almost a grown man. He had been better prepared than most of his
classmates, and so decided he did not need to study to keep up with
them. Instead of working he devoted all his time to sport, and to
wandering through the beautiful country about New Haven. He was learning
a great deal about outdoor life, and storing his mind with pictures, but
at the same time was learning little of the Latin and Greek which his
teachers thought vastly more important. He got into scrape after scrape
with other boys of his way of thinking, and finally in his third year a
midnight frolic led to his being dismissed. Mr. Cooper took his son's
side and argued with the faculty, but the boy had to leave. His father
looked about for some means of taming his son's wild habits and decided
to send him to sea for a time.
Nothing could have pleased James better. He wanted to see the world, and
he was fond of ships. He had no special ambition, but rather looked
forward to serving in the navy. In the fall of 1806 he sailed from New
York on the ship _Sterling_ bound for England with a freight of flour.
The voyage was a long and stormy one, and the boy, who was simply a
sailor before the mast, got a good taste of life at sea. He enjoyed it
thoroughly. When they reached England he went to London in his sailor's
clothes, and knocked about that great city much like any other jack on
shore. He made friends quickly, enjoyed any new adventure, and stored up
a great stock of stories to take home.
The boy enjoyed his voyage before the mast so much that when he returned
to New York he asked his father to get him a commission in the United
States navy. Mr. Cooper was able to do this, and James was soon after
sent as midshipman with a party of men to build a brig of sixteen guns
on Lake Ontario. It took them a winter to build the ship, and during
that time the party stayed at the tiny settlement of Oswego, a
collection of some twenty houses. All around lay the unbroken forest
stretching thirty or forty miles without a break. There was abundance of
game, many Indians, and a splendid chance to live the frontier life that
Cooper loved. He now knew the habits of the wild red men and whites, the
lore of the woods, the perils and joys of the sea, and as he helped to
build the gunboat he learned a thousand things that he was to turn to
splendid uses later.
The boy had now grown to manhood, and yet no sign of his real work had
appeared. He was not especially fond of books or history, his views of
the charm of a soldier's life were much those he had spoken to Captain
Kent at Otsego Hall. It seemed as though he were settled in the navy.
It is strange how chance determined the fate of young Cooper. About this
time his grandmother asked him to take her name, and for a while he
called himself Fenimore-Cooper. Then a little later he married, and his
wife did not like the idea of his leaving her on long sea voyages. He
seems to have been quite willing to give up the navy, and settle down at
Otsego Hall as lord of the manor after his father's fashion. He liked
the life of a country gentleman, and spent his time planting trees,
draining swamps, planning lawns, and cultivating flowers and fruits. By
the time he was thirty he had tried his hand at almost everything except
writing.
It happened that as Cooper was one day reading aloud to his wife from an
English novel he threw the book down, exclaiming, "Why, I believe I
could write a better story myself!" His wife laughed, and asked him to
prove it. He said he would, and thereupon sat down and began to lay out
a plot. A few days later he was deep in work on the story, and he kept
at it until he had finished a two-volume novel, which he called
"Precaution."
His wife and friends liked it and urged him to publish it; so in
November, 1820, appeared the first of that great series of native
American stories which were to give the young nation a distinct place in
English literature. Chance began them, but the first few books proved
so successful that Cooper settled at once into the career of novelist.
The famous "Leather-Stocking Tales" followed, and the world made the
acquaintance of the America of the Indian and the pioneer in "The
Deerslayer," "The Last of the Mohicans," "The Pathfinder," "The
Pioneers," and "The Prairie." Here he tells the romantic story of the
conquest of the wilderness, and draws the portraits of the pioneer, the
hunter, and the Indian. The same character, Harvey Birch, called
Leather-Stocking, runs through them all, first as a youth in the novels
that deal with the red men, with the great characters of Chingachcook
and Uncas, then as a man in the dramas of the white men who blazed the
trail westward through the forests, and settled the great prairies.
The story of Daniel Boone inspired him in these latter novels, and he
tells of such scenes as the great prairie fire and the panther fight
with the vividness of an eye-witness. "The Pioneers" is laid on the
shores of Lake Ontario where he built the war-ship, and "The Deerslayer"
about the little lake near Otsego Hall.
He wrote great tales of the sea also, in one of which, "The Pilot," he
took as his hero John Paul Jones, tales founded on his own knowledge of
a sailor's life won at first hand; but it was the Indian tales that
brought him greatest fame. Whether the pictures of the men of the Six
Nations be accurate or not they made direct appeal to the imagination of
the world, and Indian character will always stand as Cooper drew it.
Shakespeare and Scott have made English history for us, and Cooper has
done the same thing for the history of the Indian.
Cooper said later that he might have chosen happier periods for his
stories, more stirring events, and perhaps more beautiful scenes, but
none which would have lain so close to his heart. He never forgot what
had interested him so deeply in his boyhood, and when he wrote he went
back to his boyhood memories. Little had he realized in those days how
the words Captain Kent spoke in the garden would come true. He had
drifted into writing before he realized what a great untrodden field lay
before him.
The story of James Fenimore Cooper is an inspiration to every American.
It is the history of a man who loved his country deeply, and who was as
fine-spirited a gentleman as he was a great author.
VII
John Ericsson
The Boy of the Göta Canal: 1803-1889
Among the Swedish country people there still lingers a primitive half
belief in witches and goblins, and nymphs and elves of the forests and
the sea. Many a simple mountaineer, returning home from some lonely
trip, tells tales of prophetic voices he heard whispering in the wind or
of gnomes who interrupted his slumbers in the woods. One such legend
runs as follows.
A wealthy farmer named Ericsson, who owned many acres in the Swedish
province of Vermland, had in his service a crippled lad whose business
it was to tend the sheep. This work kept him away from people much of
the time, and led him through the pine woods, beside the little tarns,
or hidden inland lakes, and up and down the wild mountains where the
fairy people dwell. He grew quite accustomed to meeting wood or lake
nymphs in his wanderings, and became so friendly with them that they
often gave him good advice, such as when to expect a storm, or where he
might find the best grazing for his flock.
One day he was caught in the rain and when he found shelter in a
deserted barn he was so wet and exhausted that he fell into a troubled
sleep. While he slept a pixie came to him and whispered in his ear that
in time to come a house should be built on that part of farmer
Ericsson's land, and that two boys should be born there who should make
the name of Ericsson known round the world.
The shepherd was much excited by the news, and as soon as he reached the
Ericsson house he told the fairy's prophecy. The family were very much
concerned and wrote the prophecy down in the family Bible, and also
spread the story through the province. That was in the seventeenth
century.
Near the end of the eighteenth century young Olof Ericsson married, and
built him a home on that part of the family land where the old barn had
stood. He had three children, a daughter named Caroline, and two sons,
named Nils and John. One day the mother heard the old legend and
identified the place with her husband's house, and so became convinced
that her boys were to become world famous. They came of very good stock,
and the family traced their ancestry back to the great Leif Ericsson,
son of Eric the Red, who had been the Norse discoverer of America.
Olof and his wife Brita were devoted to their children. Olof was part
owner of a mine at the town of Langsbaushyttan near which they lived.
The children had a governess for a time, and father and mother taught
them what they could, but the most of their days were spent playing in
the thick pine woods along the shore of the little Lake Hytt which lay
in front of their house. Sometimes Olof took the two boys with him to
the mine, and from almost the first visit a perfect passion for
machinery took possession of the younger boy John. After that he was
always playing with pencils and paper, with bits of wood and metal, and
spent hours drawing figures in the sand on the beach of the lake.
At about this period hard times befell Sweden. The small Northern
country, half the size of Texas, with fewer people than the single city
of London, never very rich, had trouble keeping her independence from
Russia. Her king was a weakling, and lost part of his land. Then a
gentleman of fortune, a man who had been a French lawyer's apprentice,
and had risen to be a marshal, one whose sword had helped to carve out
an empire for Napoleon, suddenly was elected King of Sweden. He brought
the little country French support and better times, but meantime Olof
Ericsson had lost his property and found that he must seek work at once
to keep his family from starving.
Olof had lost his share in the mine and had been living in the depths of
the pine forest choosing lumber for builders. He had encouraged his son
John's talent for machinery, and now began to believe that the old
prophecy might really come true. He had seen John, only ten years old,
build a miniature sawmill and pumping engine at the mine, and had been
as much astonished as any of the men there when his son proudly showed
them the designs he had drawn for a new kind of pump to drain the mines
of water.
Even when the little family had left the mining town and were living in
the deep woods the boy continued working out his own inventions. He made
tools for himself, using sharp pine needles for the points of a drawing
compass he fashioned out of sticks, begging his mother for a few hairs
from her fur coat to make paint brushes, and actually devising a ball
and socket joint for a small windmill he was building. Everything he
could lay his hands on he turned to some mechanical use, and all his
thoughts seemed bent in that one direction.
The new King of Sweden was now planning to build a great ship canal at
Göta to unite the Baltic and the North Seas, a scheme which had for a
long time appealed to Swedish patriots as a protection against their
great grasping neighbor, the Russian Bear. Through the influence of a
friend, Count Platen, Olof Ericsson was given work in connection with
the canal, and moved his family with him to a town called Forsvik. Here
a great many soldiers were at work, for the canal was in charge of the
army, and many skilled engineers were gathered to superintend the
building.
Almost at the same time when Olof reported for work Count Platen and the
other officers were surprised to see a small boy, not more than thirteen
years old, come every day to watch the digging, to study the machinery,
and to ask questions of every one in the place. He was a handsome boy,
well built, with light, close-cut, curling hair, fair as Swedish boys
almost always are, with clear blue eyes, and a very firm mouth and chin.
While other boys of his age were at school or playing he would stand on
the bank of the canal, studying by the hour some piece of machinery.
Then on another day he would come with a pad of paper, some crude
home-made drawing tools, and pencils, and perching himself on a pile of
rocks or of lumber would draw the machinery as a skilled draughtsman
might, and then work over his sketch, apparently adding to it or
altering it to suit ideas of his own.
Count Platen watched the boy for several days, and then one morning went
up to him. "May I see what you're doing?" he asked.
The boy, who had been absolutely absorbed in his work, looked up. "It's
the sketch of a new pump to drain the canal," said he. "I made one for
father's mine in Vermland, and I don't see why the same plan can't be
used here. It'll do the work more quickly."
Count Platen looked at the drawing on the boy's lap, and listened
intently while the young inventor explained how the machine should work.
He was astounded at the knowledge the boy had of engineering.
"You're Olof Ericsson's son, aren't you?" he asked finally.
The boy nodded. "Yes, I'm John Ericsson; I've an older brother Nils,
who's fifteen."
"Is Nils as much of an engineer as you are?"
"He knows a good deal about it. Father taught us both, but I don't think
he's as fond of machines as I am."
The Count laughed. It sounded strange to him to hear a small boy talk of
machinery so eagerly. He could not doubt the boy's earnestness, however.
He had watched him for several days and had just examined his plans. The
boy evidently meant what he said.
"Well, John, you're certainly a remarkable lad. I shouldn't wonder if
you'd the making of a genius in you." He considered a few minutes, and
then went on. "We need some engineers here to show these stupid soldiers
what to do. How'd you like to try such a job?"
The boy jumped from his seat in his excitement. "I'd like it very much,
sir. Do you mean to tell the men what to do, and to have real tools to
work with?"
Count Platen smiled. "Yes, to have entire charge of a part of the work.
That's what I mean. I really think you could do it. How old are you,
John?"
"I'll be fourteen very soon."
"Hm," mused the Count, "It seems absurd to put a boy of fourteen in
charge of six hundred soldiers. And yet if he has the skill to do the
work, why not? And there's small doubt that he has. Well, John, I'll see
what can be done. Meet me here to-morrow morning."
The next day Count Platen found John anxiously awaiting him. He told the
boy at once that his plan had proved successful, and that both John and
Nils were to be enrolled as cadets in the mechanical corps of the
Swedish navy, and that John was to be put in charge of part of the canal
building. The boy was highly delighted; he knew that now he should have
a chance to try in actual working some of the inventions he had planned
on paper. As soon as he had thanked his kind friend the Count he ran
home to tell his mother the news of Nils' and his good fortune.
It was a curious sight when the officer in command of the troops placed
six hundred soldiers in charge of young John Ericsson. They were too
well trained to laugh, but they were tremendously surprised when they
saw that their future orders were to come from this small, curly-haired
lad just barely turned fourteen. Olof Ericsson himself was scarcely less
surprised than the men; he knew his son's great mechanical ability, but
he could hardly believe that others had come to realize it so soon.
A few days of actual work on the canal, however proved that Count Platen
had made no mistake. John knew what ought to be done, and he could show
the soldiers new and better ways of getting results, although he was
actually too small to reach the eyepiece of his leveling instrument
without the aid of a camp-stool which he carried about with him. He
brought out some of the mechanical drawings he had worked over, and had
machinery made after them, and whenever his inventions were tried they
met with success.
For several years John commanded his six hundred men at the Göta Canal,
and then he decided to enter the army. He had grown tall, and was noted
for his great strength and skill in feats of arms. At seventeen he was
made an Ensign in the Rifle Corps, and soon after Lieutenant in the
Royal Chasseurs. He was fond of the life of the army, but he saw there
was no great future in it for him, and he could not give up his passion
for science and invention. He procured an appointment as surveyor for
the district of Jemtland, and found himself free again to work on his
own lines.
Sweden is a rugged country, its northern part serried by great fiords,
its mountains steep and often desolate, its forests thick and many. The
young surveyor was in his element roughing it through the wild country,
with an eye to improving it for cultivation and for defense, making
elaborate maps of its hills and valleys, and charts of its fiords and
bays. He had a genius for such work, and the drawings he sent back to
Stockholm were invaluable for the development of Sweden. The surveyors
were paid according to the work they did, but John Ericsson worked so
rapidly that the officials were afraid it would cause a scandal if it
were known how much money he was receiving, and so they carried him on
their account-books as two different men and paid him for two men's
work.
In his spare hours in Jemtland and Norrland John was busy with
inventions. As a boy he had been delighted to watch his father make a
vacuum in a tube by means of fire. Now he worked over uses to which he
could put that idea, and finally invented a flame engine based largely
on that principle. That success led him to study engines more deeply,
and had much to do with deciding his later career.
Sweden had shown the world much that was new in the building of the Göta
Canal, and many of the improvements had been due to the boy cadet
Ericsson. He was now persuaded to write a book on "Canals," explaining
his inventions and describing the Swedish plans. In such a scientific
book the drawings of diagrams were as important as the writing. As soon
as John realized that, he could not resist the temptation to try his
hand at inventing a machine which should properly engrave the plates he
was drawing. It was pure delight to him to exercise his wits on such a
problem, and as a result in a short time he had made a machine for
engraving plates which was used successfully in preparing the
illustrations for his book on "Canals."
The youth had now won wide recognition throughout Sweden for his
inventive skill. But his own country offered him small opportunities,
devoted though he was to the land and the people. There was more chance
for such a man in a country like England, and there he now went.
Stephenson was working then on his steam-engine, and Ericsson studied
the same subject, and built an engine which in many ways was superior to
the Englishman's. In whatever direction he turned his mind he was able
to find new ideas for improving on old methods.
Ericsson soon built a locomotive for the directors of the railway
between Liverpool and Birmingham which was the lightest and fastest yet
constructed, starting off at the rate of fifty miles an hour. He could
not find the opportunities he wished, however, in England, and went to
Germany, and from there came to the United States.
It was in America that Ericsson won his greatest triumphs. He had
invented a screw propeller for boats, and found a splendid market for
this type of machinery. He built the steamship _Princeton_, the first
screw steamer with her machinery under the water line. This was a great
improvement on the old top-heavy style of steamboats, but how great was
only to be known when war showed that ironclads with machinery safely
sunk beneath the water line and so out of reach of the enemy's guns
were to revolutionize naval warfare.
By the time of the American Civil War men in all countries were
experimenting with these new ideas for ships which Ericsson had launched
upon the world. News came to Washington that the Confederate government
had an all-iron boat, low in the water, which could ram the high-riding
wooden ships of the Union navy, and would furnish little target for
their fire. The Union was in great alarm, for it looked as though this
small iron floating battery could do untold damage to the Union
shipping. There was only one man to appeal to if the North were to
offset this Southern ship, which had been christened the _Merrimac_.
John Ericsson was the man, and he agreed to build an ironclad which
should be superior to the _Merrimac_, and to build her in one hundred
days.
On March 8, 1862, the _Merrimac_ steamed into Hampton Roads, fully
expecting to destroy the Union fleet there. But instead, to the great
amazement of her officers and men a little iron boat, so small that she
looked like a tiny pill-box on a plank, steamed out to meet her. She was
so tiny it was almost impossible to hit her; she was almost entirely
under water, and her gun turret was built to revolve so that she could
fire in any direction. It was like a battle between David and Goliath,
and when the day was over David had won, and the _Merrimac_ had to bow
to the iron "pill-box" which had been named the _Monitor_. Proud was
John Ericsson then, and rightly so, for he had invented an entirely new
kind of ship, and one which was to give its name of _Monitor_ to all
ships of its kind.
The building of the _Monitor_ for its successful battle with the
_Merrimac_ was the most dramatic incident in Ericsson's career as an
inventor, but his whole life showed a series of wonderful inventions
which for value and wide range can probably only be compared with those
of Edison. The prophecy which the fairy had made to the shepherd in
Sweden had come true, the name of Ericsson was known throughout the
world. And in addition to John, the older brother Nils had won great
renown in Sweden. He was made Director of Canals there, and created a
nobleman for his great services to science and to his native land.
On the Battery in New York City, overlooking the wonderful harbor that
is filled with ships of every country, stands the statue of a tall,
handsome man, somewhat of the type of those Norsemen who were the great
adventurers of the Atlantic seas. The statue is of the man who built the
_Monitor_, and who brought to the new world the genius for invention
which he had first shown on the hills and in the woods of Sweden in the
days when, a boy of fourteen, he had taught men how to build the great
canal at Göta.
XVIII
Garibaldi
The Boy of the Mediterranean: 1807-1882
The town of Nice lay blazing with color under the hot August sun. The
houses, with their shining red-tiled roofs, their painted yellow walls,
their striped and checkered awnings, were scarcely less vivid than the
waters of the bay, which sparkled like a sea of opals under the rich
blue Mediterranean sky. Color was everywhere, brilliant even in the
sun-tanned cheeks, the black hair and eyes, the orange and gold and red
caps and sashes of the three boys who stood on the beach, looking out at
the home-coming fleet of feluccas and fishing-smacks.
"If only I were a man!" exclaimed one of the boys. "No more Latin
lessons with the Padre. I could sail and fish all day like brother
Carlo. And sometimes I'd visit strange lands, like Africa, and have the
sort of adventures father tells of."
"I'll be a sailor too, Cesare," agreed the tallest of the three, nodding
his head. "Only poor Giuseppe here will have to stay ashore and be a
priest." He turned a sympathetic face toward Giuseppe, who stood with
his arms folded, his black eyes looking hungrily out to sea.
"Aye, he'll be teaching other boys just as the Padre teaches us," said
Cesare.
This prophecy was more than the third boy could stand. He turned quickly
toward his friends. "I'll have adventures, too," he exclaimed. "I'll not
stay here in Nice all my life; I'll go to Genoa and to Rome, and perhaps
I'll fight the Turks. I want to do things, too." His deep eyes shone
with excitement and his face glowed. "Look you, Cesare and Raffaelle,
why shouldn't we turn sailors now?"
Both boys laughed; they were used to the mad ideas of young Giuseppe
Garibaldi. He, however, was not laughing. "Why not? I've been out to sea
a hundred times with father. He lets me handle his boat sometimes,
though he does say that I'm to enter the Church. Your brother, Cesare,
has a boat that he never uses. Why shouldn't we sail in her to Genoa?"
Giuseppe was a born leader. The other boys looked doubtfully at each
other, then back at him. The gleam in his eyes held them.