In his boyhood Daniel early displayed a gift of entertainment and
of public speaking. The school in his district was ungraded. On
occasions of entertainment, such as the last day of school, after
the younger children had spoken their "pieces" and the program
began to grow monotonous, a call would be made for Dan Warner.
Then he would take the floor and soon would have them convulsing
with merriment. Mischievousness and clownishness were traits. The
trouble he sometimes caused the teacher was frequently such that
the latter could not locate it nor determine just who was to blame.
When he would be stood on the floor he would soon have others with
him. On one occasion he did something for which he was sentenced
to a scourging. When he appeared at school the next morning he was
prepared for this contingency by having on two or three coats. He
was, however, bright in his studies and in a general way sociable and
well liked.
The community in which he lived was strongly democratic in politics.
His father, a staunch democrat, actually had a degree of pride in his
boy when the latter would make stump speeches during a campaign. It
was natural for Dan to mount a storebox on the street or anywhere and
address a crowd on the issues of the day. In later years, however,
when he became a minister and his oratorical abilities were directed
in the channel of preaching the gospel, his father was not pleased.
Among the sports in which he indulged was coon hunting. On finding a
coon tree at night he and his companion would cover themselves with a
coon robe and lie under the tree until morning. He got to be rather
wild, and took particular delight in the dance, but never indulged in
the lowest forms of sin.
These are but brevities of his boyhood career. It is difficult to
prepare an account of this part of his life that would be to any
considerable degree full. One accident, by which he was maimed for
life, should here be noted. He attempted to remove a bunch of grass
that had clogged the sickle of a mowing-machine. As he was in this
act the team started and the ends of two of his fingers, the middle
ones of the left hand, were suddenly clipped off. Fortunately the
loss of these members did not hinder him in writing nor was it a
disfigurement usually noticed in his preaching.
There was one more move for the David Warner family, and this was
to Williams County, Ohio, the northwest corner of the State, where,
in Bridgewater Township, about four miles north of the town of
Montpelier, farm life was resumed. Here the parents spent the rest
of their lives. The removal to this place was made in 1863, during
the Civil War. Joseph Warner was drafted for the army. Being a man
of a family, he desired to arrange for a substitute. For this Daniel
offered himself, and accordingly became a private in Company C, 195th
Regiment, Ohio Infantry. Little is known of his army experience. It
is said that he found favor with the Captain and was made his clerk,
or secretary. At the close of his term he was honorably discharged.
While living in Williams County, the occupation of teaching school
appealed to him, and for several terms he was an instructor of the
young in matters of common-school education. He was now in his early
twenties. But here we shall close this chapter, and introduce him in
our next in a different aspect.