to me yourself, you did; it was on Easter Day in the

morning--and do you sit down at the wheel and spin. See, you put your

foot on the treadle _so_, to turn the wheel, and you twist the flax with

your fingers _so_. Don't you get up, but just turn the wheel and grumble

and mumble to yourself."

It was not long before the bishop and all his men came riding up to the

little old woman's house. The bishop thrust open the door and called:--

"Old woman, what have you done with Robin Hood?" but Robin sat grumbling

and mumbling at the wheel and answered never a word to the proud bishop.

"She's mayhap daft," said one of the bishop's men. "We'll soon find

him"; and in a minute he had looked up the chimney and behind the

dresser and under the wooden bedstead. Then he turned to the corner

cupboard.

"You're daft yourself," said the bishop, "to look in that little place

for a strong man like Robin." And all the time the spinner at the wheel

sat grumbling and mumbling. It was a queer thread that was wound on the

spool, but no one thought of that. It was Robin that they wanted, and

they cared little what kind of thread an old woman in a cottage was

a-spinning.

"He's here, your Reverence," called a man who had opened the lower door

of the corner cupboard.

"Bring him out and set him on the horse," ordered the bishop, "and see

to it that you treat him like a wax candle in the church. The king's

bidden that the thief and outlaw be brought to him, and I well know

he'll hang the rogue on a gallows so high that it will show over the

whole kingdom; but he has given orders that no one shall have the reward

if the rascal has but a bruise on his finger, save that it came in a

fair fight."

So the merry little old woman in Robin's tunic and Robin's green cloak

was set gently on a milk-white steed. The bishop himself mounted a

dapple-gray, and down the road they went.

It was the cheeriest party that one can imagine. The bishop went

laughing all the way for pure delight that he had caught Robin Hood. He

told more stories than one could make up in an age of leap-years, and

they were all about where he went and what he did in the days before he

became bishop. The men were so happy at the thought of having the great

reward the king had offered that they laughed at the bishop's stories

louder than any one had ever laughed at them before. And as for the

merry little old woman, she had the gayest time of all, though she had

to keep her face muffled in her hood, and couldn't laugh aloud the least

bit, and couldn't jump down from the great white horse and dance the gay

little jig that her feet were fairly aching to try.

While the merry little old woman was riding off with the bishop and his

men, Robin sat at the flax-wheel and spun and spun till he could no

longer hear the beat of the horses' hoofs on the hard ground. No time

had he to take off the kirtle and the jacket and the kerchief of red and

blue, for no one knew when the proud bishop might find out that he had

the wrong prisoner, and would come galloping back to the cottage on the

border of the forest.

"If I can only get to my good men and true!" thought Robin; and he

sprang up from the little flax-wheel with the distaff in his hand, and

ran out of the open door.

All the long day had Robin been away from his bowmen, and as the

twilight time drew near, they were more and more fearful of what might

have befallen him. They went to the edge of the forest, and there they

sat with troubled faces.

"I've heard that the sheriff was seen but two days ago on the eastern

side of the wood," said Much the miller's son.

"And the proud bishop's not in his palace," muttered Will Scarlet.

"Where he's gone I know not, but may the saints keep Master Robin from

meeting him. He hates us men of the greenwood worse than the sheriff

does, and he'd hang any one of us to the nearest oak."

"He'd not hang Master Robin," declared Much the miller's son, "for the

bishop likes good red gold, and the king's offered a great reward for

him alive and unhurt." The others laughed, but in a moment they were

grave again, and peered anxiously through the trees in one way and then

in another, while nearer came the twilight.

"There are folks who say the forest is haunted," said Little John. "I

never saw anything, but one night when I was close to the little black

pond that lies to the westward, I heard a cry that wasn't from bird or

beast; I know that."

"And didn't you see anything?" asked Much the miller's son.

"No," answered Little John, "but where there's a cry, there's something

to make the cry, and it wasn't bird or beast; I'm as sure of that as I

am that my name is Little John."

"But it isn't," declared Friar Tuck. "You were christened John Little."

No one smiled, for they were too much troubled about Robin.

"When I was a youngster," said William Scarlet, "I had an old nurse, and

she told me that a first cousin of hers knew a woman whose husband was

going through the forest by night, and he saw a witch carry a round

bundle under her arm. It was wrapped up in a brown kerchief; and while

he looked, the wind blew the kerchief away, and he saw that the round

bundle was a man's head. The mouth of it opened and called, 'Help!

help!' He shot an arrow through the old witch, and then he said to the

head, 'Where do you want to go? Whose head are you?' The head answered,

'I'm your head, and I want to go on your shoulders.' Then he put up his

hand, and, sure enough, his own head was gone, and there it lay on the

ground beside the dead witch with the arrow sticking through her. He

took up the head and set it on his shoulders. This was the story that he

told when he came back in the morning, but no one knew whether really to

believe it all or not. After that night he always carried his head a bit

on one side, and some said it was because he hadn't set it back quite

straight: but there are some folks that won't believe anything unless

they see it themselves, and they said he had had a drink or two more

than he should and that he took cold in his neck from sleeping with his

head on the wet moss."

"Everybody knows there are witches," said Will Scarlet, "and folks say

that wherever they may be through the day, they run to the forest when

the sun begins to sink, and while they're running they can't say any

magic words to hurt a man if he shoots them."

"What's that?" whispered Much the miller's son softly, and he fitted an

arrow to the string.

"Wait; make a cross on it first," said Little John.

Something was flitting over the little moor. The soft gray mist hid the

lower part of it, but the men could see what looked like the upper part

of a woman's body, scurrying along through the fog in some mysterious

fashion. Its arms were tossing wildly about, and it seemed to be

beckoning. The head was covered with what might have been a kerchief,

but it was too dusky to see clearly.

"Don't shoot till it's nearer," whispered William Scarlet. "They say if

you hurt a witch and don't kill her outright, you'll go mad forever

after."

Nearer came the witch, but still Much the miller's son waited with his

bow bent and the arrow aimed. The witch ran under the low bough of a

tree, the kerchief was caught on a broken limb, and--

"Why, it's Master Robin!" shouted Much the miller's son. "It's Master

Robin himself"; and so it was. No time had he taken to throw off the

gray kirtle and the black jacket and the blue and red kerchief about his

head; for as soon as ever he could no longer hear the tramp of the

horses's hoofs, he had run with the distaff still in his hand to the

shelter of the good greenwood and the help of his own faithful men and

true.

Meanwhile the bishop was still telling stories of what he did before he

was a bishop, and the men were laughing at them, and the merry little

old woman was having the gayest time of all, even though she dared not

laugh out loud.

Now that the bishop had caught Robin Hood he had no fear of the

greenwood rangers; and as the forest road was much nearer than the

highway, down the forest road the happy company went. The merry little

old woman had sometimes sat on a pillion and ridden a farm beast from

the plough; but to be on a great horse like this, one that held his head

so high and stepped so carefully where it was rough, and galloped so

lightly and easily where it was smooth--why, she had never even dreamed

of such a magnificent ride. Not a word did she speak, not even when the

bishop began to tell her that no gallows would be high enough to hang

such a wicked outlaw. "You've stolen gold from the knights," said he,

"you've stolen from the sheriff of Nottingham, and you've even stolen

from me. Glad am I to see Robin Hood--but what's that?" the bishop

cried. "Who are those men, and who is their leader? And who are you?" he

demanded of the merry little old woman.

Now the little woman had been taught to order herself lowly and

reverently to all her betters, so before she answered the bishop she

slipped down from the tall white horse and made a deep curtsey to the

great man.

"If you please, sir," said she, "I think it's Robin Hood and his men."

"And who are you?" he demanded again.

"Oh, I'm nobody but a little old woman that lives in a cottage alone and

spins," and then she sang in a lightsome little chirrup of a voice:--

"Monday I wash and Tuesday I iron,

Wednesday I cook and I mend;

Thursday I brew and Friday I sweep,

And baking day brings the end."

I fear that the bishop did not hear the little song, for the arrows were

flying thick and fast. The little old woman slipped behind a big tree,

and there she danced her

"Hey down, down, an a down!"

to her heart's content, while the fighting went on.

It was not long before the great bishop was Robin's prisoner, and ere he

could go free, he had to open his strong leather wallet and count out

more gold than the moon had shone on in the forest for many and many a

night. He laid down the goldpieces one by one, and at every piece he

gave a groan that seemed to come from the very bottom of his boots.

"That's for all the world like the cry I heard from the little black

pond to the westward," said Little John. "It wasn't like bird and it

wasn't like beast, and now I know what it was; it was the soul of a

stingy man, and he had to count over and over the money that he ought to

have given away when he was alive."

As for the merry little old woman, she was a prisoner too, and such a

time as she had! First there was a bigger feast than she had ever

dreamed of before, and every man of Robin's followers was bound that she

should eat the bit that he thought was nicest. They made her a little

throne of soft green moss, and on it they laid their hunting cloaks.

They built a shelter of fresh boughs over her head, and then they sang

songs to her. They set up great torches all round about the glade. They

wrestled and they vaulted and they climbed. They played every game that

could be played by torchlight, and it was all to please the kind little

woman who had saved the life of their master.

The merry little woman sat and clapped her hands at all their feats, and

she laughed until she cried. Then she wiped her eyes and sang them her

one little song.

The men shouted and cheered, and cheered and shouted, and the woods

echoed so long and so loud that one would have thought they, too, were

trying to shout.

By and by the company all set out together to carry the little old woman

to her cottage. She was put upon their very best and safest horse, and

Robin Hood would have none lead it but himself. After the horse came a

long line of good bowmen and true. One carried a new cloak of the finest

wool. Another bore a whole armful of silken kerchiefs to make up for the

one that Robin had worn away. There were "shoon and hosen," and there

was cloth of scarlet and of blue, and there were soft, warm blankets for

her bed. There were so many things that when they were all piled up in

the little cottage, there was no chance for one tenth of the men to get

into the room. Those that were outside pushed up to the window and

stretched their heads in at the door: and they tried their best to pile

up the great heap of things so she could have room to go to bed that

night and to cook her breakfast in the morning.

"And to-morrow's sweeping day," cried Robin. "'Thursday I brew and

Friday I sweep,' and how'll she sweep if she has no floor?"

"We'll have to make her a floor," declared Friar Tuck.

"So we will," said Robin. "There's a good man not far away who can work

in wood, and he shall come in the morning and build her another room."

"Oh, oh!" cried the merry little old woman with delight, "I never

thought I should have a house with two rooms; but I'll always care for

this room the most, for there's just where Master Robin stood when he

came in at the door, and there's where he sat when he was spinning the

flax. But, Master Robin, Master Robin, did any one ever see such a

thread as you've left on the spool!"

It was so funny that the merry little old woman really couldn't help

jumping up and dancing.

"Hey down, down, an a down!"

And then the brave men and true all said good-night and went back to the

forest.

414

All attempts to prove the historical existence

of Robin Hood have been unsuccessful. His story

has come down to us in a group of old folk

ballads, about forty in number, dating from

about the beginning of the fifteenth century.

One of these old ballads is given below. They

were sung to a recurrent melody, which was as

much a part of them as the words of the story.

Other ballads in the group that are likely to

be very interesting to children are "Robin Hood

and Little John," "Robin Hood and Maid Marian,"

"Robin Hood Rescuing the Three Squires," "Robin

Hood's Death and Burial." The best source for

these ballads is Child's _English and Scottish

Popular Ballads_ (ed. Sargent and Kittredge).

Tennyson dramatized the Robin Hood story in

_The Foresters_, as did Alfred Noyes in

_Sherwood_. Reginald De Koven made a very

successful comic opera out of it, while Thomas

Love Peacock's _Maid Marian_ is an interesting

novelization of the theme.

ALLEN-A-DALE

Come listen to me, you gallants so free,

All you that love mirth for to hear,

And I will tell you of a bold outlaw,

That lived in Nottinghamshire.

As Robin Hood in the forest stood,

All under the greenwood tree,

There was he ware of a brave young man,

As fine as fine might be.

The youngster was clothed in scarlet red,

In scarlet fine and gay,

And he did frisk it over the plain,

And chanted a roundelay.

As Robin Hood next morning stood,

Amongst the leaves so gay,

There did he spy the same young man

Come drooping along the way.

The scarlet he wore the day before,

It was clean cast away;

And every step he fetched a sigh,

"Alack! and well-a-day!"

Then stepped forth brave Little John.

And Nick, the miller's son,

Which made the young man bend his bow,

When as he saw them come.

"Stand off! stand off!" the young man said;

"What is your will with me?"

"You must come before our master straight,

Under yon greenwood tree."

And when he came bold Robin before,

Robin asked him courteously,

"O hast thou any money to spare

For my merry men and me?"

"I have no money," the young man said,

"But five shillings and a ring;

And that I have kept this seven long years,

To have it at my wedding.

"Yesterday I should have married a maid,

But she is now from me ta'en,

And chosen to be an old knight's delight,

Whereby my poor heart is slain."

"What is thy name?" then said Robin Hood;

"Come tell me without any fail."

"By the faith of my body," then said the young man,

"My name it is Allen-a-Dale."

"What wilt thou give me," said Robin Hood,

"In ready gold or fee,

To help thee to thy truelove again,

And deliver her unto thee?"

"I have no money," then quoth the young man,

"No ready gold nor fee,

But I will swear upon a book

Thy true servant for to be."

"How many miles is it to thy truelove?

Come tell me without any guile:"

"By the faith of my body," then said the young man,

"It is but five little mile."

Then Robin he hasted over the plain,

He did neither stint nor lin,

Until he came unto the church

Where Allen should keep his wedding.

"What dost thou here?" the bishop he said,

"I prithee now tell to me"

"I am a bold harper," quoth Robin Hood,

"And the best in the north country."

"O welcome, O welcome," the bishop he said.

"That music best pleaseth me."

"You shall have no music," quoth Robin Hood,

"Till the bride and bridegroom I see."

With that came in a wealthy knight,

Which was both grave and old,

And after him a finikin lass,

Did shine like glistering gold.

"This is no fit match," quoth bold Robin Hood,

"That you do seem to make here;

For since we are come unto the church,

The bride she shall choose her own dear."

Then Robin Hood put his horn to his mouth,

And blew blasts two or three;

When four and twenty bowmen bold

Came leaping over the lea.

And when they came into the churchyard,

Marching all in a row,

The first man was Allen-a-Dale,

To give bold Robin his bow.

"This is thy truelove," Robin he said,

"Young Allen, as I hear say;

And you shall be married at this same time,

Before we depart away."

"That shall not be," the bishop he said,

"For thy word shall not stand;

They shall be three times asked in the church,

As the law is of our land."

Robin Hood pulled off the bishop's coat,

And put it upon Little John;

"By the faith of my body," then Robin said,

"This cloth doth make thee a man."

When Little John went into the choir,

The people began for to laugh;

He asked them seven times in the church,

Lest three times should not be enough.

"Who gives me this maid?" then said Little John;

Quoth Robin, "That do I,

And he that doth take her from Allen-a-Dale

Full dearly he shall her buy."

And thus having ended this merry wedding,

The bride looked as fresh as a queen,

And so they returned to the merry greenwood,

Amongst the leaves so green.

SECTION XI

BIOGRAPHY AND HERO STORIES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbott, J. S. C., _Christopher Carson_. _David Crockett._

Antin, Mary, _The Promised Land_.

Baldwin, James, _Four Great Americans_. [Washington, Franklin,

Webster, Lincoln.] _An American Book of Golden Deeds._

Bolton, Sarah K., _Lives of Girls Who Became Famous_. _Lives of

Poor Boys Who Became Famous._

Boutet de Monvel, Louis Maurice, _Joan of Arc_.

Brooks, Elbridge S., _True Story of Christopher Columbus_.

Cody, Col. W. F., _Adventures of Buffalo Bill_.

Franklin, Benjamin, _Autobiography_.

Golding, V., _Story of David Livingston_.

Gould, F. J., _The Children's Plutarch_. [2 vols., one of Greeks,

the other of Romans.]

Hathaway, Esse V., _Napoleon, the Little Corsican_.

Hughes, Thomas, _Alfred the Great_.

Jefferson, Joseph, _Autobiography_.

Jenks, Tudor, _Captain John Smith_.

Keller, Helen, _The Story of My Life_.

Larcom, Lucy, _A New England Girlhood_.

Mabie, Hamilton W., _Heroines Every Child Should Know_.

Moores, Charles W., _Life of Abraham Lincoln for Boys and Girls_.

Muir, John, _Story of My Boyhood and Youth_.

Nicolay, Helen, _Boy's Life of Abraham Lincoln_.

Page, Thomas Nelson, _Robert E. Lee: Man and Soldier_.

Paine, Albert Bigelow, _Boy's Life of Mark Twain_.

Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, _Roll Call of Honor_. [Bolivar, John

Brown, Abraham Lincoln, Garibaldi, David Livingston, Florence

Nightingale, Pasteur, Gordon, Father Damien.]

Richards, Laura E., _Florence Nightingale_.

Riis, Jacob, _Making of an American_.

Roosevelt, Theodore, and Lodge, Henry Cabot, _Hero Tales from

American History_.

Scudder, Horace E., _George Washington_.

Shaw, Anna Howard, _The Story of a Pioneer_.

Tarbell, Ida M., _Life of Abraham Lincoln_.

Thwaites, Reuben G., _Daniel Boone_.

Washington, Booker T., _Up from Slavery_.

White, John S., _Boys' and Girls' Plutarch_. [Preserves parallel

arrangement.]

Yonge, Charlotte M., _A Book of Golden Deeds_.

SECTION XI. BIOGRAPHY AND HERO STORIES

INTRODUCTORY

_Biography and its value._ The great charm of biography for both young

and old is in its perfect concreteness. Nothing fascinates like the

story of a real person at grips with realities. Nothing inspires like

the story of a hard-won victory over difficulties. Here are instances of

men and women, our own kindred, facing great crises in the physical or

moral realm with the calm courage and the clear mind of which we have

dreamed. Here are others who have fought the brave fight in opposition

to the stupidities and long-entrenched prejudices of their fellows. Here

are still others who have wrested from nature her innermost secrets, who

have won for us immunity against lurking diseases and dangers, who have

labored successfully against great odds to make life more safe, more

comfortable, or more beautiful. All these records of real accomplishment

appeal to the youthful spirit of emulation, and there can be no stronger

inspiration in facing the unsolved problems of the future. "What men

have done men can still do."

_The material and its presentation._ Most teachers will find the

biographical or historical story easier to handle than the imaginative

story, because there is a definite outline of fact from which to work.

Only those life stories with which the teacher is in sympathy can be

handled satisfactorily. For that reason no definite list of suitable

material is worth much, except as illustrating the wide range of choice.

Keeping these limitations in mind, we may venture a few practical hints:

1. There is a large list of heroic figures

hovering on the border line between reality and

legend of whose stories children never tire. In

such a list are the names of Leonidas, who held

the pass at Thermopylae, William Tell and

Arnold von Winkelried, favorite heroes of

Switzerland, Robert Bruce of Scotland, and that

pair of immortally faithful friends, Damon and

Pythias.

2. With Marco Polo we may visit the wonderlands

of the East, we may go with Captain Cook

through the islands of the southern seas, with

Stanley through darkest Africa, with the brave

Scott in his tragic dash for the South Pole.

Best of all, perhaps, we may, with Columbus,

discover another America.

3. How Elihu Burritt became the "learned

blacksmith," how Hugh Miller brought himself to

be an authority on the old red sandstone, are

always inspiring stories to the ambitious

student. And in any list of achievements by

those bound in by untoward circumstance must be

placed that of Booker T. Washington as told by

himself in _Up from Slavery_.

4. From our earlier history we may draw upon

such lives as those of Franklin, Washington,

and Patrick Henry. There are numberless

stirring episodes from the careers of Francis

Marion, Israel Putnam, Nathan Hale, and others

that will occur to any reader of our history.

Lincoln's life history offers an almost

inexhaustible treasure. Grant, grimly silent

and persevering, and Lee, kindly gentleman and

military genius, belong in any course that

stresses our national achievements.

5. Stories of men who have mastered the secrets

of the forces of nature never fail of interest.

Stephenson and the locomotive engine, Sir

Humphry Davy and the safety lamp, Whitney and

the cotton gin, Marconi and the wonders of

wireless communication, the Wright brothers and

the airplane, Edison and the incandescant light

and the motion picture, Luther Burbank and his

marvelous work with plants--these are only a

few to place near the head of any list.

6. Especially interesting for work in the

grades are the stories of the pioneer and

plainsman days, of Kit Carson, Davy Crockett,

Daniel Boone, and Buffalo Bill.

7. We must not neglect stories of achievement

by those who have been handicapped by great

physical disability, such as are found in the

careers of Henry Fawcett, the blind statesman

of England, and of our own Helen Keller, whose

_Story of My Life_ has become a classic source

of material.

8. The life of Joan of Arc has long been a

supreme favorite for biographical story. Its

simple directness, its fiery patriotism, its

pathetic and tragic close, give it all the

force of some great consciously designed

masterpiece. The events of such a life can be

arranged in a series or cycle of stories. Of

very different type, but of almost equally

strong appeal, is the story of the work of

Florence Nightingale, whose efforts among the

British soldiers in the terrible scenes of the

Crimean War set in motion those humanitarian

enterprises so splendidly exemplified in the

work of the Red Cross organizations.

9. Finally, no teacher should fail to make use

of many modern careers that impress upon

children the devotion of lives spent in

bettering the conditions under which people

live. Among some of these may be mentioned

Colonel George E. Waring, the sanitary engineer

who really cleaned the streets of New York;

General W. C. Gorgas, who led in the conquest

of the great yellow fever plague; Dr. Wilfred

Grenfell, still spending his life for the

natives of bleak Labrador; and the famous

French scientist, Louis Pasteur, who found out

for us how to preserve milk and how to escape

the dread hydrophobia. Such careers devoted to

ameliorating the evils incident to civilization

are of great value in stirring into active

existence the latent spirit of service in every

pupil.

10. Wide-awake teachers will constantly find in

the periodicals of the day many episodes of

achievement by men and women working in various

fields of helpfulness. Such present-day

accomplishments should be emphasized. We live

in the present, and the duties and

opportunities of the present are to furnish the

inspirations and indicate the fields of

possible achievement for us.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

For a very practical discussion of biographical

stories see Lyman, _Story Telling_, chap. v.

The great classic sources of inspiration on the

subject are Carlyle, _Heroes and Hero Worship_,

and Emerson, _Representative Men_. Of special

value is the opening chapter in the latter

book, "Uses of Great Men."

415

Elbridge S. Brooks (1846-1902) was a well-known

American writer of juvenile books on history,

government, and biography. His _True Story of

Christopher Columbus_, from which the following

selection was taken, is a well-written book

that pupils in the fifth and sixth grades read

with pleasure. _The Century Book for Young

Americans_ is a story of our government. Other

books by the same author are _The True Story of

George Washington_, _The True Story of

Lafayette_, and _The True Story of U. S.

Grant_. ("How Columbus Got His Ships" is used

here by permission of the publishers, Lothrop,

Lee & Shepard Co., Boston.)

HOW COLUMBUS GOT HIS SHIPS

ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS

When Columbus was at school he had studied about a certain man named

Pythagoras, who had lived in Greece thousands of years before he was

born, and who had said that the earth was round "like a ball or an

orange." As Columbus grew older and made maps and studied the sea, and

read books and listened to what other people said, he began to believe

that this man named Pythagoras might be right, and that the earth was

round, though everybody declared it was flat. "If it is round," he said

to himself, "what is the use of trying to sail around Africa to get to

Cathay? Why not just sail west from Italy or Spain and keep going right

around the world until you strike Cathay? I believe it could be done,"

said Columbus.

By this time Columbus was a man. He was thirty years old and was a great

sailor. He had been captain of a number of vessels; he had sailed north

and south and east; he knew all about a ship and all about the sea. But,

though he was a good sailor, when he said that he believed the earth was

round, everybody laughed at him and said that he was crazy. "Why, how

can the earth be round?" they cried. "The water would all spill out if

it were, and the men who live on the other side would all be standing on

their heads with their feet waving in the air." And then they laughed

all the harder.

But Columbus did not think it was anything to laugh at. He believed it

so strongly and felt so sure that he was right, that he set to work to

find some king or prince or great lord to let him have ships and sailors

and money enough to try to find a way to Cathay by sailing out into the

West and across the Atlantic Ocean.

Now this Atlantic Ocean, the western waves of which break upon our rocks

and beaches, was thought in Columbus's day to be a dreadful place.

People called it the Sea of Darkness, because they did not know what was

on the other side of it, or what dangers lay beyond that distant blue

rim where the sky and water seem to meet, and which we call the horizon.

They thought the ocean stretched to the end of a flat world, straight

away to a sort of "jumping-off place," and that in this jumping-off

place were giants and goblins and dragons and monsters and all sorts of

terrible things that would catch the ships and destroy them and the

sailors.

So when Columbus said that he wanted to sail away toward this dreadful

jumping-off place, the people said that he was worse than crazy. They

said he was a wicked man and ought to be punished.

But they could not frighten Columbus. He kept on trying. He went from

place to place trying to get the ships and sailors he wanted and was

bound to have. As you will see later, he tried to get help wherever he

thought it could be had. He asked the people of his own home, the city

of Genoa, where he had lived and played when a boy; he asked the people

of the beautiful city that is built in the sea--Venice; he tried the

king of Portugal, the king of England, the king of France, the king and

queen of Spain. But for a long time nobody cared to listen to such a

wild and foolish and dangerous plan--to go to Cathay by the way of the

Sea of Darkness and the jumping-off place. "You would never get there

alive," they said.

And so Columbus waited. And his hair grew white while he waited, though

he was not yet an old man. He had thought and worked and hoped so much

that he began to look like an old man when he was forty years old. But

still he would never say that perhaps he was wrong, after all. He said

he knew he was right, and that some day he should find the Indies and

sail to Cathay.

I do not wish you to think that Columbus was the first man to say that

the earth was round, or the first to sail to the West over the Atlantic

Ocean. He was not. Other men had said that they believed the earth was

round; other men had sailed out into the Atlantic Ocean. But no sailor

who believed the earth was round had ever tried to prove that it was by

crossing the Atlantic. So, you see, Columbus was really the first man to

say, I believe the earth is round and I will show you that it is by

sailing to the lands that are on the other side of the earth.

He even figured out how far it was around the world. Your geography, you

know, tells you now that what is called the circumference of the

earth--that is, a straight line drawn right around it--is nearly

twenty-five thousand miles. Columbus had figured it up pretty carefully

and he thought it was about twenty thousand miles. "If I could start

from Genoa," he said, "and walk straight ahead until I got back to Genoa

again, I should walk about twenty thousand miles." Cathay, he thought,

would take up so much land on the other side of the world that, if he

went west instead of east, he would only need to sail about twenty-five

hundred or three thousand miles.

If you have studied your geography carefully you will see what a mistake

he made.

It is really about twelve thousand miles from Spain to China (or Cathay

as he called it). But America is just about three thousand miles from

Spain, and if you read all this story you will see how Columbus's

mistake really helped him to discover America.

I have told you that Columbus had a longing to do something great from

the time when, as a little boy, he had hung around the wharves in Genoa

and looked at the ships sailing east and west and talked with the

sailors and wished that he could go to sea. Perhaps what he had learned

at school--how some men said that the earth was round--and what he had

learned on the wharves about the wonders of Cathay set him to thinking

and dreaming that it might be possible for a ship to sail around the

world without falling off. At any rate, he kept on thinking and dreaming

and longing until, at last, he began doing.

Some of the sailors sent out by Prince Henry of Portugal, of whom I have

told you, in their trying to sail around Africa discovered two groups

of islands out in the Atlantic that they called the Azores, or Isles of

Hawks, and the Canaries, or Isles of Dogs. When Columbus was in Portugal

in 1470 he became acquainted with a young woman whose name was Philippa

Perestrelo. In 1473 he married her.

Now Philippa's father, before his death, had been governor of Porto

Santo, one of the Azores, and Columbus and his wife went off there to

live. In the governor's house Columbus found a lot of charts and maps

that told him about parts of the ocean that he had never before seen,

and made him feel certain that he was right in saying that if he sailed

away to the West he should find Cathay.

At that time there was an old man who lived in Florence, a city of

Italy. His name was Toscanelli. He was a great scholar and studied the

stars and made maps, and was a very wise man. Columbus knew what a wise

old scholar Toscanelli was, for Florence is not very far from Genoa. So

while he was living in the Azores he wrote to this old scholar asking

him what he thought about his idea that a man could sail around the

world until he reached the land called the Indies and at last found

Cathay.

Toscanelli wrote to Columbus saying that he believed his idea was the

right one, and he said it would be a grand thing to do, if Columbus

dared to try it. "Perhaps," he said, "you can find all those splendid

things that I know are in Cathay--the great cities with marble bridges,

the houses of marble covered with gold, the jewels and the spices and

the precious stones, and all the other wonderful and magnificent things.

I do not wonder you wish to try," he said, "for if you find Cathay it

will be a wonderful thing for you and for Portugal."

That settled it with Columbus. If this wise old scholar said he was

right, he must be right. So he left his home in the Azores and went to

Portugal. This was in 1475, and from that time on, for seventeen long

years he was trying to get some king or prince to help him sail to the

West to find Cathay.

But not one of the people who could have helped him, if they had really

wished to, believed in Columbus. As I told you, they said that he was

crazy. The king of Portugal, whose name was John, did a very unkind

thing--I am sure you would call it a mean trick. Columbus had gone to

him with his story and asked for ships and sailors. The king and his

chief men refused to help him; but King John said to himself, "Perhaps

there is something in this worth looking after and, if so, perhaps I can

have my own people find Cathay and save the money that Columbus will

want to keep for himself as his share of what he finds." So one day he

copied off the sailing directions that Columbus had left with him, and

gave them to one of his own captains without letting Columbus know

anything about it. The Portuguese captain sailed away to the West in the

direction Columbus had marked down, but a great storm came up and so

frightened the sailors that they turned around in a hurry. Then they

hunted up Columbus and began to abuse him for getting them into such a

scrape. "You might as well expect to find land in the sky," they said,

"as in those terrible waters."

And when, in this way, Columbus found out that King John had tried to

use his ideas without letting him know anything about it, he was very

angry. His wife had died in the midst of this mean trick of the

Portuguese king, and so, taking with him his little five-year-old son,

Diego, he left Portugal secretly and went over into Spain.

Near the little town of Palos, in western Spain, is a green hill looking

out toward the Atlantic. Upon this hill stands an old building that,

four hundred years ago, was used as a convent or home for priests. It

was called the Convent of Rabida, and the priest at the head of it was

named the Friar Juan Perez. One autumn day, in the year 1484, Friar Juan

Perez saw a dusty traveler with a little boy talking with the

gate-keeper of the convent. The stranger was so tall and fine-looking,

and seemed such an interesting man, that Friar Juan went out and began

to talk with him. This man was Columbus.

As they talked, the priest grew more and more interested in what

Columbus said. He invited him into the convent to stay for a few days,

and he asked some other people--the doctors of Palos and some of the sea

captains and sailors of the town--to come and talk with this stranger

who had such a singular idea about sailing across the Atlantic.

It ended in Columbus's staying some months in Palos, waiting for a

chance to go and see the king and queen. At last, in 1485, he set out

for the Spanish court with a letter to a priest who was a friend of

Friar Juan's, and who could help him to see the king and queen.

At that time the king and queen of Spain were fighting to drive out of

Spain the people called the Moors. These people came from Africa, but

they had lived in Spain for many years and had once been a very rich and

powerful nation. They were not Spaniards; they were not Christians. So

all Spaniards and all Christians hated them and tried to drive them out

of Europe.

The king and queen of Spain who were fighting the Moors were named

Ferdinand and Isabella. They were pretty good people as kings and queens

went in those days, but they did a great many very cruel and very mean

things, just as the kings and queens of those days were apt to do. I am

afraid we should not think they were very nice people nowadays. We

certainly should not wish our American boys and girls to look up to them

as good and true and noble.

When Columbus first came to them, they were with the army in the camp

near the city of Cordova. The king and queen had no time to listen to

what they thought were crazy plans, and poor Columbus could get no one

to talk with him who could be of any help. So he was obliged to go back

to drawing maps and selling books to make enough money to support

himself and his little Diego.

But at last, through the friend of good Friar Juan Perez of Rabida, who

was a priest at the court, and named Talavera, and to whom he had a

letter of introduction, Columbus found a chance to talk over his plans

with a number of priests and scholars in the city of Salamanca where

there was a famous college and many learned men.

Columbus told his story. He said what he wished to do, and asked these

learned men to say a good word for him to Ferdinand and Isabella so that

he could have the ships and sailors to sail to Cathay. But it was of no

use.

"What! sail away around the world?" those wise men cried in horror.

"Why, you are crazy! The world is not round; it is flat. Your ships

would tumble off the edge of the world and all the king's money and all

the king's men would be lost. No, no; go away; you must not trouble the

queen or even mention such a ridiculous thing again."

So the most of them said. But one or two thought it might be worth

trying. Cathay was a very rich country, and if this foolish fellow were

willing to run the risk and did succeed, it would be a good thing for

Spain, as the king and queen would need a great deal of money after the

war with the Moors was over. At any rate, it was a chance worth thinking

about.

And so, although Columbus was dreadfully disappointed, he thought that

if he had only a few friends at Court who were ready to say a good word

for him he must not give up, but must try, try again. And so he stayed

in Spain.

When you wish very much to do a certain thing, it is dreadfully hard to

be patient: it is harder still to have to wait. Columbus had to do both.

The wars against the Moors were of much greater interest to the king and

queen of Spain than was the finding of a new and very uncertain way to

get to Cathay. If it had not been for the patience and what we call the

persistence of Columbus, America would never have been discovered--at

least not in his time.

He stayed in Spain. He grew poorer and poorer. He was almost friendless.

It seemed as if his great enterprise must be given up. But he never lost

hope. He never stopped trying. Even when he failed, he kept on hoping

and kept on trying. He felt certain that sometime he should succeed.

As we have seen, he tried to interest the rulers of different countries,

but without success. He tried to get help from his old home-town of

Genoa and failed; he tried Portugal and failed; he tried the Republic of

Venice and failed; he tried the king and queen of Spain and failed; he

tried some of the richest and most powerful of the nobles of Spain and

failed; he tried the king of England (whom he got his brother,

Bartholomew Columbus, to see) and failed. There was still left the king

of France. He would make one last attempt to win the king and queen of

Spain to his side and if he failed with them he would try the last of

the rulers of Western Europe, the king of France.

He followed the king and queen of Spain as they went from place to place

fighting the Moors. He hoped that some day, when they wished to think of

something besides fighting, they might think of him and the gold and

jewels and spices of Cathay.

The days grew into months, the months into years, and still the war

against the Moors kept on; and still Columbus waited for the chance that

did not come. People grew to know him as "the crazy explorer" as they

met him in the streets or on the church steps of Seville or Cordova, and

even ragged little boys of the town, sharp-eyed and shrill-voiced as

such ragged little urchins are, would run after this big man with the

streaming white hair and the tattered cloak, calling him names or

tapping their brown little foreheads with their dirty fingers to show

that even they knew that he was "as crazy as a loon."

At last he decided to make one more attempt before giving it up in

Spain. His money was gone; his friends were few; but he remembered his

acquaintances at Palos and so he journeyed back to see once more his

good friend Friar Juan Perez at the Convent of Rabida on the hill that

looked out upon the Atlantic he was so anxious to cross.

It was in the month of November, 1491, that he went back to the Convent

of Rabida. If he could not get any encouragement there, he was

determined to stay in Spain no longer but to go away and try the king of

France.

Once more he talked over the finding of Cathay with the priests and the

sailors of Palos. They saw how patient he was; how persistent he was;

how he would never give up his ideas until he had tried them. They were

moved by his determination. They began to believe in him more and more.

They resolved to help him. One of the principal sea captains of Palos

was named Martin Alonso Pinzon. He became so interested that he offered

to lend Columbus money enough to make one last appeal to the king and

queen of Spain, and if Columbus should succeed with them, this Captain

Pinzon said he would go into partnership with Columbus and help him out

when it came to getting ready to sail to Cathay.

This was a move in the right direction. At once a messenger was sent to

the splendid Spanish camp before the city of Granada, the last

unconquered city of the Moors of Spain. The king and queen of Spain had

been so long trying to capture Granada that this camp was really a city,

with gates and walls and houses. It was called Santa Fe. Queen Isabella,

who was in Santa Fe, after some delay, agreed to hear more about the

crazy scheme of this persistent Genoese sailor, and the Friar Juan Perez

was sent for. He talked so well in behalf of his friend Columbus that

the queen became still more interested. She ordered Columbus to come and

see her, and sent him sixty-five dollars to pay for a mule, a new suit

of clothes, and the journey to court.

About Christmas time, in the year 1491, Columbus, mounted upon his mule,

rode into the Spanish camp before the city of Granada. But even now,

when he had been told to come, he had to wait. Granada was almost

captured; the Moors were almost conquered. At last the end came. On the

second of January, 1492, the Moorish king gave up the keys of his

beloved city, and the great Spanish banner was hoisted on the highest

tower of the Alhambra--the handsomest building in Granada and one of the

most beautiful in the world. The Moors were driven out of Spain and

Columbus's chance had come.

So he appeared before Queen Isabella and her chief men and told them

again of all his plans and desires. The queen and her advisers sat in a

great room in that splendid Alhambra I have told you of. King Ferdinand

was not there. He did not believe in Columbus and did not wish to let

him have money, ships, or sailors to lose in such a foolish way. But as

Columbus stood before her and talked so earnestly about how he expected

to find the Indies and Cathay and what he hoped to bring away from

there, Queen Isabella listened and thought the plan worth trying.

Then a singular thing happened. You would think if you wished for

something very much that you would be willing to give up a good deal for

the sake of getting it. Columbus had worked and waited for seventeen

years. He had never got what he wanted. He was always being

disappointed. And yet, as he talked to the queen and told her what he

wished to do, he said he must have so much as a reward for doing it that

the queen and her chief men were simply amazed at his--well, what the

boys to-day call "cheek"--that they would have nothing to do with him.

This man really is crazy, they said. This poor Genoese sailor comes here

without a thing except his very odd ideas and almost "wants the earth"

as a reward. This is not exactly what they said, but it is what they

meant.

His few friends begged him to be more modest. "Do not ask so much," they

said, "or you will get nothing." But Columbus was determined. "I have

worked and waited all these years," he replied. "I know just what I can

do and just how much I can do for the king and queen of Spain. They must

pay me what I ask and promise what I say, or I will go somewhere else."

"Go, then!" said the queen and her advisers. And Columbus turned his

back on what seemed almost his last hope, mounted his mule, and rode

away.

Then something else happened. As Columbus rode off to find the French

king, sick and tired of all his long and useless labor at the Spanish

court, his few firm friends there saw that, unless they did something

right away, all the glory and all the gain of this enterprise Columbus

had taught them to believe in would be lost to Spain. So two of them,

whose names were Santangel and Quintanilla, rushed into the queen's room

and begged her, if she wished to become the greatest queen in

Christendom, to call back this wandering sailor, agree to his terms, and

profit by his labors.

What if he does ask a great deal? they said. He has spent his life

thinking his plan out; no wonder he feels that he ought to have a good

share of what he finds. What he asks is really small compared with what

Spain will gain. The war with the Moors has cost you ever so much; your

money chests are empty; Columbus will fill them up. The people of Cathay

are heathen; Columbus will help you make them Christian men. The Indies

and Cathay are full of gold and jewels; Columbus will bring you home

shiploads of treasures. Spain has conquered the Moors; Columbus will

help you conquer Cathay.

In fact, they talked to Queen Isabella so strongly and so earnestly,

that she, too, became excited over this chance for glory and riches that

she had almost lost. "Quick! send for Columbus. Call him back!" said

she. "I agree to his terms. If King Ferdinand cannot or will not take

the risk, I, the queen, will do it all. Quick! do not let the man get

into France. After him. Bring him back!"

And without delay a royal messenger, mounted on a swift horse, was sent

at full gallop to bring Columbus back.

All this time poor Columbus felt bad enough. Everything had gone wrong.

Now he must go away into a new land and do it all over again. Kings and

queens, he felt, were not to be depended upon, and he remembered a place

in the Bible where it said: "Put not your trust in princes." Sad,

solitary, and heavy-hearted, he jogged slowly along toward the

mountains, wondering what the king of France would say to him, and

whether it was really worth trying.

Just as he was riding across the little bridge called the Bridge of

Pinos, some six miles from Granada, he heard the quick hoof-beats of a

horse behind him. It was a great spot for robbers, and Columbus felt of

the little money he had in his traveling pouch, and wondered whether he

must lose it all. The hoof-beats came nearer. Then a voice hailed him.

"Turn back, turn back!" the messenger cried out. "The queen bids you

return to Granada. She grants you all you ask."

Columbus hesitated. Ought he to trust this promise, he wondered. Put not

your trust in princes, the verse in the Bible had said. If I go back I

may only be put off and worried as I have been before. And yet, perhaps

she means what she says. At any rate, I will go back and try once more.

So, on the little Bridge of Pinos, he turned his mule around and rode

back to Granada. And, sure enough, when he saw Queen Isabella she agreed

to all that he asked. If he found Cathay, Columbus was to be made

admiral for life of all the new seas and oceans into which he might

sail; he was to be chief ruler of all the lands he might find; he was to

keep one tenth part of all the gold and jewels and treasures he should

bring away, and was to have his "say" in all questions about the new

lands. For his part (and this was because of the offer of his friend at

Palos, Captain Pinzon) he agreed to pay one eighth of all the expenses

of this expedition and of all new enterprises, and was to have one

eighth of all the profits from them.

So Columbus had his wish at last. The queen's men figured up how much

money they could let him have; they called him "Don Christopher

Columbus," "Your Excellency," and "Admiral," and at once he set about

getting ready for his voyage.

416

Most children who read public library books

know something about the work of Horace E.

Scudder (1838-1902). For eight years he was

editor of the _Atlantic Monthly_, but he is

more widely known as a writer and compiler of

books for children. The entertaining and

informing _Bodley Books_ were widely read by a

former generation and are still decidedly worth

reading. Perhaps his most popular work is _The

Children's Book_, a collection of literature

suitable for the first four grades. Pupils in

the third, fourth, and fifth grades read with

pleasure _The Book of Fables_, _The Book of

Folk Stories_, _Fables and Folk Stories_, and

_The Book of Legends_. Mr. Scudder was the

leading advocate of introducing literature into

the schools at a time when such advocacy was

uphill work, and he edited a great number of

literary classics for school use. He wrote a

number of historical and biographical works of

value. _George Washington_, from which the next

selection is taken, is considered by many to be

the best biography of Washington that has been

written for children. (The chapter below is

used by permission of and special arrangement

with The Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.)

THE BOYHOOD OF WASHINGTON

HORACE E. SCUDDER

It was near the shore of the Potomac River, between Pope's Creek and

Bridge's Creek, that Augustine Washington lived when his son George was

born. The land had been in the family ever since Augustine's

grandfather, John Washington, had bought it, when he came over from

England in 1657. John Washington was a soldier and a public-spirited

man, and so the parish in which he lived--for Virginia was divided into

parishes as some other colonies into townships--was named Washington.

It is a quiet neighborhood; not a sign remains of the old house, and the

only mark of the place is a stone slab, broken and overgrown with weeds

and brambles, which lies on a bed of bricks taken from the remnants of

the old chimney of the house. It bears the inscription:--

Here

The 11th of February, 1732 (old style)

George Washington

was born

The English had lately agreed to use the calendar of Pope Gregory, which

added eleven days to the reckoning, but people still used the old style

as well as the new. By the new style, the birthday was February 22, and

that is the day which is now observed. The family into which the child

was born consisted of the father and mother, Augustine and Mary

Washington, and two boys, Lawrence and Augustine. These were sons of

Augustine Washington by a former wife who had died four years before.

George Washington was the eldest of the children of Augustine and Mary

Washington; he had afterward three brothers and two sisters, but one of

the sisters died in infancy.

It was not long after George Washington's birth that the house in which

he was born was burned, and as his father was at the time especially

interested in some iron-works at a distance, it was determined not to

rebuild upon the lonely place. Accordingly Augustine Washington removed

his family to a place which he owned in Stafford County, on the banks of

the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg. The house is not now

standing, but a picture was made of it before it was destroyed. It was,

like many Virginia houses of the day, divided into four rooms on a

floor, and had great outside chimneys at either end.

Here George Washington spent his childhood. He learned to read, write,

and cipher at a small school kept by Hobby, the sexton of the parish

church. Among his playmates was Richard Henry Lee, who was afterward a

famous Virginian. When the boys grew up, they wrote to each other of

grave matters of war and state, but here is the beginning of their

correspondence, written when they were nine years old:--

"Richard Henry Lee to George Washington:

"Pa brought me two pretty books full of

pictures he got them in Alexandria they have

pictures of dogs and cats and tigers and

elefants and ever so many pretty things cousin

bids me send you one of them it has a picture

of an elefant and a little Indian boy on his

back like uncle jo's sam pa says if I learn my

tasks good he will let uncle jo bring me to see

you will you ask your ma to let you come to see

me.

"Richard henry Lee."

"George Washington to Richard Henry Lee:

"Dear Dickey I thank you very much for the

pretty picturebook you gave me. Sam asked me to

show him the pictures and I showed him all the

pictures in it; and I read to him how the tame

elephant took care of the master's little boy,

and put him on his back and would not let

anybody touch his master's little son. I can

read three or four pages sometimes without

missing a word. Ma says I may go to see you,

and stay all day with you next week if it be

not rainy. She says I may ride my pony Hero if

Uncle Ben will go with me and lead Hero. I have

a little piece of poetry about the picture book

you gave me, but I mustn't tell you who wrote

the poetry.

"G. W.'s compliments to R. H. L.,

And likes his book full well,

Henceforth will count him his friend,

And hopes many happy days he may spend.

"Your good friend,

"George Washington.

"I am going to get a whip top soon, and you may

see it and whip it."

It looks very much as if Richard Henry sent his letter off just as it

was written. I suspect that his correspondent's letter was looked over,

corrected, and copied before it was sent. Very possibly Augustine

Washington was absent at the time on one of his journeys; but at any

rate the boy owed most of his training to his mother, for only two years

after this his father died, and he was left to his mother's care.

She was a woman born to command, and since she was left alone with a

family and an estate to care for, she took the reins into her own hands,

and never gave them up to any one else. She used to drive about in an

old-fashioned open chaise, visiting the various parts of her farm, just

as a planter would do on horseback. The story is told that she had given

an agent directions how to do a piece of work, and he had seen fit to do

it differently, because he thought his way a better one. He showed her

the improvement.

"And pray," said the lady, "who gave you any exercise of judgment in the

matter? I command you, sir; there is nothing left for you but to obey."

In those days, more than now, a boy used very formal language when

addressing his mother. He might love her warmly, but he was expected to

treat her with a great show of respect. When Washington wrote to his

mother, even after he was of age, he began his letter, "Honored Madam,"

and signed it, "Your dutiful son." This was a part of the manners of the

time. It was like the stiff dress which men wore when they paid their

respects to others; it was put on for the occasion, and one would have

been thought very unmannerly who did not make a marked difference

between his every-day dress and that which he wore when he went into the

presence of his betters. So Washington, when he wrote to his mother,

would not be so rude as to say, "Dear Mother."

Such habits as this go deeper than mere forms of speech. I do not

suppose that the sons of this lady feared her, but they stood in awe of

her, which is quite a different thing.

"We were all as mute as mice, when in her presence," says one of

Washington's companions; and common report makes her to have been very

much such a woman as her son afterward was a man.

I think that George Washington owed two strong traits to his mother--a

governing spirit and a spirit of order and method. She taught him many

lessons and gave him many rules; but, after all, it was her character

shaping his which was most powerful. She taught him to be truthful, but

her lessons were not half so forcible as her own truthfulness.

There is a story told of George Washington's boyhood--unfortunately

there are not many stories--which is to the point. His father had taken

a great deal of pride in his blooded horses, and his mother afterward

took pains to keep the stock pure. She had several young horses that had

not yet been broken, and one of them in particular, a sorrel, was

extremely spirited. No one had been able to do anything with it, and it

was pronounced thoroughly vicious, as people are apt to pronounce horses

which they have not learned to master. George was determined to ride

this colt, and told his companions that if they would help him catch it,

he would ride and tame it.

Early in the morning they set out for the pasture, where the boys

managed to surround the sorrel and then to put a bit into its mouth.

Washington sprang upon its back, the boys dropped the bridle, and away

flew the angry animal. Its rider at once began to command; the horse

resisted, backing about the field, rearing and plunging. The boys became

thoroughly alarmed, but Washington kept his seat, never once losing his

self-control or his mastery of the colt. The struggle was a sharp one;

when suddenly, as if determined to rid itself of its rider, the creature

leaped into the air with a tremendous bound. It was its last. The

violence burst a blood-vessel, and the noble horse fell dead.

Before the boys could sufficiently recover to consider how they should

extricate themselves from the scrape, they were called to breakfast; and

the mistress of the house, knowing that they had been in the fields,

began to ask after her stock.

"Pray, young gentlemen," said she, "have you seen my blooded colts in

your rambles? I hope they are well taken care of. My favorite, I am

told, is as large as his sire."

The boys looked at one another, and no one liked to speak. Of course the

mother repeated her question.

"The sorrel is dead, madam," said her son. "I killed him!"

And then he told the whole story. They say that his mother flushed with

anger, as her son often used to, and then, like him, controlled herself,

and presently said, quietly:--

"It is well; but while I regret the loss of my favorite, I rejoice in my

son who always speaks the truth."

The story of Washington's killing the blooded colt is of a piece with

other stories less particular, which show that he was a very athletic

fellow. Of course, when a boy becomes famous, every one likes to

remember the wonderful things he did before he was famous; and

Washington's playmates, when they grew up, used to show the spot by the

Rappahannock, near Fredericksburg, where he stood and threw a stone to

the opposite bank; and at the celebrated Natural Bridge, the arch of

which is two hundred feet above the ground, they always tell the visitor

that George Washington threw a stone in the air the whole height. He

undoubtedly took part in all the sports which were the favorites of his

country at that time--he pitched heavy bars, tossed quoits, ran, leaped,

and wrestled; for he was a powerful, large-limbed young fellow, and he

had a very large and strong hand.

417

The _Autobiography_ by Benjamin Franklin

(1706-1790) has become a classic in American

literature. Its simple style, practical

doctrine of industry and economy, and pleasing

revelation of the character of one of America's

greatest statesmen make it appropriate for use

in the seventh and eighth grades. (See also

note to No. 250.)

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his business,

which was that of a tallow-chandler and soap-boiler, a business he was

not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on

finding his dyeing trade would not maintain his family, being in little

request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the candles,

filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the

shop, going of errands, etc.

I continued thus employed in my father's business for two years, that

is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who was bred to

that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself at

Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was destined to supply his

place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the trade

continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not find

one for me more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as his

son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took

me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers,

etc., at their work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor

to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever since been a

pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been

useful to me, having learned so much by it as to be able to do little

jobs myself in my house when a workman could not readily be got, and to

construct little machines for my experiments, while the intention of

making the experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last

fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who

was bred to that business in London, being about that time established

in Boston, I was sent to be with him some time on liking. But his

expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken home

again.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came

into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the _Pilgrim's

Progress_, my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate

little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's

_Historical Collections_. They were small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40

or 50 in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in

polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted

that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper

books had not fallen in my way, since it was now resolved I should not

be a clergyman. Plutarch's _Lives_ there was in which I read abundantly,

and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a

book of De Foe's, called an _Essay on Projects_, and another of Dr.

Mather's, called _Essays to do Good_, which perhaps gave me a turn of

thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of

my life.

This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a

printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In

1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters to

set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my

father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the

apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to

have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was

persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years

old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age,

only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a

little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a

useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An

acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to

borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often

I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the

book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the

morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.

And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a

pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took

notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such

books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some

little pieces; my brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged

me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called _The

Lighthouse Tragedy_, and contained an account of the drowning of Captain

Worthilake, with his two daughters: the other was a sailor's song, on

the taking of _Teach_ (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were wretched

stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style; and when they were printed he

sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the

event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity;

but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling

me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most

probably a very bad one; but as prose writing has been of great use to

me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my

advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what

little ability I have in that way.

There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with

whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond

we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which

disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making

people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that

is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and

spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps,

enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by

reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good

sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers,

university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinburgh.

A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me,

of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their

abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that

they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a

little for dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready

plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his

fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without

settling the point, and were not to see one another again for some time,

I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent

to him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters of a side had

passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read them. Without

entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the

manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my

antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I owed to the

printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method

and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw

the justice of his remarks, and thence grew more attentive to the manner

in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the _Spectator_. It was the

third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over

and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing

excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took

some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each

sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the

book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted

sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in

any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my

_Spectator_ with the original, discovered some of my faults, and

corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in

recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired

before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual

occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit

the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me

under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have

tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it.

Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and,

after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them

back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into

confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best

order, before I began to form the full sentences and complete the paper.

This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing

my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and

amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in

certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve

the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might

possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was

extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at

night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when

I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, avoiding as much as I

could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to

exact of me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought

a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practice

it.

When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by

one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it.

My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself

and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh

occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my

singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing

some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty

pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that if he

would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would

board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I

could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying

books. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going

from the printing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, and,

dispatching presently my light repast, which often was no more than a

biscuit or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the

pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, had the rest of the time till their

return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from that

greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend

temperance in eating and drinking.

And now it was that, being on some occasion made ashamed of my ignorance

in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at school, I took

Cocker's book of arithmetic, and went through the whole by myself with

great ease. I also read Seller's and Shermy's books of navigation, and

became acquainted with the little geometry they contain; but never

proceeded far in that science. And I read about this time Locke _On

Human Understanding_, and the _Art of Thinking_, by Messrs. du Port

Royal.

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English

grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were two

little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing

with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I

procured Xenophon's _Memorable Things of Socrates_, wherein there are

many instances of the same method. I was charmed with it, adopted it,

dropped my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on

the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading

Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our

religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very

embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight

in it, practiced it continually, and grew very artful and expert in

drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the

consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in

difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so

obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I

continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining

only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never

using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the

words _certainly_, _undoubtedly_, or any others that give the air of

positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a

thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or _I should think it so or

so_, for such and such reasons; or _I imagine it to be so_; or _it is

so, if I am not mistaken_. This habit, I believe, has been of great

advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinion, and

persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged

in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to _inform_ or

to be _informed_, to _please_ or to _persuade_, I wish well-meaning,

sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive,

assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create

opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech

was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure.

For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing

your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid

attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of

others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fixed in

your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love

disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of

your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend

yourself in _pleasing_ your hearers, or to persuade those whose

concurrence you desire. Pope says, judiciously:

"Men should be taught as if you taught them not,

And things unknown propos'd as things forgot";

farther recommending to us

"To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence."

And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled with

another, I think, less properly:

"For want of modesty is want of sense."

If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines:

"Immodest words admit of no defense,

For want of modesty is want of sense."

Now, is not _want of sense_ (where a man is so unfortunate as to want

it) some apology for his _want of modesty_? and would not the lines

stand more justly thus?

"Immodest words admit _but_ this defense,

That want of modesty is want of sense."

This, however, I should submit to better judgments.

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the

second that appeared in America, and was called the _New England

Courant_. The only one before it was the _Boston News-Letter_. I

remember his being dissuaded by some of his friends from the

undertaking, as not likely to succeed, one newspaper being, in their

judgment, enough for America. At this time (1771) there are not less

than five-and-twenty. He went on, however, with the undertaking, and

after having worked in composing the types and printing off the sheets,

I was employed to carry the papers through the streets to the customers.

He had some ingenious men among his friends, who amused themselves by

writing little pieces for this paper, which gained it credit and made it

more in demand, and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their

conversations, and their accounts of the approbation their papers were

received with, I was excited to try my hand among them; but, being still

a boy, and suspecting that my brother would object to printing any thing

of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I contrived to disguise

my hand, and, writing an anonymous paper, I put it in at night under the

door of the printing-house. It was found in the morning, and

communicated to his writing friends when they called in as usual. They

read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I had the exquisite pleasure

of finding it met with their approbation, and that, in their different

guesses at the author, none were named but men of some character among

us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose now that I was rather lucky in

my judges and that perhaps they were not really so very good ones as I

then esteemed them.

* * * * *

I then thought of going to New York, as the nearest place where there

was a printer; and I was rather inclined to leave Boston when I

reflected that I had already made myself a little obnoxious to the

governing party, and, from the arbitrary proceedings of the Assembly in

my brother's case, it was likely I might, if I stayed, soon bring myself

into scrapes; and farther, that my indiscrete disputations about

religion began to make me pointed at with horror by good people as an

infidel or atheist. I determined on the point, but my father now siding

with my brother, I was sensible that, if I attempted to go openly, means

would be used to prevent me. My friend Collins, therefore, undertook to

manage a little for me. He agreed with the captain of a New York sloop

for my passage, under the notion of my being a young acquaintance of

his, that had got into trouble, and therefore could not appear or come

away publicly. So I sold some of my books to raise a little money, was

taken on board privately, and as we had a fair wind, in three days I

found myself in New York, near 300 miles from home, a boy of but 17,

without the least recommendation to, or knowledge of any person in the

place, and with very little money in my pocket.

My inclinations for the sea were by this time worn out, or I might now

have gratified them. But, having a trade, and supposing myself a pretty

good workman, I offered my service to the printer in the place, old Mr.

William Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, but

removed from thence upon the quarrel of George Keith. He could give me

no employment, having little to do, and help enough already; but says

he, "My son at Philadelphia has lately lost his principal hand, Aquila

Rose, by death; if you go thither, I believe he may employ you."

Philadelphia was a hundred miles further; I set out, however, in a boat

for Amboy, leaving my chest and things to follow me round by sea.

In crossing the bay, we met with a squall that tore our rotten sails to

pieces, prevented our getting into the Kill, and drove us upon Long

Island. On our way, a drunken Dutchman, who was a passenger too, fell

overboard; when he was sinking, I reached through the water to his shock

pate, and drew him up, so that we got him in again. His ducking sobered

him a little, and he went to sleep, taking first out of his pocket a

book, which he desired I would dry for him. It proved to be my old

favorite author, Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, in Dutch, finely printed

on good paper, with copper cuts, a dress better than I had ever seen it

wear in its own language. I have since found that it has been translated

into most of the languages of Europe, and suppose it has been more

generally read than any other book, except perhaps the Bible. Honest

John was the first that I know of who mixed narration and dialogue; a

method of writing very engaging to the reader, who in the most

interesting parts finds himself, as it were, brought into the company

and present at the discourse. De Foe in his _Crusoe_, his _Moll

Flanders_, _Religious Courtship_, _Family Instructor_, and other pieces,

has imitated it with success; and Richardson has done the same in his

_Pamela_, etc.

When we drew near the island, we found it was at a place where there

could be no landing, there being a great surf on the stony beach. So we

dropped anchor, and swung around towards the shore. Some people came

down to the water edge and hallooed to us, as we did to them; but the

wind was so high, and the surf so loud, that we could not hear so as to

understand each other. There were canoes on the shore, and we made

signs, and hallooed that they should fetch us; but they either did not

understand us, or thought it impracticable, so they went away, and night

coming on, we had no remedy but to wait till the wind should abate; and,

in the meantime, the boatman and I concluded to sleep, if we could; and

so crowded into the scuttle, with the Dutchman, who was still wet, and

the spray beating over the head of our boat, leaked through to us, so

that we were soon almost as wet as he. In this manner we lay all night,

with very little rest; but, the wind abating the next day, we made a

shift to reach Amboy before night, having been thirty hours on the

water, without victuals, or any drink but a bottle of filthy rum, the

water we sailed on being salt.

In the evening I found myself very feverish, and went in to bed; but,

having read somewhere that cold water drunk plentifully was good for a

fever, I followed the prescription, sweat plentifully most of the night,

my fever left me, and in the morning, crossing the ferry, I proceeded on

my journey on foot, having fifty miles to Burlington, where I was told I

should find boats that would carry me the rest of the way to

Philadelphia.

It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly soaked, and by noon a

good deal tired; so I stopped at a poor inn, where I stayed all night,

beginning now to wish that I had never left home. I cut so miserable a

figure, too, that I found, by the questions asked me, I was suspected to

be some runaway servant, and in danger of being taken up on that

suspicion. However, I proceeded the next day, and got in the evening to

an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept by one Dr. Brown.

He entered into conversation with me while I took some refreshment, and,

finding I had read a little, became very sociable and friendly. Our

acquaintance continued as long as he lived. He had been, I imagine, an

itinerant doctor, for there was no town in England, or country in

Europe, of which he could not give a very particular account. He had

some letters, and was ingenious, but much of an unbeliever, and wickedly

undertook, some years after, to travesty the Bible in doggerel verse, as

Cotton had done Virgil. By this means he set many of the facts in a very

ridiculous light, and might have hurt weak minds if his work had been

published; but it never was.

At his house I lay that night, and the next morning reached Burlington,

but had the mortification to find that the regular boats were gone a

little before my coming, and no other expected to go before Tuesday,

this being Saturday; wherefore I returned to an old woman in the town,

of whom I had bought gingerbread to eat on the water, and asked her

advice. She invited me to lodge at her house till a passage by water

should offer; and being tired with my foot traveling, I accepted the

invitation. She understanding I was a printer, would have had me stay at

that town and follow my business, being ignorant of the stock necessary

to begin with. She was very hospitable, gave me a dinner of ox-cheek

with great good will, accepting only of a pot of ale in return; and I

thought myself fixed till Tuesday should come. However, walking in the

evening by the side of the river, a boat came by, which I found was

going towards Philadelphia, with several people in her. They took me in,

and, as there was no wind, we rowed all the way; and about midnight, not

having yet seen the city, some of the company were confident we must

have passed it, and would row no farther; the others knew not where we

were; so we put toward the shore, got into a creek, landed near an old

fence, with the rails of which we made a fire, the night being cold, in

October, and there we remained till daylight. Then one of the company

knew the place to be Cooper's Creek, a little above Philadelphia, which

we saw as soon as we got out of the creek, and arrived there about eight

or nine o'clock on the Sunday morning, and landed at the Market Street

wharf.

I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and

shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind

compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made

there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by

sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with

shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging.

I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I was very

hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about

a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my

passage, who at first refused it, on account of my rowing; but I

insisted on their taking it. A man being sometimes more generous when he

has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of

being thought to have but little.

Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the market-house I

met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring

where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to, in

Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in

Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked

for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So not

considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater

cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me three-penny

worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I

was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my

pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other.

Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the

door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the

door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward,

ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street and

part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round,

found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to

which I went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled with

one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came

down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had

many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I

joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the

Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking round

awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor and

want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so

till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This

was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.

Walking down again toward the river, and, looking in the faces of

people, I met a young Quaker man, whose countenance I liked, and,

accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger could get

lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. "Here," says

he, "is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable

house; if thee wilt walk with me I'll show thee a better." He brought me

to the Crooked Billet, in Water Street. Here I got a dinner; and, while

I was eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be

suspected from my youth and appearance that I might be some runaway.

After dinner my sleepiness returned, and being shown to a bed, I lay

down without undressing, and slept till six in the evening, was called

to supper, went to bed again very early, and slept soundly till next

morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I could, and went to Andrew

Bradford the printer's. I found in the shop the old man his father, whom

I had seen at New York, and who, traveling on horseback, had got to

Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received me

civilly, gave me a breakfast, but told me he did not at present want a

hand, being lately supplied with one; but there was another printer in

town, lately set up, one Keimer, who, perhaps, might employ me; if not,

I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little

work to do now and then till fuller business should offer.

The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new printer; and when

we found him, "Neighbor," says Bradford, "I have brought to see you a

young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one." He asked

me a few questions, put a composing stick in my hand to see how I

worked, and then said he would employ me soon, though he had just then

nothing for me to do; and, taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen

before, to be one of the townspeople that had a good will for him,

entered into a conversation on his present undertaking and prospects;

while Bradford, not discovering that he was the other printer's father,

on Keimer's saying he expected soon to get the greatest part of the

business into his own hands, drew him on by artful questions, and

starting little doubts, to explain all his views, what interest he

relied on, and in what manner he intended to proceed. I, who stood by

and heard all, saw immediately that one of them was a crafty old

sophister, and the other a mere novice. Bradford left me with Keimer,

who was greatly surprised when I told him who the old man was.

Keimer's printing-house, I found, consisted of an old shattered press

and one small, worn-out font of English, which he was then using

himself, composing an Elegy on Aquila Rose, before mentioned, an

ingenious young man, of excellent character, much respected in the town,

clerk of the Assembly, and a pretty poet. Keimer made verses too, but

very indifferently. He could not be said to write them, for his manner

was to compose them in the types directly out of his head. So there

being no copy, but one pair of cases, and the Elegy likely to require

all the letters, no one could help him. I endeavored to put his press

(which he had not yet used and of which he understood nothing) into

order fit to be worked with; and, promising to come and print off his

Elegy as soon as he should have got it ready, I returned to Bradford's,

who gave me a little job to do for the present, and there I lodged and

dieted. A few days after, Keimer sent for me to print off the Elegy. And

now he had got another pair of cases, and a pamphlet to reprint, on

which he set me to work.

These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business. Bradford

had not been bred to it, and was very illiterate; and Keimer, though

something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing nothing of

presswork. He had been one of the French prophets, and could act their

enthusiastic agitations. At this time he did not profess any particular

religion, but something of all on occasion; was very ignorant of the

world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of the knave in his

composition. He did not like my lodging at Bradford's while I worked

with him. He had a house, indeed, but without furniture, so he could not

lodge me; but he got me a lodging at Mr. Read's, before mentioned, who

was the owner of his house; and, my chest and clothes being come by this

time, I made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss

Read than I had done when she first happened to see me eating my roll in

the street.

418

Of the numerous biographies of Abraham Lincoln,

none seems better suited for use in the grades

than _The Boy's Life of Abraham Lincoln_, by

Helen Nicolay (1866--), from which the next

selection was taken. John George Nicolay,

father of Helen Nicolay, was private secretary

to Abraham Lincoln from 1860 to 1865, and later

he wrote an excellent biography of Lincoln.

(The following selection is used by permission

of the Century Company, New York.)

LINCOLN'S EARLY DAYS

HELEN NICOLAY

The story of this wonderful man begins and ends with a tragedy, for his

grandfather, also named Abraham, was killed by a shot from an Indian's

rifle while peaceably at work with his three sons on the edge of their

frontier clearing. Eighty-one years later the President himself met

death by an assassin's bullet. The murderer of one was a savage of the

forest; the murderer of the other that far more cruel thing, a savage of

civilization.

When the Indian's shot laid the pioneer farmer low, his second son,

Josiah, ran to a neighboring fort for help, and Mordecai, the eldest,

hurried to the cabin for his rifle. Thomas, a child of six years, was

left alone beside the dead body of his father; and as Mordecai snatched

the gun from its resting-place over the door of the cabin, he saw, to

his horror, an Indian in his war-paint, just stooping to seize the

child. Taking quick aim at a medal on the breast of the savage, he

fired, and the Indian fell dead. The little boy, thus released, ran to

the house, where Mordecai, firing through the loopholes, kept the

Indians at bay until help arrived from the fort.

It was this child Thomas who grew up to be the father of President

Abraham Lincoln. After the murder of his father the fortunes of the

little family grew rapidly worse, and doubtless because of poverty, as

well as by reason of the marriage of his older brothers and sisters,

their home was broken up, and Thomas found himself, long before he was

grown, a wandering laboring boy. He lived for a time with an uncle as

his hired servant, and later he learned the trade of carpenter. He grew

to manhood entirely without education, and when he was twenty-eight

years old could neither read nor write. At that time he married Nancy

Hanks, a good-looking young woman of twenty-three, as poor as himself,

but so much better off as to learning that she was able to teach her

husband to sign his own name. Neither of them had any money, but living

cost little on the frontier in those days, and they felt that his trade

would suffice to earn all that they should need. Thomas took his bride

to a tiny house in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, where they lived for about a

year, and where a daughter was born to them.

Then they moved to a small farm thirteen miles from Elizabethtown, which

they bought on credit, the country being yet so new that there were

places to be had for mere promises to pay. Farms obtained on such terms

were usually of very poor quality, and this one of Thomas Lincoln's was

no exception to the rule. A cabin ready to be occupied stood on it,

however; and not far away, hidden in a pretty clump of trees and bushes,

was a fine spring of water, because of which the place was known as Rock

Spring Farm. In the cabin on this farm the future President of the

United States was born on February 12, 1809, and here the first four

years of his life were spent. Then the Lincolns moved to a much bigger

and better farm on Knob Creek, six miles from Hodgensville, which Thomas

Lincoln bought, again on credit, selling the larger part of it soon

afterward to another purchaser. Here they remained until Abraham was

seven years old.

About this early part of his childhood almost nothing is known. He never

talked of these days, even to his most intimate friends. To the pioneer

child a farm offered much that a town lot could not give him--space;

woods to roam in; Knob Creek with its running water and its deep, quiet

pools for a playfellow; berries to be hunted for in summer and nuts in

autumn; while all the year round birds and small animals pattered across

his path to people the solitude in place of human companions. The boy

had few comrades. He wandered about playing his lonesome little games,

and, when these were finished, returned to the small and cheerless

cabin. Once, when asked what he remembered about the War of 1812 with

Great Britain, he replied: "Only this: I had been fishing one day and

had caught a little fish, which I was taking home. I met a soldier in

the road, and having always been told at home that we must be good to

soldiers, I gave him my fish." It is only a glimpse into his life, but

it shows the solitary, generous child, and the patriotic household.

It was while living on this farm that Abraham and his sister Sarah first

began going to A-B-C schools. Their earliest teacher was Zachariah

Riney, who taught near the Lincoln cabin; the next was Caleb Hazel, four

miles away.

In spite of the tragedy that darkened his childhood, Thomas Lincoln

seems to have been a cheery, indolent, good-natured man. By means of a

little farming and occasional jobs at his trade, he managed to supply

his family with the absolutely necessary food and shelter, but he never

got on in the world. He found it much easier to gossip with his friends,

or to dream about rich new lands in the West, than to make a thrifty

living in the place where he happened to be. The blood of the pioneer

was in his veins too--the desire to move westward; and hearing glowing

accounts of the new territory of Indiana, he resolved to go and see it

for himself. His skill as a carpenter made this not only possible but

reasonably cheap, and in the fall of 1816 he built himself a little

flatboat, launched it half a mile from his cabin, at the mouth of Knob

Creek on the waters of the Rolling Fork, and floated on it down that

stream to Salt River, down Salt River to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to

a landing called Thompson's Ferry on the Indiana shore.

Sixteen miles out from the river, near a small stream known as Pigeon

Creek, he found a spot in the forest that suited him; and as his boat

could not be made to float upstream, he sold it, stored his goods with

an obliging settler, and trudged back to Kentucky, all the way on foot,

to fetch his wife and children--Sarah, who was now nine years old, and

Abraham, seven. This time the journey to Indiana was made with two

horses, used by the mother and children for riding, and to carry their

little camping outfit for the night. The distance from their old home

was, in a straight line, little more than fifty miles, but they had to

go double that distance because of the very few roads it was possible to

follow.

Reaching the Ohio River and crossing to the Indiana shore, Thomas

Lincoln hired a wagon which carried his family and their belongings the

remaining sixteen miles through the forest to the spot he had chosen--a

piece of heavily wooded land, one and a half miles east of what has

since become the village of Gentryville in Spencer County. The lateness

of the autumn made it necessary to put up a shelter as quickly as

possible, and he built what was known on the frontier as a half-faced

camp, about fourteen feet square. This differed from a cabin in that it

was closed on only three sides, being quite open to the weather on the

fourth. A fire was usually made in front of the open side, and thus the

necessity for having a chimney was done away with. Thomas Lincoln

doubtless intended this only for a temporary shelter, and as such it

would have done well enough in pleasant summer weather; but it was a

rude provision against the storms and winds of an Indiana winter. It

shows his want of energy that the family remained housed in this poor

camp for nearly a whole year; but, after all, he must not be too hastily

blamed. He was far from idle. A cabin was doubtless begun, and there

was the very heavy work of clearing away the timber--cutting down large

trees, chopping them into suitable lengths, and rolling them together

into great heaps to be burned, or of splitting them into rails to fence

the small field upon which he managed to raise a patch of corn and other

things during the following summer.

Though only seven years old, Abraham was unusually large and strong for

his age, and he helped his father in all this heavy labor of clearing

the farm. In after years, Mr. Lincoln said that an ax "was put into his

hands at once, and from that till within his twenty-third year he was

almost constantly handling that most useful instrument--less, of course,

in ploughing and harvesting seasons." At first the Lincolns and their

seven or eight neighbors lived in the unbroken forest. They had only the

tools and household goods they brought with them, or such things as they

could fashion with their own hands. There was no sawmill to saw lumber.

The village of Gentryville was not even begun. Breadstuff could be had

only by sending young Abraham seven miles on horseback with a bag of

corn to be ground in a hand grist-mill.

About the time the new cabin was ready relatives and friends followed

from Kentucky, and some of these in turn occupied the half-faced camp.

During the autumn a severe and mysterious sickness broke out in their

little settlement, and a number of people died, among them the mother of

young Abraham. There was no help to be had beyond what the neighbors

could give each other. The nearest doctor lived fully thirty miles away.

There was not even a minister to conduct the funerals. Thomas Lincoln

made the coffins for the dead out of green lumber cut from the forest

trees with a whip-saw, and they were laid to rest in a clearing in the

woods. Months afterward, largely through the efforts of the sorrowing

boy, a preacher who chanced to come that way was induced to hold a

service and preach a sermon over the grave of Mrs. Lincoln.

Her death was indeed a serious blow to her husband and children.

Abraham's sister, Sarah, was only eleven years old, and the tasks and

cares of the little household were altogether too heavy for her years

and experience. Nevertheless they struggled bravely through the winter

and following summer; then in the autumn of 1819 Thomas Lincoln went

back to Kentucky and married Sarah Bush Johnston, whom he had known, and

it is said courted, when she was only Sally Bush. She had married about

the time Lincoln married Nancy Hanks, and her husband had died, leaving

her with three children. She came of a better station in life than

Thomas, and was a woman with an excellent mind as well as a warm and

generous heart. The household goods that she brought with her to the

Lincoln home filled a four-horse wagon, and not only were her own

children well clothed and cared for, but she was able at once to provide

little Abraham and Sarah with comforts to which they had been strangers

during the whole of their young lives. Under her wise management all

jealousy was avoided between the two sets of children; urged on by her

stirring example, Thomas Lincoln supplied the yet unfinished cabin with

floor, door, and windows, and life became more comfortable for all its

inmates, contentment if not happiness reigning in the little home.

The new stepmother quickly became very fond of Abraham, and encouraged

him in every way in her power to study and improve himself. The chances

for this were few enough. Mr. Lincoln has left us a vivid picture of the

situation. "It was," he once wrote, "a wild region, with many bears and

other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up. There were some

schools, so-called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher

beyond readin', writin', and cipherin' to the Rule of Three. If a

straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the

neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard."

The school-house was a low cabin of round logs, with split logs or

"puncheons" for a floor, split logs roughly leveled with an ax and set

up on legs for benches, and holes cut out in the logs and the space

filled in with squares of greased paper for window-panes. The main light

came in through the open door. Very often Webster's "Elementary

Spelling-book" was the only text-book. This was the kind of school most

common in the Middle West during Mr. Lincoln's boyhood, though already

in some places there were schools of a more pretentious character.

Indeed, back in Kentucky, at the very time that Abraham, a child of six,

was learning his letters from Zachariah Riney, a boy only a year older

was attending a Catholic seminary in the very next county. It is

doubtful if they ever met, but the destinies of the two were strangely

interwoven, for the older boy was Jefferson Davis, who became head of

the Confederate government shortly after Lincoln was elected President

of the United States.

As Abraham was only seven years old when he left Kentucky, the little

beginnings he learned in the schools kept by Riney and Hazel in that

state must have been very slight, probably only his alphabet, or at most

only three or four pages of Webster's "Elementary Spelling-book." The

multiplication-table was still a mystery to him, and he could read or

write only the words he spelled. His first two years in Indiana seem to

have passed without schooling of any sort, and the school he attended

shortly after coming under the care of his stepmother was of the

simplest kind, for the Pigeon Creek settlement numbered only eight or

ten poor families, and they lived deep in the forest, where, even if

they had had the money for such luxuries, it would have been impossible

to buy books, slates, pens, ink, or paper. It is worthy of note,

however, that in our western country, even under such difficulties, a

school-house was one of the first buildings to rise in every frontier

settlement. Abraham's second school in Indiana was held when he was

fourteen years old, and the third in his seventeenth year. By that time

he had more books and better teachers, but he had to walk four or five

miles to reach them. We know that he learned to write, and was provided

with pen, ink, and a copy-book, and a very small supply of writing

paper, for copies have been printed of several scraps on which he

carefully wrote down tables of long measure, land measure, and dry

measure, as well as examples in multiplication and compound division,

from his arithmetic. He was never able to go to school again after this

time, and though the instruction he received from his five teachers--two

in Kentucky and three in Indiana--extended over a period of nine years,

it must be remembered that it made up in all less than one twelvemonth;

"that the aggregate of all his schooling did not amount to one year."

The fact that he received this instruction, as he himself said, "by

littles," was doubtless an advantage. A lazy or indifferent boy would of

course have forgotten what was taught him at one time before he had

opportunity at another; but Abraham was neither indifferent nor lazy,

and these widely separated fragments of instruction were precious steps

to self-help. He pursued his studies with very unusual purpose and

determination not only to understand them at the moment, but to fix them

firmly in his mind. His early companions all agree that he employed

every spare moment in keeping on with some one of his studies. His

stepmother tells us that "When he came across a passage that struck him,

he would write it down on boards if he had no paper, and keep it there

until he did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, repeat it.

He had a copy-book, a kind of scrap-book, in which he put down all

things, and thus preserved them." He spent long evenings doing sums on

the fire-shovel. Iron fire-shovels were a rarity among pioneers. Instead

they used a broad, thin clapboard with one end narrowed to a handle,

arranging with this the piles of coals upon the hearth, over which they

set their "skillet" and "oven" to do their cooking. It was on such a

wooden shovel that Abraham worked his sums by the flickering firelight,

making his figures with a piece of charcoal, and, when the shovel was

all covered, taking a drawing-knife and shaving it off clean again.

The hours that he was able to devote to his penmanship, his reading, and

his arithmetic were by no means many; for, save for the short time that

he was actually in school, he was, during all these years, laboring hard

on his father's farm, or hiring his youthful strength to neighbors who

had need of help in the work of field or forest. In pursuit of his

knowledge he was on an up-hill path; yet in spite of all obstacles he

worked his way to so much of an education as placed him far ahead of his

schoolmates and quickly abreast of his various teachers. He borrowed

every book in the neighborhood. The list is a short one: "Robinson

Crusoe," "Aesop's Fables," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," Weems's "Life

of Washington," and a "History of the United States." When everything

else had been read, he resolutely began on the "Revised Statutes of

Indiana," which Dave Turnham, the constable, had in daily use, but

permitted him to come to his house and read.

Though so fond of his books, it must not be supposed that he cared only

for work and serious study. He was a social, sunny-tempered lad, as fond

of jokes and fun as he was kindly and industrious. His stepmother said

of him: "I can say, what scarcely one mother in a thousand can say, Abe

never gave me a cross word or look, and never refused . . . to do anything

I asked him . . . I must say . . . that Abe was the best boy I ever saw or

expect to see."

He and John Johnston, his stepmother's son, and John Hanks, a relative

of his own mother's, worked barefoot together in the fields, grubbing,

plowing, hoeing, gathering and shucking corn, and taking part, when

occasion offered, in the practical jokes and athletic exercises that

enlivened the hard work of the pioneers. For both work and play Abraham

had one great advantage. He was not only a tall, strong country boy; he

soon grew to be a tall, strong, sinewy man. He early reached the unusual

height of six feet four inches, and his long arms gave him a degree of

power as an axman that few were able to rival. He therefore usually led

his fellows in efforts of muscle as well as of mind. That he could

outrun, outlift, outwrestle his boyish companions, that he could chop

faster, split more rails in a day, carry a heavier log at a "raising,"

or excel the neighborhood champion in any feat of frontier athletics,

was doubtless a matter of pride with him; but stronger than all else was

his eager craving for knowledge. He felt instinctively that the power of

using the mind rather than the muscles was the key to success. He wished

not only to wrestle with the best of them, but to be able to talk like

the preacher, spell and cipher like the school-master, argue like the

lawyer, and write like the editor. Yet he was as far as possible from

being a prig. He was helpful, sympathetic, cheerful. In all the

neighborhood gatherings, when settlers of various ages came together at

corn-huskings or house-raisings, or when mere chance brought half a

dozen of them at the same time to the post-office or the country store,

he was able, according to his years, to add his full share to the gaiety

of the company. By reason of his reading and his excellent memory, he

soon became the best story-teller among his companions; and even the

slight training gained from his studies greatly broadened and

strengthened the strong reasoning faculty with which he had been gifted

by nature. His wit might be mischievous, but it was never malicious, and

his nonsense was never intended to wound or to hurt the feelings. It is

told of him that he added to his fund of jokes and stories humorous

imitations of the sermons of eccentric preachers.

Very likely too much is made of all these boyish pranks. He grew up very

like his fellows. In only one particular did he differ greatly from the

frontier boys around him. He never took any pleasure in hunting. Almost

every youth of the backwoods early became an excellent shot and a

confirmed sportsman. The woods still swarmed with game, and every cabin

depended largely upon this for its supply of food. But to his strength

was added a gentleness which made him shrink from killing or inflicting

pain, and the time the other boys gave to lying in ambush, he preferred

to spend in reading or in efforts at improving his mind.

Only twice during his life in Indiana was the routine of his employment

changed. When he was about sixteen years old he worked for a time for a

man who lived at the mouth of Anderson's Creek, and here part of his

duty was to manage a ferry-boat which carried passengers across the Ohio

River. It was very likely this experience which, three years later,

brought him another. Mr. Gentry, the chief man of the village of

Gentryville that had grown up a mile or so from his father's cabin,

loaded a flatboat on the Ohio River with the produce his store had

collected--corn, flour, pork, bacon, and other miscellaneous

provisions--and putting it in charge of his son Allen Gentry and of

Abraham Lincoln, sent them with it down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers,

to sell its cargo at the plantations of the lower Mississippi, where

sugar and cotton were the principal crops, and where other food supplies

were needed to feed the slaves. No better proof is needed of the

reputation for strength, skill, honesty, and intelligence that this tall

country boy had already won for himself, than that he was chosen to

navigate the flatboat a thousand miles to the "sugar-coast" of the

Mississippi River, sell its load, and bring back the money. Allen Gentry

was supposed to be in command, but from the record of his after life we

may be sure that Abraham did his full share both of work and management.

The elder Gentry paid Lincoln eight dollars a month and his passage home

on a steamboat for this service. The voyage was made successfully,

although not without adventure; for one night, after the boat was tied

up to the shore, the boys were attacked by seven negroes, who came

aboard intending to kill and rob him. There was a lively scrimmage, in

which, though slightly hurt, they managed to beat off their assailants,

and then, hastily cutting their boat adrift, swung out on the stream.

The marauding band little dreamed that they were attacking the man who

in after years was to give their race its freedom; and though the future

was equally hidden from Abraham, it is hard to estimate the vistas of

hope and ambition that this long journey opened to him. It was his first

look into the wide, wide world.

419

Anna Howard Shaw (1847-1919) was national

lecturer for the National American Woman

Suffrage Association from 1886 to 1904, and was

president of that association from 1904 to

1915. She was known as a lecturer rather than

as an author, but her autobiography, entitled

_The Story of a Pioneer_, is a charming book

that will help us realize some of the tragedy

and humor of pioneer days and some of the

difficulties that had to be overcome by a woman

who was determined to follow a career

practically closed to women. (The selection

below is from the early part of _The Story of a

Pioneer_, and is used here by permission of the

publishers, Harper & Brothers, New York.)

IN THE WESTERN WILDERNESS

ANNA HOWARD SHAW

My father was one of a number of Englishmen who took up tracts in the

northern forests of Michigan, with the old dream of establishing a

colony there. None of these men had the least practical knowledge of

farming. They were city men or followers of trades which had no

connection with farm life. They went straight into the thick

timber-land, instead of going to the rich and waiting prairies, and they

crowned this initial mistake by cutting down the splendid timber instead

of letting it stand. Thus bird's-eye maple and other beautiful woods

were used as fire-wood and in the construction of rude cabins, and the

greatest asset of the pioneer was ignored.

Father preceded us to the Michigan woods, and there, with his oldest

son, James, took up a claim. They cleared a space in the wilderness just

large enough for a log cabin, and put up the bare walls of the cabin

itself. Then father returned to Lawrence and his work, leaving James

behind. A few months later (this was in 1859), my mother, my two

sisters, Eleanor and Mary, my youngest brother, Henry, eight years of

age, and I, then twelve, went to Michigan to work on and hold down the

claim while father, for eighteen months longer, stayed on in Lawrence,

sending us such remittances as he could. His second and third sons, John

and Thomas, remained in the East with him.

Every detail of our journey through the wilderness is clear in my mind.

At that time the railroad terminated at Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we

covered the remaining distance--about one hundred miles--by wagon,

riding through a dense and often trackless forest. My brother James met

us at Grand Rapids with what, in those days, was called a lumber-wagon,

but which had a horrible resemblance to a vehicle from the health

department. My sisters and I gave it one cold look and turned from it;

we were so pained by its appearance that we refused to ride in it

through the town. Instead, we started off on foot, trying to look as if

we had no association with it, and we climbed into the unwieldy vehicle

only when the city streets were far behind us. Every available inch of

space in the wagon was filled with bedding and provisions. As yet we had

no furniture; we were to make that for ourselves when we reached our

cabin; and there was so little room for us to ride that we children

walked by turns, while James, from the beginning of the journey to its

end, seven days later, led our weary horses.

To my mother, who was never strong, the whole experience must have been

a nightmare of suffering and stoical endurance. For us children there

were compensations. The expedition took on the character of a high

adventure, in which we sometimes had shelter and sometimes failed to

find it, sometimes were fed, but often went hungry. We forded

innumerable streams, the wheels of the heavy wagon sinking so deeply

into the stream-beds that we often had to empty our load before we could

get them out again. Fallen trees lay across our paths, rivers caused

long detours, while again and again we lost our way or were turned aside

by impenetrable forest tangles.

Our first day's journey covered less than eight miles, and that night we

stopped at a farm-house which was the last bit of civilization we saw.

Early the next morning we were off again, making the slow progress due

to the rough roads and our heavy load. At night we stopped at a place

called Thomas's Inn, only to be told by the woman who kept it that there

was nothing in the house to eat. Her husband, she said, had gone

"outside" (to Grand Rapids) to get some flour, and had not returned--but

she added that we could spend the night, if we chose, and enjoy shelter,

if not food. We had provisions in our wagon, so we wearily entered,

after my brother had got out some of our pork and opened a barrel of

flour. With this help the woman made some biscuits, which were so green

that my poor mother could not eat them. She had admitted to us that the

one thing she had in the house was saleratus, and she had used this

ingredient with an unsparing hand. When the meal was eaten she broke the

further news that there were no beds.

"The old woman can sleep with me," she suggested, "and the girls can

sleep on the floor. The boys will have to go to the barn."

She and her bed were not especially attractive, and mother decided to

lie on the floor with us. We had taken our bedding from the wagon, and

we slept very well; but though she was usually superior to small

annoyances, I think my mother resented being called an "old woman." She

must have felt like one that night, but she was only about forty-eight

years of age.

At dawn the next morning we resumed our journey, and every day after

that we were able to cover the distance demanded by the schedule

arranged before we started. This meant that some sort of shelter usually

awaited us at night. But one day we knew there would be no houses

between the place we left in the morning and that where we were to

sleep. The distance was about twenty miles, and when twilight fell we

had not made it. In the back of the wagon my mother had a box of little

pigs, and during the afternoon these had broken loose and escaped into

the woods. We had lost much time in finding them, and we were so

exhausted that when we came to a hut made of twigs and boughs we decided

to camp in it for the night, though we knew nothing about it. My brother

had unharnessed the horses, and my mother and sister were cooking

dough-god--a mixture of flour, water, and soda, fried in a pan--when two

men rode up on horseback and called my brother to one side. Immediately

after the talk which followed James harnessed his horses again and

forced us to go on, though by that time darkness had fallen. He told

mother, but did not tell us children until long afterward, that a man

had been murdered in the hut only the night before. The murderer was

still at large in the woods, and the new-comers were members of a posse

who were searching for him. My brother needed no urging to put as many

miles as he could between us and the sinister spot.

In that fashion we made our way to our new home. The last day, like the

first, we traveled only eight miles, but we spent the night in a house I

shall never forget. It was beautifully clean, and for our evening meal

its mistress brought out loaves of bread which were the largest we had

ever seen. She cut great slices of this bread for us and spread maple

sugar on them, and it seemed to us that never before had anything tasted

so good.

The next morning we made the last stage of our journey, our hearts

filled with the joy of nearing our new home. We all had an idea that we

were going to a farm, and we expected some resemblance at least to the

prosperous farms we had seen in New England. My mother's mental picture

was, naturally, of an English farm. Possibly she had visions of red

barns and deep meadows, sunny skies and daisies. What we found awaiting

us were the four walls and the roof of a good-sized log-house, standing

in a small cleared strip of the wilderness, its doors and windows

represented by square holes, its floor also a thing of the future, its

whole effect achingly forlorn and desolate. It was late in the afternoon

when we drove up to the opening that was its front entrance, and I shall

never forget the look my mother turned upon the place. Without a word

she crossed its threshold, and, standing very still, looked slowly

around her. Then something within her seemed to give way, and she sank

upon the ground. She could not realize even then, I think, that this was

really the place father had prepared for us, that here he expected us to

live. When she finally took it in she buried her face in her hands, and

in that way she sat for hours without moving or speaking. For the first

time in her life she had forgotten us; and we, for our part, dared not

speak to her. We stood around her in a frightened group, talking to one

another in whispers. Our little world had crumbled under our feet. Never

before had we seen our mother give way to despair.

Night began to fall. The woods became alive with night creatures, and

the most harmless made the most noise. The owls began to hoot, and soon

we heard the wildcat, whose cry--a screech like that of a lost and

panic-stricken child--is one of the most appalling sounds of the forest.

Later the wolves added their howls to the uproar, but though darkness

came and we children whimpered around her, our mother still sat in her

strange lethargy.

At last my brother brought the horses close to the cabin and built fires

to protect them and us. He was only twenty, but he showed himself a man

during those early pioneer days. While he was picketing the horses and

building his protecting fires my mother came to herself, but her face

when she raised it was worse than her silence had been. She seemed to

have died and to have returned to us from the grave, and I am sure she

felt that she had done so. From that moment she took up again the burden

of her life, a burden she did not lay down until she passed away; but

her face never lost the deep lines those first hours of her pioneer life

had cut upon it.

That night we slept on boughs spread on the earth inside the cabin

walls, and we put blankets before the holes which represented our doors

and windows, and kept our watch-fires burning. Soon the other children

fell asleep, but there was no sleep for me. I was only twelve years old,

but my mind was full of fancies. Behind our blankets, swaying in the

night wind, I thought I saw the heads and pushing shoulders of animals

and heard their padded footfalls.

We faced our situation with clear and unalarmed eyes the morning after

our arrival. The problem of food, we knew, was at least temporarily

solved. We had brought with us enough coffee, pork, and flour to last

for several weeks; and the one necessity father had put inside the cabin

walls was a great fireplace, made of mud and stones, in which our food

could be cooked. The problem of our water-supply was less simple, but my

brother James solved it for the time by showing us a creek a long

distance from the house, and for months we carried from this creek, in

pails, every drop of water we used, save that which we caught in troughs

when the rain fell.

We held a family council after breakfast, and in this, though I was only

twelve, I took an eager and determined part. I loved work--it has always

been my favorite form of recreation--and my spirit rose to the

opportunities of it which smiled on us from every side. Obviously the

first thing to do was to put doors and windows into the yawning holes

father had left for them, and to lay a board flooring over the earth

inside our cabin walls, and these duties we accomplished before we had

occupied our new home a fortnight. There was a small saw-mill nine miles

from our cabin, on the spot that is now Big Rapids, and there we bought

our lumber. The labor we supplied ourselves, and though we put our

hearts into it and the results at the time seemed beautiful to our

partial eyes, I am forced to admit, in looking back upon them, that they

halted this side of perfection. We began by making three windows and two

doors; then, inspired by these achievements, we ambitiously constructed

an attic and divided the ground floor with partitions, which gave us

four rooms.

The general effect was temperamental and sketchy. The boards which

formed the floor were never even nailed down; they were fine, wide

planks without a knot in them, and they looked so well that we merely

fitted them together as closely as we could and light-heartedly let them

go at that. Neither did we properly chink the house. Nothing is more

comfortable than a log cabin which has been carefully built and

finished; but for some reason--probably because there seemed always a

more urgent duty calling to us around the corner--we never plastered our

house at all. The result was that on many future winter mornings we

awoke to find ourselves chastely blanketed by snow, while the only warm

spot in our living-room was that directly in front of the fireplace,

where great logs burned all day. Even there our faces scorched while our

spines slowly congealed, until we learned to revolve before the fire

like a bird upon a spit. No doubt we would have worked more thoroughly

if my brother James, who was twenty years old and our tower of strength,

had remained with us; but when we had been in our new home only a few

months he fell ill and was forced to go East for an operation. He was

never able to return to us, and thus my mother, we three young girls,

and my youngest brother--Harry, who was only eight years old--made our

fight alone until father came to us, more than a year later.

Mother was practically an invalid. She had a nervous affection which

made it impossible for her to stand without the support of a chair. But

she sewed with unusual skill, and it was due to her that our clothes,

notwithstanding the strain to which we subjected them, were always in

good condition. She sewed for hours every day, and she was able to move

about the house, after a fashion, by pushing herself around on a stool

which James made for her as soon as we arrived. He also built for her a

more comfortable chair with a high back.

The division of labor planned at the first council was that mother

should do our sewing, and my older sisters, Eleanor and Mary, the

housework, which was far from taxing, for of course we lived in the

simplest manner. My brothers and I were to do the work out of doors, an

arrangement that suited me very well, though at first, owing to our lack

of experience, our activities were somewhat curtailed. It was too late

in the season for plowing or planting, even if we had possessed anything

with which to plow, and, moreover, our so-called "cleared" land was

thick with sturdy tree-stumps. Even during the second summer plowing was

impossible; we could only plant potatoes and corn, and follow the most

primitive method in doing even this. We took an ax, chopped up the sod,

put the seed under it, and let the seed grow. The seed did grow, too--in

the most gratifying and encouraging manner. Our green corn and potatoes

were the best I have ever eaten. But for the present we lacked these

luxuries.

We had, however, in their place, large quantities of wild

fruit--gooseberries, raspberries, and plums--which Harry and I gathered

on the banks of our creek. Harry also became an expert fisherman. We had

no hooks or lines, but he took wires from our hoop-skirts and made

snares at the ends of poles. My part of this work was to stand on a log

and frighten the fish out of their holes by making horrible sounds,

which I did with impassioned earnestness. When the fish hurried to the

surface of the water to investigate the appalling noises they had heard,

they were easily snared by our small boy, who was very proud of his

ability to contribute in this way to the family table.

During our first winter we lived largely on cornmeal, making a little

journey of twenty miles to the nearest mill to buy it; but even at that

we were better off than our neighbors, for I remember one family in our

region who for an entire winter lived solely on coarse-grained yellow

turnips, gratefully changing their diet to leeks when these came in the

spring.

Such furniture as we had we made ourselves. In addition to my mother's

two chairs and the bunks which took the place of beds, James made a

settle for the living-room, as well as a table and several stools. At

first we had our tree-cutting done for us, but we soon became expert in

this gentle art, and I developed such skill that in later years, after

father came, I used to stand with him and "heart" a log.

On every side, and at every hour of the day, we came up against the

relentless limitations of pioneer life. There was not a team of horses

in our entire region. The team with which my brother had driven us

through the wilderness had been hired at Grand Rapids for that occasion,

and, of course, immediately returned. Our lumber was delivered by

ox-teams, and the absolutely essential purchases we made "outside" (at

the nearest shops, forty miles away) were carried through the forest on

the backs of men. Our mail was delivered once a month by a carrier who

made the journey in alternate stages of horseback riding and canoeing.

But we had health, youth, enthusiasm, good appetites, and the

wherewithal to satisfy them, and at night in our primitive bunks we sank

into abysses of dreamless slumber such as I have never known since.

Indeed, looking back upon them, those first months seem to have been a

long-drawn-out and glorious picnic, interrupted only by occasional hours

of pain or panic, when we were hurt or frightened.

Naturally, our two greatest menaces were wild animals and Indians, but

as the days passed the first of these lost the early terrors with which

we had associated them. We grew indifferent to the sounds that had made

our first night a horror to us all--there was even a certain homeliness

in them--while we regarded with accustomed, almost blase eyes the

various furred creatures of which we caught distant glimpses as they

slunk through the forest. Their experience with other settlers had

taught them caution; it soon became clear that they were as eager to

avoid us as we were to shun them, and by common consent we gave each

other ample elbow-room. But the Indians were all around us, and every

settler had a collection of hair-raising tales to tell of them. It was

generally agreed that they were dangerous only when they were drunk; but

as they were drunk whenever they could get whisky, and as whisky was

constantly given them in exchange for pelts and game, there was a

harrowing doubt in our minds whenever they approached us.

In my first encounter with them I was alone in the woods at sunset with

my small brother Harry. We were hunting a cow James had bought, and our

young eyes were peering eagerly among the trees, on the alert for any

moving object. Suddenly, at a little distance, coming directly toward

us, we saw a party of Indians. There were five of them, all men, walking

in single file, as noiselessly as ghosts, their moccasined feet causing

not even a rustle among the dry leaves that carpeted the woods. All the

horrible stories we had heard of Indian cruelty flashed into our minds,

and for a moment we were dumb with terror. Then I remembered having been

told that the one thing one must not do before them is to show fear.

Harry was carrying a rope with which we had expected to lead home our

reluctant cow, and I seized one end of it and whispered to him that we

would "play horse," pretending he was driving me. We pranced toward the

Indians on feet that felt like lead, and with eyes so glazed by terror

that we could see nothing save a line of moving figures; but as we

passed them they did not give to our little impersonation of care-free

children even the tribute of a side-glance. They were, we realized,

headed straight for our home; and after a few moments we doubled on our

tracks and, keeping at a safe distance from them among the trees, ran

back to warn our mother that they were coming.

As it happened, James was away, and mother had to meet her unwelcome

guests supported only by her young children. She at once prepared a

meal, however, and when they arrived she welcomed them calmly and gave

them the best she had. After they had eaten they began to point at and

demand objects they fancied in the room--my brother's pipe, some

tobacco, a bowl, and such trifles--and my mother, who was afraid to

annoy them by refusal, gave them what they asked. They were quite sober,

and though they left without expressing any appreciation of her

hospitality, they made her a second visit a few months later, bringing a

large quantity of venison and a bag of cranberries as a graceful return.

These Indians were Ottawas; and later we became very friendly with them

and their tribe, even to the degree of attending one of their dances,

which I shall describe later.

Our second encounter with Indians was a less agreeable experience. There

were seven "Marquette warriors" in the next group of callers, and they

were all intoxicated. Moreover, they had brought with them several jugs

of bad whisky--the raw and craze-provoking product supplied them by the

fur-dealers--and it was clear that our cabin was to be the scene of an

orgy. Fortunately, my brother James was at home on this occasion, and as

the evening grew old and the Indians, grouped together around the fire,

became more and more irresponsible, he devised a plan for our safety.

Our attic was finished, and its sole entrance was by a ladder through a

trap-door. At James's whispered command my sister Eleanor slipped up

into the attic, and from the back window let down a rope, to which he

tied all the weapons we had--his gun and several axes. These Eleanor

drew up and concealed in one of the bunks. My brother then directed that

as quietly as possible, and at long intervals, one member of the family

after another was to slip up the ladder and into the attic, going quite

casually, that the Indians might not realize what we were doing. Once

there, with the ladder drawn up after us and the trap-door closed, we

would be reasonably safe, unless our guests decided to burn the cabin.

The evening seemed endless, and was certainly nerve-racking. The Indians

ate everything in the house, and from my seat in a dim corner I watched

them while my sisters waited on them. I can still see the tableau they

made in the firelit room and hear the unfamiliar accents of their speech

as they talked together. Occasionally one of them would pull a hair from

his head, seize his scalping-knife, and cut the hair with it--a most

unpleasant sight! When either of my sisters approached them some of the

Indians would make gestures, as if capturing and scalping her. Through

it all, however, the whisky held their close attention, and it was due

to this that we succeeded in reaching the attic unobserved, James coming

last of all and drawing the ladder after him. Mother and the children

were then put to bed; but through that interminable night James and

Eleanor lay flat upon the floor, watching through the cracks between the

boards the revels of the drunken Indians, which grew wilder with every

hour that crawled toward sunrise. There was no knowing when they would

miss us or how soon their mood might change. At any moment they might

make an attack upon us or set fire to the cabin. By dawn, however, their

whisky was all gone, and they were in so deep a stupor that, one after

the other, the seven fell from their chairs to the floor, where they

sprawled unconscious. When they awoke they left quietly and without

trouble of any kind. They seemed a strangely subdued and chastened band;

probably they were wretchedly ill after their debauch on the adulterated

whisky the traders had given them.