DANIEL RECEIVES SOME VALUABLE ADVICE
Peter Harvey, in his interesting volume of “Reminiscences of Daniel
Webster,” relates many incidents for which he was indebted to the free
and friendly communications of Mr. Webster himself. One of these I will
transfer to my pages, as it will be likely to amuse my young readers.
I can do no better than quote it without alteration from Mr. Harvey’s
book.
“Mr. Webster was once telling me about a plain-spoken neighbor of
his father, whose sons were schoolmates of his own. The neighbor had
moved into the neighborhood of Hanover, where he had opened a little
clearing, and had settled upon a piece of comparatively barren land.
After Daniel had been in college several months his father said to him,
“‘John Hanson is away up there somewhere. I should like to know how he
is getting along. I think you had better find him out, and go and see
him.’
“So Daniel inquired about, and soon found out pretty nearly where
Hanson lived.
“‘One Saturday afternoon,’ related Mr. Webster, ’I thought I would
trudge up there through the woods, and spend Sunday with my old
friends. After a long, tedious walk I began to think I should never
find the place; but I finally did, and when I got there I was pretty
well tired out with climbing, jumping over logs, and so on. The family
were not less delighted than surprised to see me, but they were as poor
as Job’s cat. They were reduced to the last extreme of poverty, and
their house contained but one apartment, with a rude partition to make
two rooms.
“’I saw how matters were; but it was too late to go back, and they
seemed really glad to see me. They confessed to me that they had
not even a cow, or any potatoes. The only thing they had to eat was
a bundle of green grass and a little hog’s lard, and they actually
subsisted on this grass fried in the hog’s fat. But it was not so bad
after all. They fried up a great platter of it, and I made my supper
and breakfast off it. About a year and a half afterwards, just before
graduating, I thought that, before leaving Hanover, I would go and pay
another visit to the Hansons. I found that they had improved somewhat,
for they now had a cow and plenty of plain, homely fare. I spent the
night there, and was about to leave the next morning, when Hanson said
to me,
“’“Well, Daniel, you are about to graduate. You’ve got through college,
and have got college larnin’, and now, what are you going to do with
it?”
“’I told him I had not decided on a profession.
“’“Well,” said he, “you are a good boy; your father was a kind man
to me, and was always kind to the poor. I should like to do a kind
turn to him and his. You’ve got through college, and people that go
through college either become ministers, or doctors, or lawyers. As
for bein’ a minister I would never think of doin’ that; they never get
paid anything. Doctorin’ is a miserable profession; they live upon
other people’s ailin’s, are up nights, and have no peace. And as for
bein’ a lawyer, I would never propose that to anybody. Now,” said he,
“Daniel, I’ll tell you what! You are a boy of parts; you understand
this book-larnin’, and you are bright. I knew a man who had college
larnin’ down in Rye, where I lived when I was a boy. That man was a
conjurer; he could tell by consultin’ his books and study if a man had
lost his cow where she was. That was a great thing, and if people lost
anything, they would think nothin’ of payin’ three or four dollars to
a man like that, so as to find their property. There is not a conjurer
within a hundred miles of this place; and you are a bright boy, and
have got this college larnin’. The best thing you can do, Daniel, is to
study that, and _be a conjurer_!”’”
We can imagine the serious, earnest tone in which this advice was
given, and we may easily suppose that Daniel found it hard not to
laugh when the climax was reached. We can hardly imagine the advice to
have been taken. If, in place of Daniel Webster, the great lawyer, and
the defender of the Constitution, we had Daniel Webster, the famous
conjurer, it would be a ludicrous transformation. There are few persons
who do not consider themselves qualified to give advice, but when my
young readers are advised about the serious business of life, let them
consider whether the advice comes from one who is qualified by wisdom
and good judgment to give it.