delivered copies to customers. He wrote articles and slipped them under
the printing-house door, and James published them, without knowing who
was their author. Later Franklin wrote clever, audacious, and humorous
articles on the questions of the day, which were widely read and much
talked about.
So things continued until he was seventeen years old, when he ran
away--but not to sea. He and his brother quarrelled often. Benjamin the
apprentice was saucy and provoking, and James the master was
hot-tempered and beat his younger brother severely. After a particularly
bad quarrel, Franklin sold some of his books, and took passage on a
sloop bound for New York.
Arriving at New York, he found no employment there, and went on to
Philadelphia.
THE THREE ROLLS
Early in the morning of an October day, young Benjamin Franklin,
seventeen years old and seeking his fortune, reached Philadelphia. He
was tired and hungry, and had only a dollar of his little fund left.
He stopped at a baker’s, and bought three big puffy rolls. He put a roll
under each arm, and, munching the third, walked along Market Street.
In the doorway of a house, stood a young girl. She saw the awkward,
handsome boy, trudging past hungrily eating a big roll. She laughed to
herself; she thought it funny to see him with his broad-brimmed hat,
knee-breeches, and buckled shoes all shabby and dusty, and his great
pockets stuffed with stockings and shirts.
So she laughed to herself, did Deborah Read. And little she knew that in
a few years, she would become that boy’s wife! But so it happened.
Young Benjamin Franklin found work in a printer’s shop. He came to lodge
at Deborah Read’s home. In a few years, he owned his own printing press.
He married Deborah Read. He became a well-known printer. He issued an
influential newspaper, and published “Poor Richard’s Almanack.” He was
industrious, studious, thrifty, and prosperous. In time, he became the
most famous and learned citizen of Pennsylvania, and a great American
Patriot.
STANDING BEFORE KINGS
When the American Colonies rose against the exactions of England,
Benjamin Franklin was called upon to serve his Country as a diplomat in
France and England.
“My father,” wrote Franklin, “having among his instructions to me when a
boy frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, ‘Seest thou a man diligent
in his calling, he shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before
mean men,’ “I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining
wealth and distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not think that
I should ever literally _stand before Kings_, which, however, has since
happened, for I have stood before _five_, and even had the honour of
sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner.”
THE WONDERFUL KITE EXPERIMENT
In Benjamin Franklin’s time, there were no electric trains, no
telegraphs, telephones, radiographs, and radiophones. The driving and
lighting power of electricity was not understood. People did not know
that lightning was due to the presence of electricity in nature.
Benjamin Franklin, who was keen and inquisitive, made scientific
experiments with the Leyden jar and with simple machines which produced
electricity by friction. He discovered that in certain ways, the action
of electricity and lightning was the same, and he observed that electric
fluid might be conducted along a pack-string.
So he determined to prove that electricity and lightning were the same,
by drawing lightning down from the clouds along a pack-string. He used a
silk kite, with a sharp-pointed wire fastened to its framework, and a
silk ribbon tied to the end of the kite-string holding a metal key in
place.
He secretly flew the kite during a June thunderstorm. And as he saw the
kite-string stiffen in a strange way, he eagerly laid his hand against
the key. Instantly he felt a shock of electricity pass through him. He
had made one of the most important discoveries of all ages!
[Illustration: FRANKLIN AND THE KITE EXPERIMENT]
His discovery was soon known throughout the world. Men made other
experiments, and in time invented the wonderful electrical machines and
devices which we enjoy to-day.
THE RISING SUN
When the Federal Constitutional Convention met at Philadelphia, General
Washington was unanimously made President of the Convention. He took the
chair with diffidence. He assured the members that he was not used to
such a situation, that he was embarrassed, and he hoped they would
excuse his errors. And in what masterly fashion he conducted the
convention, history shows.
Behind his chair was painted a picture of the sun. After the debates
were over and the Constitution was adopted, Benjamin Franklin, who had
just signed the immortal Document, turned to some of the members. He
drew their attention to the sun behind General Washington’s chair.
“I have often and often,” said Franklin, “in the course of the session
and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at
that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was
rising or setting. But now, at length, I have the happiness to know that
it is a rising, and not a setting, sun.”
TO MY FRIEND
_From Franklin’s Will and Testament_
My fine crabtree walking-stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in
the form of the Cap of Liberty, I give to my friend and the friend of
Mankind, General Washington.
If it were a Sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it.
_Benjamin Franklin_
FEBRUARY 12
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR
_With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the
right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the
work we are in; to bind up the Nation’s wounds; to care for him who
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do
all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among
ourselves, and with all Nations._
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
_March 4, 1865_
_Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare,
Gentle and merciful and just!
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear
The sword of power, a Nation’s trust!_
_In sorrow by thy bier we stand,
Amid the awe that hushes all,
And speak the anguish of a land
That shook with horror at thy fall._
_Thy task is done; the bond are free:
We bear thee to an honoured grave,
Whose proudest monument shall be
The broken fetters of the slave._
_Pure was thy life; its bloody close
Hath placed thee with the sons of light,
Among the noble host of those
Who perished in the cause of Right._
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
ABRAHAM LINCOLN was born, February 12, 1809
Was elected President, 1860
Issued the Emancipation Proclamation, New Year’s Day, 1863
Was re-elected, 1864
He was assassinated, 1865
THE CABIN IN THE CLEARING
It was only a small cabin in a forest-clearing in the wilderness of
Indiana. It stood on a knoll overlooking a piece of ground where corn
and vegetables grew. In the woods around the cabin were bear, deer, and
other wild creatures. The furniture was rude, brought from the East, or
made of logs and hickory-sticks, while the bed was a sack of leaves. In
the big fireplace, the logs cut from the forest, burned with a cheerful
blaze.
And there lived little Abe Lincoln, nine years old, with his father and
sister and his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln.
Abe was born in Kentucky. When he was seven, his family moved to the
cabin in Indiana. He helped clear the way through the wilderness to the
new home. So with swinging the axe and blazing trails, he was made
unusually large and strong for his age, alert and courageous--a real
backwoods boy.
He could shoot, fish, cut down trees, and work on the farm in the
clearing. In his veins ran the red blood of Kentucky pioneers. His
grandfather, in the days of Daniel Boone, had been killed by an Indian,
while Abe’s father--a child then--had been rescued from this same
Indian by his brother, Mordecai Lincoln, a daring lad, who shot the
savage with his dead father’s rifle, so saving his little brother.
HOW HE LEARNED TO BE JUST
_Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that Faith, let
us to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it._
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, _from his speech at Cooper Institute_
But it was not all work for Abe on the new farm in Indiana. He picked
wild plums and pawpaws in the woods, and ate corn dodgers, fried bacon,
roast wild turkey, and fish caught in the Indiana streams. He went to
school when he could, which was not often, for in those days schools
were few and far between, and teachers were not many.
But little Abe had the best teacher of all, his mother, Nancy Lincoln.
For, though his father could scarcely write his own name, his mother
could read, and she loved books. She taught her little son his letters
and how to read. Often they sat together in the cabin, Abe and his
sister at their mother’s knee, while she read the Bible to them.
“I would rather my son would be able to read the Bible, than to own a
farm, if he can’t have but one,” she said.
She was a beautiful woman, slender, sad, and pale, with dark hair. She
was more refined than most women of those hardy pioneer times, but she
could use a rifle, work on the farm, spin, and do other housework.
Because of her gentle and firm character, she was loved and respected
not only by her husband and children, but by her neighbours.
Above all things she had a deep and tender religious spirit which she
shared with Abe and his sister, Sarah. She taught Abe to love truth and
justice and to revere God. In time he could repeat by heart much of the
Bible, and, when he grew up, he thought and wrote in the simple, clear,
and forceful language of the Bible. And he learned from it his ideas of
right and his scorn of wrong, making him “Honest Abe.”
OFF TO NEW ORLEANS
Young Abe Lincoln went on several flatboat trips carrying produce down
the Mississippi to New Orleans.
One of these trips made a deep and lasting impression upon him. In New
Orleans, he visited the slave-market. There negro men, women, and
children were bought, sold, and flogged. Wives were torn from their
husbands, children from their mothers, and auctioned off like cattle.
The anguish of these scenes wrung Lincoln’s heartstrings. With quivering
lips, he said, “If ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I will hit it
hard.”
John Hanks, a relative who was with him at the slave-market, said in
after years:--
“Lincoln saw it; his heart bled; said nothing much, was silent, looked
bad. I can say it, knowing him, that it was on this trip that he formed
his opinions of slavery. It run its iron into him, then and there.”
THE KINDNESS OF LINCOLN
_The Little Birds_
When Lincoln was a lawyer, one day he was going with a party of lawyers
to attend court. They were riding, two by two, on horseback through a
country lane, Lincoln in the rear. As they passed through a thicket of
wild plum and crab-apple trees, his friends missed him.
“Where is he?” they asked.
Just then Lincoln’s companion came riding up. “Oh,” replied he, “when I
saw him last, he had caught two young birds that the wind had blown out
of their nest, and was hunting for the nest to put them back.”
After a little while, Lincoln rode up, and when his friends rallied him
about his tender heart, he said:--
“I could not have slept, unless I had restored those little birds to
their mother.”
_Rescuing the Pig_
Another time, Lincoln was riding past a deep miry ditch, and saw a pig
struggling in the mud. The animal could not get out, and was squealing
with terror.
Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud, and then at his clothes--clean
ones, that he had just put on. Then he decided in favour of the clean
clothes, and rode along.
But he could not get rid of the thought of the poor animal struggling so
pitifully in its terror. He had not gone far when he turned back.
He reached the ditch, dismounted, and tied his horse. Then he collected
some old wooden rails, and with them made a foot-bridge to the bottom of
the ditch. He carefully walked down the bridge, and caught hold of the
pig. He pulled it out, and setting it on the ground, let it run away.
The screaming, struggling pig, had spattered Lincoln’s clean clothes
with mud. His hands were covered with filth; so he went to the nearest
brook, washed them, and wiped them on the grass.
Later, when telling a friend about his adventure, Lincoln said that he
had rescued the pig for purely selfish reasons, “to take a pain out of
his own mind.”
_Opening Their Eyes_
It was toward the close of the Civil War, the crisis had come, and the
end of the long struggle was in sight. The Union troops were hemming in
Richmond. President Lincoln went himself to City Point, and there he
remained, anxiously waiting.
In his tent lived a pet cat. It had a family of new-born kittens.
Sometimes, the President relieved his mind by playing with them.
Finally Richmond was taken, and Lincoln prepared to visit the city.
Before he left his tent, he picked up one of the kittens, saying:--
“Little kitten, I must perform a last act of kindness for you before I
go. I must open your eyes.”
He passed his hand gently over its closed lids, until the eyes opened;
then he set the kitten on the floor, and said:--
“Oh! that I could open the eyes of my blinded fellow-countrymen as
easily as I have those of that little creature!”
LINCOLN AND THE CHILDREN
_Hurrah for Lincoln!_
Abraham Lincoln loved children, and even strange children were drawn to
him, as though they had known him all their lives. Here are a few of the
stories told about Lincoln and his child-friends.
Soon after Lincoln was elected President, he went to Chicago, where he
was welcomed with shouts and cheers.
Later, as he sat in a room talking with friends, a little boy was led
in. At the sight of the President-elect, he took off his hat and swung
it, shouting:--
“Hurrah for Lincoln!”
Lincoln rose, and catching the little fellow in his strong hands, tossed
him to the ceiling, shouting:--
“Hurrah for _you_!”
_Only Eight of Us, Sir!_
On this same visit to Chicago, while Lincoln was talking with visitors,
a little German girl, heading a delegation of other girls, walked
timidly up to him.
“What do you want, my little girl? What can I do for you?” he asked
kindly.
“I want your name,” she said.
“But there are many other little girls that want my name, and as I
cannot give it to them all, they will feel hurt if I give it to you.”
She looked around at her companions, and said, “Only _eight_ of us,
sir!”
Lincoln could not resist that, so he sat down immediately, and
forgetting his other visitors, took eight sheets of paper and wrote a
line and his name on each. These he gave to the little girls, and they
went away happy.
_He’s Beautiful!_
Once a little girl’s father took her to call upon Lincoln. She had been
told that he was very homely. But when he lifted her on his knee and
talked to her in his kindly, merry way, she turned to her father, and
exclaimed:--
“O Pa! He isn’t ugly at all! He’s beautiful!”
_Please Let Your Beard Grow_
But there was another little girl who did not think so. She lived in
Westfield, in the State of New York. She had seen Lincoln’s picture, and
did not like it; so after his election she wrote a letter asking him to
let his beard grow, as she thought it would make him better looking.
Lincoln enjoyed the letter very much. It
[Illustration: “HE’S BEAUTIFUL”]
happened later that he was on a train passing through Westfield, and, as
the train stopped for a few minutes, he was asked to address the people
at the station. He told about the letter, and stroking his chin,
added:--
“I intend to follow her advice!”
He then called for the little girl. She came forward, and he greeted her
kindly.
_Three Little Girls_
One day, after Lincoln had gone to Washington, three little girls, the
children of a workingman, went to the White House on a reception day.
They joined the throng, and were pushed along until they came to where
Lincoln was shaking hands with each of his visitors.
When the children reached him, they were so bashful, that they did not
dare to put out their hands. But Lincoln saw them passing by, and
called:--
“Little girls, are you going to pass me without shaking hands?”
Then, stooping over, he kept every one waiting while he shook hands with
each child.
THE PRESIDENT AND THE BIBLE
Lincoln’s love of truth, justice, and mercy, his detestation of
everything ignoble, brutal, or mean, were taught him or strengthened in
him from childhood through his reading of the Bible.
The language of his speeches and writings was forceful and direct like
the English of the Bible, and such a phrase as “A house divided against
itself,” he took from the Bible.
While President, he used to carry a New Testament with him; and he could
quote whole passages. He used often to rise early in the morning to get
time to read and pray before the pressing business of the day began.
He read the Bible aloud to the coloured servants of the White House.
Once, when a Committee of Coloured People waited upon him, to present
him with a fine copy of the Bible, he took it and made a speech to them,
a part of which was:--
“In regard to this great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift
God has given to man. All the good Saviour gave to the World was
communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from
wrong. All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter,
are to be found portrayed in it.
“To you I return my most sincere thanks for the very elegant copy of the
great Book of God which you present.”
WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN SPEAK
A LINCOLN ORDER
_To the Army and Navy_
The President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and
enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in
the military and naval service.
The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the
sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to
the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the
Divine will, demand that Sunday labour in the Army and Navy be reduced
to the measure of strict necessity.
The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer,
nor the cause they defend be imperilled, by the profanation of the day
or name of the Most High.
“At this time of public distress”--adopting the words of Washington in
1776--“men may find enough to do in the service of God and their Country
without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality.”
The first General Order issued by the Father of his Country after the
Declaration of Independence indicates the spirit in which our
institutions were founded and should ever be defended:--
“The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavour
to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest
Rights and Liberties of his Country.”
_November 15, 1862._
ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE DEDICATION OF THE GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY
Fourscore and seven years ago our Fathers brought forth on this
continent a new Nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that Nation, or
any Nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met
on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion
of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their
lives that that Nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper
that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate--we cannot consecrate--we
cannot hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who
struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or
detract. The World will little note nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be
here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these
honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that
these dead shall not have died in vain; that this Nation, under God,
shall have a new birth of Freedom; and that Government of the People, by
the People, for the People, shall not perish from the earth.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
_November 19, 1863._
_The following famous stories about Lincoln are in “Good Stories
for Great Holidays”: A Solomon Come to Judgment; The Colonel of the
Zouaves; Courage of his Convictions; George Pickett’s Friend; He
Rescues the Birds; His Springfield Farewell Address; Lincoln and
the Little Girl; Lincoln the Lawyer; Mr. Lincoln and the Bible; A
Stranger at Five-Points; Training for the Presidency; Why Lincoln
was called “Honest Abe”; The Widow and her Three Sons; The Young
Sentinel._
FEBRUARY 22
GEORGE WASHINGTON
THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY
_Where may the wearied eye repose,
When gazing on the Great;
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?
Yes--one--the first--the last--the best--
The Cincinnatus of the West,
Whom Envy dared not hate,
Bequeathed the name of Washington,
To make man blush there was but one!_
LORD BYRON
LINCOLN ON WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY
_This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of
Washington. We are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the
mightiest name of earth--long since mightiest in the cause of Civil
Liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is
expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun or glory to the
name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it._
_In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendour,
leave it shining on._
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, _February 22, 1849_
WASHINGTON was born, February 22, 1732
Was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the American Army, 1775
Was made President of the Federal Convention for Framing the
Constitution, and signed the Constitution, 1787
Was inaugurated, first President of the United States, 1789
Issued his “Farewell Address,” 1796
He died at Mount Vernon, December 14, 1799
THE BOY IN THE VALLEY
The boy George Washington was magnificently strong and tall, with firm
muscles and powerful body. He could run, leap, wrestle, toss the bar,
and pitch quoits. He rode fiery horses and hunted foxes. He was a
silent, determined lad, truth-telling, with a wonderful grip on his
temper. By the time that he was sixteen he was an excellent surveyor.
And he was a proud and happy boy when, one spring day, he leaped on his
horse, and, with a companion, rode away into the Wilderness on a real
job of surveying.
Lord Fairfax, his close friend, owned a great estate of over five
million acres stretching to the westward. A part of the estate was a
wilderness, and lay on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It
had never been surveyed. Squatters were stealing the land. So Lord
Fairfax had sent sixteen-year old George Washington to survey it for
him.
As the boy rode over the mountains, and guided his horse down the steep
trail into the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, Spring was busy all around
him. Cascades and torrents of snow-water were rushing from the
mountain-tops to feed the bright Shenandoah River--“The Daughter of the
Stars,” the Indians called the river.
The boy spent the better part of the first day riding through fine
groves of sugar maples, and admiring the trees and the richness of the
land. Here and there showed the little clearings, where the squatters
were preparing their small farms for crops of tobacco, hemp, and corn.
For some days, he surveyed along the banks of the river and in the
valley, roughing it at night. And many were the adventures he had about
which he has written in his diary.
Sometimes he slept before the camp-fire or in a hut, at others in a
tent. Once, he was nearly burnt to death when his straw bed caught fire.
He roasted wild turkeys, and ate off chips for plates. He swam his horse
through swollen streams, and followed the rough roads made by the
squatters.
But his most exciting adventure was with Indians.
On the bank of the Potomac stood a little cabin. Near it was hung a huge
kettle suspended over a place always ready for a fire. The cabin
belonged to Cresap, a frontiersman, and so did the kettle. He kept the
fireplace and everything in readiness for the passing Indians to cook
their meals. The grateful Red Skins called him “Big Spoon.”
Rain and floods drove Washington to the cabin. Big Spoon invited him to
stay until the bad weather was past.