He began munching one of these as he went back into the street. Page 41.He began munching one of these as he went back into the street. Page 41.
After one or two useless trips to England, Franklin settled down to the printing business in Philadelphia. He was the busiest man in town. Deborah, his wife, helped him, and he started a newspaper, a magazine, a bookstore; he made ink, he made paper, even made soap (work that he hated so when a boy!). Then he published every year an almanac. Into this odd book, which people hurried to buy, he put some wise sayings, which I am sure you must have heard many times. Such as: "Haste makes waste"; "Well done is better than well said"; and "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
Franklin and his wife did so many things and did them well that they grew rich. So when he was only forty-two, Franklin shut up all his shops and took his time for studying out inventions. When you hear about the different things he invented, you will not wonder that the colleges in the country thought he ought to be honored with a degree and made him Doctor Franklin. Here are some of his inventions: lightning-rods, stoves, fans to cool hot rooms, a cure for smoking chimneys, better printing-presses, sidewalks, street cleaning. He opened salt mines and drained swamps so that they were made into good land. Then he founded the first public library, the first police service, and the first fire company. Doesn't it seem as if he thought of everything?
But better than all, Franklin always worked for the glory of America. When King George was angry and bitter against our colonies, Franklin went to England and stood his ground against the king and all his council. He said the king had no right to make the colonies pay a lot of money for everythingthat was brought over from England unless they had some say as to howmuchmoney it should be. If they paid taxes, they wanted to vote. They were not willing to be just slaves under a hard master.
"Very well, then," said the council, "then you colonists can't have any more clothes from England."
Mr. Franklin answered back: "Very well, then, we will wear old clothes till we can make our own new ones!"
In a week or so word was sent from England that clothing would not be taxed, and the colonists had great rejoicings. They built bonfires, rang bells, and had processions; and Benjamin Franklin's name was loudly cheered.
But England still needed money and decided to make the colonists pay a tax on tea and a few other things. Then the American colonists were as angry as they could be. They tipped the whole cargo of tea into Boston Harbor, and in spite of Franklin's trying to make the king and the colonists understand each other, there was a long war (it is calledthe Revolutionary War) and it ended in the colonists declaring themselves independent of Great Britain. A paper telling the king and the world that the colonists should not obey the English rule any longer, but would make laws of their own was signed by men from all thirteen colonies. Benjamin Franklin was one of the men from Pennsylvania who signed it. As this paper—The Declaration of Independence—was first proclaimed July 4, 1776, the people always celebrate the fourth day of July throughout the United States.
Franklin was postmaster-general of the colonies; he was our first minister to the Court of France, the governor (or president, as the office was then called) of Pennsylvania, and helped, more than almost any other man, to make America the great country she is.
Franklin was admired in France and England for his good judgment and clever ideas. Pictures of him were shown in public places; prints of his face were for sale in three countries; medallions of his head were set inrings and snuff-boxes; he traveled in royal coaches, and was treated like a prince. But although it was "the Great Doctor Franklin" here, and "the Noble Patriot" there, he did not grow vain. Benjamin Franklin was just a modest, good American!
Louis Agassiz was a Swiss boy who knew how to keep his eyes open. Some people walk right by things without seeing them, but Louis kept a sharp lookout, and nothing escaped him.
Louis was born in a small Swiss village near a lake. His father was a minister and school teacher. His mother was a fine scholar and was very sure that she wanted her children to love books, but two brothers of Louis's had died and she meant to have Louis and another son, Auguste, get plenty of play and romping in the fields so that they would grow up healthy and strong, first of all; there would be time for study afterwards.
The Agassiz boys had a few short lessons in the morning with their father or mother, and then they roamed through the woods and fields the rest of the day. Of course they found plenty to interest them and never camehome from these jaunts with empty hands. They had pet mice, birds, rabbits, and fish.
There was a stone basin in his father's yard, with spring water flowing through it. In this Louis put his fish and then watched their habits. As I told you, nothing escaped his eyes. He proved this more than once.
It was the custom in Swiss cantons for different kinds of workmen to travel from house to house, making such things at the door as each family might need. Louis watched the cobbler, and after he had gone away surprised his sister with a pair of boots he himself had made for her doll. And after the cooper had made his father some casks and barrels, Louis made a tiny, water-tight barrel, as perfect as could be. He kept his sharpest gaze on the tailor, and Papa Agassiz said to his wife: "Let us see, now, if Louis can make a suit!" They did not, in the end, ask him to try, but no doubt he knew pretty well how it was done.
At the age of ten, Louis was sent to a college twenty miles from Motier, where his parents lived. He was keen at his lessons and askedquestions until he mastered whatever he studied. The second year he went to this college he was joined by his brother, Auguste. The two boys liked the same things and never wanted to be away from each other. Whenever a vacation came, the boys walked home—all that twenty miles—and did not make any fuss about it!
By and by the boys wanted to own books which would tell them about birds, fishes, and rocks. These were the things Louis was thinking of all the time. The boys saved every cent of their spending money for these books. They were always talking about animals. One day, as they were walking from Zurich to Motier, they were overtaken by a gentleman in a carriage. He asked them to ride with him and to share his lunch. They did so and talked to him about their studies. He was greatly taken with Louis, who was a handsome, graceful lad, as he told the stranger his fondness for books. The gentleman hardly took his eyes from the boy, and a few days later Reverend Mr. Agassiz had a letter from him saying that he was very richand that he wanted to adopt Louis. He said he was sure that the boy was a genius.
Louis was not willing, though, to be any one's boy but his own parents', and so the matter was dropped.
The boys did not have much spending money, and it took, oh, such a long time to save enough to buy even one book! So they often went to a library, or borrowed a book from a teacher, then copied every word of it with pen and ink, so as to own it. You can see from this that they were very much in earnest.
When not studying or copying, the brothers were busy outdoors, watching animals. In this way they learned just what kinds of fishes could be found in certain lakes, and almost the exact day when different birds would come or go from the woods. In their rooms the cupboards and shelves were crammed with shells, stuffed fishes, plants, and odd specimens. On the ledges of the windows hovered often as many as fifty kinds of birds who had become tamed and who made their home there.
At seventeen Louis was bending over his desk a good many hours of the day. He learned French, German, Latin, Greek, Italian, and English. But he was wise enough to keep himself well and strong by walking, swimming, and fencing.
Because Louis's parents and his uncle wanted him to be a doctor, he studied medicine. He carried home his diploma when he was twenty-three and earned a degree in philosophy, too. But in his own heart he knew he would not be happy unless he could hunt the world over for strange creatures and try to find out the secrets of the old, old mountains.
Louis traveled all he could and became so excited over the different things he discovered that he sometimes stopped in cities and towns and talked to the people, in their public halls, about them. He had a happy way of telling his news, and crowds went to listen to the young Swiss.
The King of Prussia thought that any one who used his eyes in such good fashion ought to visit many places. He said to Louis:"Here is money for you to travel with, so that you may find out more of these strange things. You are a clever young man and can do much for the world!"
In the course of his travels, Louis Agassiz came to America. At that time he could not speak English very well, but all his stories were so charming that the halls were never large enough to hold the men and women who wanted to hear him.
Louis Agassiz loved America so well that he made up his mind to spend the rest of his life here. As time passed, he decided, also, to give this country the benefit of all that he discovered. He was so bright that the whole world was beginning to wonder at him. France got jealous of America's keeping such a great man. So Napoleon offered him a high office and great honors; but Louis said "No," adding courageously: "I'd rather have the gratitude of afreepeople than the patronage of Emperors!"
The city of Zurich begged him to return.
"No," he wrote, "I cannot. I love America too well!"
Then the city of Paris urged him to be at the head of their Natural History Museum, but this was no use, either. Nothing could win Louis Agassiz away from America.
At Harvard College Agassiz was made professor of natural history, and there is to-day at Cambridge a museum of zoology, the largest of its kind in the world, which Agassiz founded and built. At his home in Cambridge the professor still kept strange pets, quite as he used to do when a boy. Visitors to his garden never knew when they might step on a live turtle, or when they might come suddenly upon an alligator, an eagle, or a timid rabbit.
The precious dream of going to Brazil came true when Louis Agassiz was fifty years old. With a party of seventeen and his wife, he went on an exploring expedition to South America. It was a great adventure.
Agassiz had been to many cold countries and had slept on glaciers night after night, with only a single blanket under him, but never in his life had he been in the tropics.
When Agassiz arrived in South America,Don Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil, was glad to see the man who was known as a famous scientist and heaped all kinds of honors upon him. Better than all, he helped Agassiz get into many out-of-the-way places.
If you want to know about a fish that has four eyes, about dragon-flies that are flaming crimson and green, and floating islands that are as large as a school playground, yet go sailing along like a ship, bearing birds, deer, and wild looking jaguars, read:A Journey to Brazilby Professor and Mrs. Agassiz.
When you have heard the story of all these strange things, you will agree that Louis Agassiz did certainly know how to keep his eyes open.
Doctor Elisha Dix of Orange Court, Boston, was never happier than when his pet grandchild, little Dorothea Dix, came to visit his wife and himself. Every morning he had to drive about the city, in his old-fashioned chaise, to see how the sick people were getting along, and he did love to have Dorothea sitting beside him, her tongue going, as he used to declare "like a trip-hammer." She was a wide-awake, quick-motioned creature and said such droll things that the doctor used to shout with laughter, until the dappled gray horse which he drove sometimes stopped short and looked round at the two in the chaise as if to say: "Whatever in the world does all this mean?"
But when the time drew near for Dorothea to go back home, she always looked sober enough. One day she burst out: "Oh, Grandpa, I almosthatetracts!"
Doctor Dix glanced down at her in his kind way and answered: "I don't know as I blame you, Child!"
You see, Joseph Dix, Dorothea's father, was a strange man. He had fine chances to make money because the doctor had bought one big lot of land after another and had to hire agents to look after these farms and forests. Naturally he sent his own son to the pleasantest places, but the only thing Joseph Dix, who was very religious in the gloomiest sort of a way, really wanted to do, was to repeat hymns and write tracts. To publish these dismal booklets, he used nearly all the money he earned, so that the family had small rations of food, cheap clothing, and no holidays.
Besides having to live in such sorry fashion, the whole household were forced to stitch and paste these tracts together. Year after year Mrs. Dix, Dorothea, and her two brothers sat in the house, doing this tiresome work. No matter whether, as agent, Mr. Dix was sent to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, or Massachusetts; no matter whether theirplaymates in the neighborhood were berrying, skating, or picnicking; no matter how the birds sang, the brooks sparkled, the nuts and fruit ripened; the wife and children of Joseph Dix had no outdoor pleasures, no, they just bent over those old tracts, pasting and sewing till they fairly ached.
When Dorothea was twelve, she decided to stand such a life no longer. Fortunately the family was then living in Worcester, near Boston, and it did not cost much to get there. Doctor Dix was dead, but Dorothea ran away to her grandmother, who still lived at Orange Court (now it is called Dix Place), and although Madam Dix was very strict, life was better there than with the tract-maker.
At Orange Court, Dorothea was allowed no time to play. She was taught to sew and cook and knit and was sometimes punished if the tasks were not well done. "Poor thing," she said in after life, "I never had any childhood!" But she went to school and was so quick at her lessons that in two years she went back to Worcester and opened a school for little children. She was onlyfourteen and rather small for her age, so she put on long dresses and piled her hair on top of her head with a high comb. I think people never guessed how young she was. Anyway, she proved a good teacher, and the children loved her and never disobeyed her.
After keeping this school for a year, she studied again in Boston until she was nineteen. Then she not only taught a day and boarding-school in that city, but looked after her brothers and opened another school for poor children whose parents could not afford to pay for their lessons. She took care of her grandmother's house, too. While every one was wondering how one young girl could do so much, she made them open their eyes still wider by writing three or four books.
By and by her health broke down, and she began to think that she could never work any more, but after a long rest in England she came back to America and did something far greater than teaching or writing—she went through the whole country making prisons, jails, and asylums more comfortable. Up to the time of Dorothea Dix's interest, noone had seemed to bother his head about prisoners and insane people. Any kind of a place that had a lock and key was good enough for such to sleep in. And what did it matter if a wicked man or a crazy manwascold or hungry? But it mattered very much to Dorothea Dix that human beings were being ill-treated, and she meant to start a reform. She talked with senators, governors, and presidents. She visited the places in each State where prisoners, the poor, and the crazy were shut up. She talked kindly to these shut-ins, and she talked wrathfully to the men who ill-treated them. She made speeches before legislatures; she wrote articles for the papers, and begged money from millionaires to build healthy almshouses and asylums. This was seventy years ago, when traveling was slow and dangerous in the west and south. She had so many delays on account of stage-coaches breaking down on rough or muddy roads that finally she made a practice of carrying with her an outfit of hammer, wrench, nails, screws, a coil of stout rope, and straps of strong leather. Some ofthe western rivers had to be forded, and many times she nearly lost her life. Once, when riding in a stage-coach in Michigan, a robber sprang out of a dark place in the forest through which they were passing and demanded her purse. She did not scream or faint. She asked him if he was not ashamed to molest a woman who was going through the country to help prisoners. She told him if he was really poor, she would give him some money. And what do you think? Before she finished speaking, the robber recognized her voice. He had heard her talk to the prisoners when he was a convict in a Philadelphia prison! He begged her to go on her way in peace.
For twelve years Miss Dix went through the United States in the interests of the deaf and dumb, the blind, and the insane. Then she went to Europe to rest. But she found the same suffering there as here. In no time she was busy again. She tried to get audience with the Pope in Rome to beg him to stop some prison cruelties but was always put off. Any one else would havegiven up, but Dorothea Dix always carried her point. One day she met the Pope's carriage in the street. She stopped it, and as she knew no Italian, began talking fast to him inLatin. She was so earnest and sensible that he gave her everything she asked for.
It was not long after her return to America before the Civil War broke out. She went straight to Washington and offered to nurse the soldiers without pay. As she was appointed superintendent, she had all the nurses under her rule. She hired houses to keep supplies in, she bought an ambulance, she gave her time, strength, and fortune to her country. In the whole four years of the Civil War, Dorothea Dix never took a holiday. She was so interested in her work that often sheforgotto eat her meals until reminded of them.
After this war was over, the Secretary of War, Honorable Edwin M. Stanton, asked her how the nation could show its gratitude to her for the grand work she had done. She told him she would like a flag. Two very beautiful ones were given her, made withspecial printed tributes on them. In her will Miss Dix left these flags to Harvard College. They hang over the doors of Memorial Hall.
Nobody ever felt sorry that Dorothea ran away from those tiresome tracts. For probably all the tracts ever written by Joseph Dix never did as much good as a single day's work of his daughter, among the wounded soldiers. And as for her reforms—they will go on forever. She has been called the most useful woman of America. That is a great name to earn.
Once upon a time, at Point Pleasant, a small town on the Ohio River, there lived a young couple who could not decide how to name their first baby. He was a darling child, and as the weeks went by, and he grew prettier every minute, it was harder and harder to think of a name good enough for him.
Finally Jesse Grant, the father, told his wife, Hannah, he thought it would be a good plan to ask the grandparents' advice. So off they rode from their little cottage, carrying the baby with them.
But at grandpa's it was even worse. In that house there were four people besides themselves to suit. At last, the father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, and the two aunts each wrote a favorite name on a bit of paper. These slips of paper were all put into grandpa's tall, silk hat which wasplaced on the spindle-legged table. "Now," said the father to one of the aunts, "draw from the hat a slip of paper, and whatever name is written on that slip shall be the name of my son."
The slip she drew had the name "Ulysses" on it.
"Well," murmured the grandfather, "our dear child is named for a great soldier of the olden days. But I wanted him to be called Hiram, who was a good king in Bible times."
Then Hannah Grant, who could not bear to have him disappointed, answered: "Let him have both names!" So the baby was christened Hiram Ulysses Grant.
While Ulysses was still a baby, his parents moved to Georgetown, Ohio. There his father built a nice, new, brick house and managed a big farm, besides his regular work of tanning leather. As Ulysses got old enough to help at any kind of work, it was plain he would never be a tanner. He hated the smell of leather. But he was perfectly happy on the farm. He liked best of all to be around the horses, and before he was six years old herode horseback as well as any man in Georgetown. When he was seven, it was part of his work to drive the span of horses in a heavy team that carried the cord-wood from the wood-lot to the house and shop. He must have been a strong boy, for at the age of eleven he used to hold the plow when his father wanted to break up new land, and it makes the arms and back ache to hold a heavy plow! He was patient with all animals and knew just how to manage them. His father and all the neighbors had Ulysses break their colts.
In the winters Ulysses went to school, but he did not care for it as much as he did for outdoor life and work with his hands. Still he usually had his lessons and was decidedly bright in arithmetic. Because he was not a shirk and always told the truth, his father was in the habit of saying, after the farm chores were done: "Now, Ulysses, you can take the horse and carriage and go where you like. I know I can trust you."
When he was only twelve, his father began sending him seventy or eighty miles away fromhome, on business errands. These trips would take him two days. Sometimes he went alone, and sometimes he took one of his chums with him. Talking so much with grown men gave him an old manner, and as his judgment was pretty good he was called by merchants a "sharp one." He would have been contented to jaunt about the country, trading and colt-breaking, all his life, but his father decided he ought to have military training and obtained for him an appointment at West Point (the United States' school for training soldiers that was started by George Washington) without Ulysses knowing a thing about it. Now Ulysses did not have the least desire to be a soldier and did not want to go to this school one bit, but he had always obeyed his father, and started on a fifteen days' journey from Ohio without any more talk than the simple statement: "I don't want to go, but if you say so, I suppose I must."
He found, when he reached the school, that his name had been changed. Up to this time his initials had spelled HUG, butthe senator who sent young Grant's appointment papers to Washington had forgotten Ulysses' middle name. He wrote his full name as Ulysses Simpson Grant, and as it would make much trouble to have it changed at Congress, Ulysses let it stand that way. So instead of being called H-U-G Grant (as he had been by his mates at home) the West Point boys, to tease him, caught up the new initials and shouted "Uncle Sam" Grant, or "United States" Grant—and sometimes "Useless" Grant.
But the Ohio boy was good-natured and only laughed at them. He was a cool, slow-moving chap, well-behaved, and was never known to say a profane word in his life. At this school there was plenty of chance to prove his skill with horses. Ulysses was never happier than when he started off for the riding-hall with his spurs clanking on the ground and his great cavalry sword dangling by his side. Once, mounted on a big sorrel horse, and before a visiting "Board of Directors," he made the highest jump that had ever been known at West Point. He wasas modest as could be about this jump, but the other cadets (as the pupils were called) bragged about it till they were hoarse.
After his graduation, Grant, with his regiment, was sent to the Mexican border. In the battle of Palo Alto he had his first taste of war. Being truthful, he confessed afterwards that when he heard the booming of the big guns, he was frightened almost to pieces. But he had never been known to shirk, and he not only rode into the powder and smoke that day, but for two years proved so brave and calm in danger that he was promoted several times. But he did not like fighting. He was sure of that.
At the end of the Mexican War, Ulysses married a girl from St. Louis, named Julia Dent, and she went to live, as soldiers' wives do, in whatever military post to which he happened to be sent. First the regiment was stationed at Lake Ontario, then at Detroit, and then, dear me! it was ordered to California!
There were no railroads in those days. People had to go three thousand miles onhorseback or in slow, lumbering wagons. This took months and was both tiresome and dangerous. Every little while there would be a deep river to ford, or some wicked Indians skulking round, or a wild beast threatening. The officers decided to take their regiments to California by water. This would be a hard trip but a safer one.
It was lucky that Mrs. Grant and the babies stayed behind with the grandparents, for besides the weariness of the long journey, there was scarcity of food; a terrible cholera plague broke out, and Ulysses Grant worked night and day. He had to keep his soldiers fed, watch out for the Indians, and nurse the sick people.
Well, after eleven years of army life, Grant decided to resign from the service. He thought war was cruel; he wanted to be with his wife and children; and a soldier got such small pay that he wondered how he was ever going to be able to educate the children. Farming would be better than fighting, he said.
He was welcomed home with great joy.His wife owned a bit of land, and Grant built a log cabin on it. He planted crops, cut wood, kept horses and cows, and worked from sunrise till dark. But the land was so poor that he named the place Hardscrabble. Even with no money and hard work, the Grants were happy until the climate gave Ulysses a fever; then they left Missouri country life and moved into the city of St. Louis.
In this city Grant tried his hand at selling houses, laying out streets, and working in the custom-house; but something went wrong in every place he got. He had to move into poorer houses, he had to borrow money, and finally he walked the streets trying to find some new kind of work. Nobody would hire him. The men said he was a failure. Friends of the Dent family shook their heads as they whispered: "Poor Julia, she didn't get much of a husband, did she?"
Then he went back to Galena, Illinois, and was a clerk in his brother's store, earning about what any fifteen-year-old boy gets to-day. He worked quietly in the store allday, stayed at home evenings, and was called a very "commonplace man." He was bitterly discouraged, I tell you, that he could not get ahead in the world. And his father's pride was hurt to think that his son who had appeared so smart at twelve could not, as a grown man, take care of his own family. But Julia Dent Grant was sweet and kind. She kept telling him that he would have better luck pretty soon.
In 1861 the Americans began to quarrel among themselves. Several of the States grew very bitter against each other and were so stubborn that the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, said he must have seventy-five thousand men to help him stop such rebellion. Ulysses Grant came forward, and said he would be one of these seventy-five thousand, and enlisted again in the United States Army. He was asked to be the colonel of an Illinois regiment by the governor of that State. Then, you may be sure, what he had learned at West Point came into good play. He soon showed that he knew just how to train men into fine soldiers.He did so well that he was made Brigadier-general.
He stormed right through the enemies' lines and took fort after fort. Oh, his work was splendid—this man who had been called a failure!
A general who was fighting against him began to get frightened, and by and by he sent Grant a note saying: "What terms will you make with us if we will give in just a little and do partly as you want us to?"
Grant laughed when he read the letter and wrote back: "No terms at all but unconditional surrender!" Finally the other general did surrender, and when the story of the two letters and the victory for Grant was told, the initials of his name were twisted into another phrase; he was called Unconditional Surrender Grant. This saying was quoted for months, every time his name was mentioned. At the end of that time, he had said something else that pleased the people and the President.
You see, the war kept raging harder and harder. It seemed as if it would never end.Grant was always at the front of his troops, watching everything the enemy did and planned, but he grew sadder and sadder. He felt sure there would be fighting until dear, brave Robert E. Lee, the southern general, laid down his sword. The whole country was sad and anxious. They said: "It is time there was a change—what in the world is Grant going to do?" And he answered: "I am going to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer!" No one doubted he would keep his word. It did take all summer and all winter, too. Then, when poor General Lee saw that his men were completely trapped, and that they would starve if he did not give in, he yielded. Grant showed how much of a gentleman he was by his treatment of the general and soldiers he had conquered. There was no lack of courtesy toward them, I can tell you. When the cruel war was ended, Grant was the nation's hero.
Later, Grant was made President of the United States he had saved. When he had finished his term of four years, he was chosen for President again. After that he traveledround the world. I cannot begin to tell you the number of presents he received or describe one half the honors which were paid him—paid to this man who, at one time, could not get a day's work in St. Louis. This farmer from Hardscrabble dined with kings and queens, talked with the Pope of Rome, called on the Czar of Russia, visited the Mikado of Japan in his royal palace, and was given four beautiful homes of his own by rich Americans. One house was in Galena, one in Philadelphia, one in Washington, and another in New York. New York was his favorite city, and in a square named for him you can see a statue showing General Grant on his pet horse, in army uniform. On Claremont Heights where it can be seen from the city, the harbor, and the Hudson River, stands a magnificent tomb, the resting-place of the great hero who was born in the tiny house at Point Pleasant.
There was always a good deal of fighting blood in the Grants. The sixth or seventh great-grandfather of Ulysses, Matthew Grant, came to Massachusetts in 1630, almost threehundred years ago; over in Scotland, where he was born, he belonged to the clan whose motto was "Stand Fast." I think that old Scotchman and all the other ancestors would agree with us that the boy from Ohio stood fast. And how well the name suited him which his aunt drew from the old silk hat—Ulysses—a brave soldier of the olden time!
It was on the brightest, sunniest kind of a Christmas morning, nearly one hundred years ago, that Clara Barton was born, in the State of Massachusetts. Besides the parents, there were two grown-up sisters and two big brothers to pet the new baby. There was plenty of love and plenty of money in the Barton household, so the child knew nothing but happiness.
Clara was a bright little thing. As she grew old enough to walk and talk, she followed the family about, repeating all their words and phrases like a parrot. She was not sure as to the meaning of all these words, but she liked the sound of them. Her father, who had fought in the French and Indian wars, had a fondness for the rules and forms that are used among soldiers. He taught her the names and rank of army officers.Also the name of the United States' president, the vice-president, and members of the president's cabinet.
Clara's eyes looked so big, and her voice was so solemn when she babbled these names that her mother asked her one day what she thought these men looked like. "Oh," gasped Clara, "Papa always says 'the great president' so I guess he's almost a giant. I guess the president is as big as the meeting-house, and prob'ly the vice-president is the size of the school-house."
The school-teacher sisters were busy with Clara so that she was reading and spelling almost as soon as she could talk. One of these gave her a geography, and Clara was so excited over it that she used to wake this poor sister up long before daylight, and make her hold a candle close to the maps so that she could find rivers, mountains, and cities.
Stephen Barton, the older brother, was a wonder in arithmetic. It was he who taught Clara how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. She made such good figures and so often had the examples right that she enjoyed her little slate next best to riding horseback with her brother David.
David did not care much for study, but did like farm work and horses. He taught Clara to ride, and the two used to gallop across the country at a mad pace. She felt as safe on the back of a horse as in a rocking-chair. She did not look much larger than a doll when the neighbors first noticed her dashing by on the back of a colt which wore neither saddle nor bridle, clinging to the animal's mane, keeping close to David's horse, and laughing with joy. Sometimes Button, the white dog, tore along after them, trying his best to keep up with them. Button belonged to Clara. He had taken care of her when she was a baby, and very gravely picked her up each time she fell in the days when she was learning to walk.
Stephen and David went to a school that was several miles away. They wanted to take Clara with them. It was one of the old-fashioned, ungraded schools, and the pupils were all ages. The snowdrifts were high, and Stephen carried Clara on his shoulder.Clara sat very quiet with her slate until the primer class was called. Then she stepped before the teacher with the other little ones. The serious man pointed to the letters of different words for each child, then he asked them to spell short words like dog and cat. When Clara was asked to do the same, she smiled at the teacher and said: "But I do not spellthere!"
"Where do you spell?" he inquired.
"I spell inartichoke," she answered, looking very dignified.
"In that case," he laughed, "I think you belong with the scholars who spell in three and four syllables." So after that, she spelled in the class of her big brothers.
When Clara was twelve, she was very shy of strangers, and her parents thought it might help her to get over it if she went away from home to school in New York. She was a bright pupil and decided she would like to be a teacher like her two sisters.
Clara made an excellent teacher, but was not very well and went to Washington, D.C., to work. While there, the Civil War broke out,and she offered her services as a nurse. Nobody doubted she would be good at nursing, for when she was only ten years old, she took all the care of her dear brother David, who was sick for nearly two years. She really knew just exactly what sick people needed.
Clara worked in hospitals, camps, and battlefields all the time the four years' war lasted. Sometimes she had to jump on to a horse whose rider had been shot and dash away for bandages or a surgeon, and she was glad enough that David had taught her to be such a fine horsewoman.
Clara helped every sick and wounded man she came across, and some people thought she should only help the northerners. But she did not mind what anybody said or thought. She made all the soldiers as comfortable as she could. And she was delighted when, four years later, while she was in beautiful Switzerland for a rest, she heard of the Red Cross Society. This society helped every wounded person, no matter what color he was, no matter what cause or country he fought for.
Clara Barton worked with this Swiss society all through the war between France and Prussia. The foreigners called her the Angel.
When Clara Barton came back to America, she tried a long time to have a branch of the Swiss society started in this country, but it was eight years before the Red Cross Society was actually formed in America. Then, because there was often sickness and suffering from fires and floods, as well as from wars, Miss Barton persuaded Congress to say that the society might help wherever there had been any great disaster.
Miss Barton's name is known in Europe as well as in America. She did Red Cross work until she was eighty years old. Almost every country on the globe gave her a present or medal. When we think what a heroine Clara Barton proved herself, it would seem as if the little girl born on the sunny December morning was a Christmas present to the whole world.
The more you find out about Abraham Lincoln, the more you will love him.
Abraham was born in Kentucky and lived in that State with his parents and his one sister until he was eight years old.
The Lincolns were very, very poor. They lived in a small log cabin on the banks of a winding creek. They need not have been quite so poor, but the truth of the matter is that Mr. Thomas Lincoln, Abraham's father, waslazy. To be sure he fastened a few logs together for shelter, cut a little wood, and dug up some ground for a garden. But after the corn and potatoes were planted, they never received any care, and there is no doubt the family would have gone hungry many a day if Abraham had not hurried home with fish which he caught in a near-by stream, or if Mrs. Lincoln had not taken her rifle into thewoods and shot a deer or a bear. The meat from these would last for weeks, and the skins of animals Mrs. Lincoln always saved to make into clothes for the children.
Thomas Lincoln could not read or spell, and as near as I can find out, was not a bit ashamed of it, either. But his wife, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, was a fair scholar and taught Abraham and his sister, Sarah, to read and spell.
There was no floor to the Lincoln's log cabin and no furnishings but a few three-legged stools and a bed made of wooden slats fastened together with pegs. Abraham and Sarah slept on piles of leaves or brush.
Slates and pencils were scarce, and Abraham used to lie before the fire when he was seven or eight years old, with a flat slab of wood and a stick which he burned at one end till it was charred; then he formed letters with it on the wood. In that way he taught himself to write. His mother had three books, a Bible, a catechism, and a spelling-book. He had never had any boy playmate and was greatly excited when an aunt anduncle of his mother's, Mr. and Mrs. Sparrow, with a nephew, named Dennis Hanks, arrived at the creek and lived in a half-faced camp near by. Dennis and Abraham became fast friends.
A fever swept the country, and Abraham's mother died. Three years later his father married a new wife. The second Mrs. Lincoln had been married before and had three children, a boy and two girls. So there were five children to play together. Mr. Lincoln had built a better cabin, and she brought such furniture as the Lincoln children had never seen. Their eyes opened wide at the sight of real chairs and tables. She made Abraham and Sarah pretty new clothes. They had neat, comfortable beds, and the two sets of children were very happy. Mrs. Lincoln loved Abraham and saw that there was the making of a smart man in him. She helped him study, and when there was school for a short time in a distant log hut, she sent Abraham every day. When the school ended, there were four years when there was no school anywhere near their settlement, so she readwith Abraham and kept him at his lessons in reading and arithmetic all that time.
Hunters and traders rode that way sometimes, and if a traveler had a book about him, Abraham was sure to get a look at it.
A new settler had aLife of Washington. Abraham looked at the book hungrily for weeks and finally worked up courage to ask the loan of it. He promised to take good care of it. He was then earning money to give his parents by chopping down trees in the forests, and he had no time to read but in the evenings. One night the rain soaked through the cracks of the cabin, and the precious book that he had promised to take good care of was stained on every page. What was he to do? He had no money to pay for the book, but he hurried to the settler's cabin and told him what had happened. He offered to work in the cornfield for three days to pay Mr. Crawford for the loss of the book. It was heavy work, but he did it and, in the end, owned the stainedLife of Washington, himself.
Abraham had a fine memory. He could repeat almost the whole of a sermon, a speech,or a story that he had happened to hear. He had a funny way of telling stories, too, so when the farmers or woodchoppers were taking their noon rest, they always asked him to amuse them.
When Abraham was sixteen years old, he was six feet tall and so strong that all the neighbors hired him whenever he was not working for his father. He joked and laughed at his work, and every one liked him. He did any kind of work to earn an honest penny. Once he had a fine time working for a man that ran a ferry-boat, because this man owned a history of the United States and took a newspaper, and Abraham had more to read than ever before in his life. But he had to take the time he should have slept to read, because when the boat wasn't running there was farm work, housework (for he helped this man's wife, even to tending the baby), and rail splitting. Then he kept store for a man. It was here that he won a nickname that he kept all his life—"Honest Abe." A woman's bill came to two dollars and six cents. Later in the day Abrahamfound he had charged her six cents too much. After he closed the store that night, he walked three miles to pay her back those six cents. Another time when he weighed tea for a woman, there was a weight on the scales so that she did not get as much tea as she paid for. That meant another long tramp. But he was liked for his honesty and good nature.
When there was trouble with the Indians, Abraham proved that he could fight and also manage troops, so he was a captain for three months.
Abraham was so well informed that the people sent him to legislature. They made him postmaster. They hired him to lay out roads and towns. It became the fashion, if there was need of some honest, skilful work, for people to say: "Why not get Abraham Lincoln to do it? Then you'll know it's done right."
He studied law, went to legislature again, and became a circuit judge. This meant that he had to ride all round the country to attend different courts. He would start off on horseback to be away three months, with saddle-bags holding clean linen, an old greenumbrella, and a few books to read as he rode along. When he came to woodchoppers, as he rode through forests, he liked to dismount, ask for an axe, and chop a log so quickly that the men would stare.
Abraham Lincoln settled, with his wife and children, in Springfield, Illinois. He was a lawyer but would not take a case if he thought his client was guilty. He was still "Honest Abe." He loved children and usually when he went to his office in the morning, the baby was perched on his shoulder, while the others held on to his coat tails and followed behind. All the children in Springfield felt he was their friend. No wonder, for he was never too busy to help them. One morning as he was hurrying to his law office, he saw a little girl, very much dressed up, crying as if her heart would break. Her sobs almost shook her off the doorstep where she sat. Mr. Lincoln unlatched the gate and went up the walk, singing out: "Well, well, now what does all this mean?"
"Oh, Mr. Lincoln, I was going to Chicago to visit my aunt. I have my ticket in mypurse and," here the sobs came faster than ever, "the expressman can't get here in time for my trunk."
"How big is your trunk?"
"This size," stretching her hands apart.
"Pooh, I'll carry that trunk to the station for you, myself. Where is it?"
The little girl pointed to the hall, and in a minute Mr. Lincoln, with his tall silk hat on his head, his long coat tails flying out behind, the trunk on his shoulder, was striding to the railroad station, as the now happy little girl skipped beside him. He was not going to have the child disappointed.