OLD HICKORY.
Many a time, I dare say, you have sat on your bench at school, with your cotton handkerchief spread over your knee, looking at the stern face of this famous man upon it; every bristling hair upon his head seeming to say for itself, In the name of the commonwealth, stand and deliver! You have thought, perhaps, that a man with such a sharp eye and granite face as that, must be a very terrible person, whose heart was quite left out when he was made, and whom little children had better run away from. It is just because this wasnottrue, that I first believed in General Jackson. A brave man is never a mean one; and itismean to despise or bully children and women. I placechildrenfirst, because every woman who has ever had one, does so. But to my story. We, who have lived so peacefully and quietly in theland for which our brave ancestors fought, do not think as often as we ought of the sufferings and trials through which they purchased it for us. Until lately, our houses were not burned down over our heads, or ransacked and robbed, nor our mothers and sisters insulted before our eyes, nor our fathers and brothers dragged off as prisoners of war, and kicked and cuffed for sport by the enemy. All this, Andrew Jackson’s boyish eyes saw. Do you wonder at the fire in them? One of his earliest recollections was of the meeting house in his native place turned into a hospital for his wounded, maimed, dying, brave countrymen; and his own widowed mother, leading him there by the hand to nurse them, and dress their wounds, and comfort them, as only a woman with a strong heart and angel touch can. Could the boy stand by and see all this, and not long for the time when he should grow big, and stout, and tall, and help fight for his country? Could he help being impatient, he, the son of this unprotected mother, when one after another of these poor fellows was brought in, with their fresh, ghastly wounds, and laid down to die? And when, later, his cousin’s house was taken by theBritish, and the furniture was broken in pieces, and his cousin’s wife was insulted by the officers, and he and his brother were taken prisoners, and ordered by the officer, with an oath, to clean his muddy boots; and, because they both refused, were cut and slashed across the face and head by this bullying, cowardly fellow, Andrew then being only twelve years old; and then were marched miles and miles away down South, and not allowed a morsel of food by the way, and forbidden even to scoop up water from the streams they were fording, to quench their feverish thirst? Ah! do you wonder now at that stern face? Suppose your dear mother, whom your dear father, whom you can just remember, loved so tenderly, was driven across the country with you and your little brother, from place to place, for safety, in those troublous times, and subjected to all kinds of hardships, bearing up under it bravely, as good women will. Suppose that when you and your brother—still boys—were dragged off as prisoners of war, this dear, brave mother traveled off alone, and never rested till she managed, by an exchange of prisoners with the British general, to get her dear boys back again; but wan and wasted withsmall pox, and the wounds that they had received from that big, cowardly British officer, all undressed and uncared for; these boys,herAndrew, her Robert? Well, as your mother would have nursed you and your brother through her tears, so Andrew Jackson’s mother nursed her fatherless boys. But was Andrew a boy to forget either his mother’s love, or the British? No, indeed! And when, after he became well, and the whole band went to live in the house of a friend, and Andrew picked beans, and pulled fodder, and drove cattle, and went to mill, do you wonder that when he was sent to the blacksmith’s, to get the farm tools mended, he brought home spears of iron, and all sorts of odd-looking, rough weapons, that, while waiting for the blacksmith, he had himself manufactured “to kill the British with”? Do you wonder that he fastened the blade of a scythe to a pole, and exclaimed, fiercely, as he cut down the weeds with it, “Oh! if I were only a man, wouldn’t I sweep off the British with my grass blade?” And he did it, too, afterward. Let those who call him “fierce, savage, vindictive,” remember how these sorrows of his childhood were burned in upon his soul; rememberwhat burning tears must have fallen upon the little bundle containing all his dead mother’s clothes, she who had struggled and suffered through the war of the Revolution, and left him an orphan at fifteen years, with only the memory of her love and his country’s wrongs. As he stood weeping over that little bundle, friendless, homeless, and heart-broken, thinking of all she had been to him, and looking wistfully forward into the dim unknown, he did not see the future President of the United States, and hear his voice falter as he said, “I learned that, years ago, from my dear, good mother!” Well might he remember her then. You ask me if Andrew found no opportunity to get an education in these troublous times? You may be sure his mother knew the value of that! and sent her boys, when quite young, to the best schools she could find in their native place. Schools, in those days, were not the furnace-heated, mahogany-desked affairs we see now. Pupils did not carry an extra pair of shoes to put on when they entered, for fear of soiling the floor. Velvet jackets were not worn by the boys, nor gold bracelets by the girls. Andrew Jackson’s schoolroom was an old log housemade of pines, the crevices being filled in with clay, which the boys used to pick out when it came spring, to let in the fresh air. In this school no French, nor drawing, nor “moral science,” was taught. Reading, writing, and arithmetic was all. For a gymnasium, there were the grand old trees, which the freckled, sunburnt, redheaded Andrew was free to swing upon when school was done; and he went up and down them like a squirrel. I think he was better at that than at his books, if the truth must out; however, “learning” did not go before chests in those days, luckily for us, who enjoy the blessings for which our fathers’ strong arms fought. So Andrew studied some, and leaped, and wrestled, and jumped more;—was kind to defenceless small boys, but had his fist in the face of every fellow who made fun of him, or taunted him, or in any way pushed him to the wall.
Andrew had one very bad habit when a boy, which, I am sorry to say, followed him all his life. He swore fearfully! An oath, from anybody’s mouth, is hateful; but from achild’smouth! I know nothing more saddening and pitiful. Often, I know, children will use such words, quite unconsciousof their meaning, as they pick them up from those who have no such excuse for their utterance, till the habit becomes so fixed, that only in later life, when they pain some person who is “old-fashioned” enough to reverence the name they use so lightly, do they become conscious of the extent of this disgusting habit. The idea of its being “manly” to swear is ridiculous enough; since the lowest, most brutal ruffian in creation, can, and does, outdo you in this accomplishment. I think Andrew would have enjoyed his boyish sports quite as well without these bad words; and hewasa splendid fellow for all athletic exercises. Had he been alive when that game of cricket was won by the English cricketers, I don’t know what would have happened; well, itwouldn’thave happened; or had it, the victors would never have gone home alive to tell of it!
Andrew was a good son to his mother; he was honest, and truthful, and kind to her always. He never forgot her as long as he lived. He used often, when President of the United States, to stop in the midst of his conversation, and say,reverently and proudly, “ThatI learned from my good mother!”
One cannot help feeling sad that she should have lived long enough only to bear the burden and heat of the day, and not share with her boy its calm repose and reward. And yet, who can believe that a mother and son so loving are divided, though one crosses alone the dark river before the other? We have seen, of a fine summer morning, after the sun shone out, fine gossamer threads, before invisible, floating, yet fixed, in the air above us. So, when the light of eternity shines on our life-path, shall these chords of a mother’s love be seen to have entwined themselves around and about us—leading us in a way we knew not.
Jackson’s life was a strange one. It is for me only now to speak of his childhood and youth. His relation to our country’s history will not suffer you to rest satisfied with this. His after-life is better told than I could tell it you, by a man who is now looking over my shoulder, and who says, I have just told you a fib. If you read “Parton’s Life of Andrew Jackson,” however, you will see that I have told the truth.