ALL ABOUT HORACE.
Now what is that little boy crying for? A rocking-horse? Some marbles? A bat and ball? A pair of skates? What a curious-looking boy he is! Thin, small, stooping, awkward; but what clear blue eyes; and what a singularly sweet innocent expression in his colorless face. Every body hates to see him cry, because every body loves Horace. His father and mother are poor, hard-working people, and have other children beside him to take care of; and each one must do something toward helping support the family, too. Horace’s mother works in the field, hoes, rakes up the hay, plants, and digs, just like his father: perhaps you think she must get so tired doing all this, and in door women’s work beside, that she could have no time at all to attend to her little boy, Horace. Don’t you believe it; women in those days were made of better stuff than most of the women of our day. Horace’s mother could not have planted potatoes orraked hay, in corsets or a hoop-skirt. She could not have done it had she lived on cake, cordial, pies and confectionery. She could not have done it had she slept in close, heated apartments. She did none of all those foolish things. Neither was she cross or ill-tempered, nor did she beat and push little Horace round and tell him that he was always in the way, as some poor, tired, hard-working women do; not she—she was the merriest, jolliest, funniest, story-telling-est woman you ever heard of; went singing after the hay-cart, singing to the plow, singing to the barn-yard, singing to dinner, and singing to bed. That robbed labor of half its weariness, and winged the feet of every body about her; so little Horace was not afraid to follow his mother about. No matter how busy she was, she always found time to speak a pleasant word to her fair-haired little boy. Andsuchstories as she told him, and such “a lot” of them, fairy stories, and “old legends,” why, she was as good as a whole library of child’s story-books; and better too, because half of those are written either so that children can not understand them, or so babyish as to disgust them. She was better than any story-book, you may be sure, and Horace would have run his legs off for her any day, as well he might.
But I have not told you yet, what Horace was crying about. Well, it was because he had missed a word and lost his place in the class. You must know that Horace was a famous speller; but the best sometimes are caught tripping, and so it proved with him, and it mortified him so much that he could not choke the tears away. Now, perhaps you think the boys who got above him in the class were glad of this; perhaps you have known boys who have felt so. Horace’s schoolmates did not: they all loved him because he was so good and gentle, and when they saw how badly he felt, they refused to go above him: that dried up his tears very quick. There is nothing like kind words and deeds to dry up tears; try it, and you will see.
Little Horace’s fame as a speller (you must not think because he occasionally tripped at it, that this was not true, any more than that because there are some hypocrites that there is nothing in religion)—little Horace’s fame as a speller went all over the country. There was an old captain of a vessel who lived on a farm near, and who had heard of him; whenever he met the boy he would say, “Horace, how do you spell Encyclopædia?” or “Kamschatka,” or “Nebuchadnezzar.” Then he used to lend him books to read, and question him about them afterward, and I promise you thatMaster Horace was always able to answer any of his questions, for he did not read “skipping” as do some boys. The old captain was kind to Horace’s brother, too; and gave him a sheep, and a load of hay to feed the sheep on, one winter.
Horace found another friend, too, for good boys who are eager to learn, no matter how poor they may be, always get on somehow; this friend was a minister who used to teach him grammar, for the pleasure of teaching such a bright little fellow. Sometimes, to see whether he had understood what he had been taught, he would tell him wrong, but Horace could not be caught that way; when he had once understood a thing he stuck to it, and it was of no use trying to shake his belief in it.
Perhaps you are thinking that he was not good for any thing but study; there again you are mistaken. He was just as good at farm-work, and just as thorough as he was at study. Sometimes, when his father had set Horace and his brothers a task to do while he went away from home, his roguish brother would say, “Come, Hod, let’s go fishing!” Did he go? This was his answer, I want you to remember it, “Let us do our stint first!” Horace could play, too; he could catch more fish than all the other fellows put together; butshooting, which the other boys were so fond of, he disliked; when they went to murder a little bird or rabbit, he would lie down and stuff his ears full of grass till the murder had been done; he could not bear to hear a gun go off, and he could not bear to see these creatures killed. Why he did not feel so about fish seems strange to me, but then he was a strange boy altogether.
I dare say you wonder, when his friends were so poor, how he got books, and where, and when, he found time amid the farm-work to read them, and how he learned to read at all. I will tell you; you are not tired, are you? I am not. You see when he was only two years old, he used to lie on the floor with the big Bible, and pore over it, and pick out the letters, and ask questions about them. The fact was, the child taught himself; he could read at three years any child’s book, and at four, any book you could bring him; and what is funnier, at four years he could read a book up side down, or sideways as well as right side up. He learned all this, not because he was told to, but of his own accord, and because he loved it. The nearest school-house was a mile and a half from home, and when he was six, he began to go to it. Sometimes tremendous snowstorms would blow over the New Hampshire hills,where Horace lived, and many a little fellow was lost in the snow-drifts, or frozen to death. This did not keep Horace at home, and when he could not wade through the snow himself, he would mount on the shoulders of a good-natured schoolmate, who was stouter and bigger, and who would even pull off his own mittens, and draw them over Horace’s little hands to keep them from freezing. Do you think you would have taken as much pains as did Horace, to learn? or would you have clapped your hands when the noiseless snowflakes came sailing lazily down, because they would afford you an excuse for staying at home, to pop corn in the big old-fashioned fire-place.
Speaking of the big fire-place, reminds me to tell you another thing about Horace. All his evenings he spent in reading; he borrowed all the books he could muster for miles round. Poor people can not afford to burn many candles or lamps; but this was not to keep Horace from reading the borrowed books. How could he read without a light? ah—that’s just the question. He collected together in a safe place a parcel of pine-knots, and when it came evening he set one of those up in the great big chimney-corner, set it on fire, and then curled himself up, like a kitten on the hearth, and read away with all his might; neighbors dropped in to talkwith his father and mother, but he neither saw nor heard them, nor they him, the still, puny, busy little reader. It was like waking up a person from a sound sleep, to rouse him from his dear book. Sometimes his little schoolmates would come in to spend the evening, for they liked Horace’s mother as well as Horace, and had often listened to the pretty stories she used to tell; they did not like him to lie on the hearth and read, when they wanted to play; so they would go up and seize him by one leg, and draw him away from the pine knot and the book. Horace would quietly get on his legs and walk straight back again, without showing the least anger; then they would snatch away his book and hide it, thinking in that way to get him to play with them; then he would very quietly go and get another book and lie down again to read. What could you do with such a boy? Why, let him read, of course. The boys couldn’t quarrel with him, because he was always so good-natured; beside, his learning was a mighty good thing for them; even boys twice his age, wanted him to explain sums they could not understand, or other lessons too, which never puzzled his little flaxen head a bit. Ah, he was a great boy, that Horace, for all he was so little.
One day he went into a blacksmith’s shop, and waslooking on so intently while the blacksmith shoed the horses, that the blacksmith said to him, “I think you had better come and learn my trade.”
“No,” said little Horace, with quite a determined air, “I am going to be a printer.” The blacksmith laughed, as well he might, that such a little button of a boy, should already have made up his mind so decidedly about what puzzles young men at the age of twenty; but Horace always knew his own mind and was not afraid, when it was proper for him to do so, to speak it.
And now I suppose you would like to know whether this little fellow everdidbecome a printer? whether all this learning ever did him or any body else any good; and what became of such a queer boy any how.
Well, his father lost what little property he had, and Horace, who was always a kind son, helped him all he could, and when he thought it would be helping his father best, to try to support himself, he started off with a clean shirt under his arm to seek his fortune, and learn to be a printer. I could not tell you all the disappointments and discouragements this bright little fellow met with, or how nobly he bore up under them all; but I will tell you how at last he came to New York, where so many rich men live, who like himself first came to the city on foot, with only a few cents in their pockets,and a change of clothes tied up in a bundle, and slung over their shoulders. It costs so much to live in New York that Horace tried at several places before he could find lodgings where he could afford to stay. He did not care for delicacies, he had been used at home to sit round a howl of porridge with his father and mother, brothers and sisters, and all eat with the same spoon out of the family bowl. After making many inquiries he found at last a cheap place, and after taking breakfast there, set out to wander through the city in search of employment.
You boys, who have always been fed, clothed, and lodged, by your kind parents, and who take it as a matter of course, can have little idea what weary discouraging, disheartening work, this search for employment is—how roughly harsh words fall upon the ear, used only to loving tones; how hard it is to smother down angry feelings when you are wrongfully suspected; how tough it must have been for Horace, who was so happy over the family bowl of porridge, because love sweetened it, when on his first application for employment, the gentleman to whom he spoke looked sharply at him, saying, “My opinion is, that you are a runaway apprentice, and you had better go home to your master,” and when Horace tried to explain that it was not so, the gentleman stopped him short with, “Be off about your business, and don’t bother me.” But this rough answer did not discourage Horace, who kept on, all that day, going up-stairs and down into different offices asking for employment and receiving the same chilling “No.” Ah, I can tell, I, who have tried it, how weary and forlorn he must have felt, that Friday night, as he went home to his cheap lodgings, and how hopeless seemed the idea of commencing again the next morning, and returning again the next night with no better success. Sunday came, and Horace, as many have done before him, went to church with his troubled spirit, and forgot the body and all its little petty needs, the earth and all its little toils and cares, and came away, as “the poor in spirit” always come from God’s temple, rich in blessing.
The next day, Horace heard of a place where he might probably find employment. Did he say, “It is no use, I have spent two whole days now, wandering up and down the city, in and out of offices, for nothing?” No, he did not say this; he was on the steps of the printing-office at half past five in the morning. Not a soul was there but himself, and Horace sat down upon the steps to wait till it was open, poor fellow, with his bundle on his knees, pale and anxious, and there waitedand waited a long, long while before any one came. By-and-by, one of the journymen who worked in the office, came, and sat down on the steps too, and began talking with Horace.Thatman had a heart, and he pitied Horace, whom he believed to be a good, honest fellow, and whom he resolved to befriend. When the office was opened he took him into it. Every body who came in laughed at Horace, because he was dressed in such a shabby way. Did he mind that? Of course he did not, no more than you would mind the barking of your dog, Tray. The foreman in the office looked at him, the apprentices looked at him, they all looked at him, and thought that such a countrified-looking fellow must, of course, be a fool, and it was all nonsense to try him; however, to oblige the kind journeyman who brought him in, they consented to give him a piece of work to do, the only work they had, and a very difficult job, so much so that several in the office had tried and given it up in despair. Well, Horace, nothing discouraged, went right at it with a will. By-and-by the master of the office came in, and glancing at Horace, asked the foreman, contemptuously, what he had hired that fool for?
“He is the best we could get, and we must have somebody,” was the answer.
“Well,” said the vexed man, “pay him off to-night and send him about his business.”
Did they send him off? Not they; not by six dollars, which they were glad to pay him every week, for the sake of keeping such a good workman in their office. The men and boys in the office, nick-named him “the Ghost,” on account of his pale complexion. I could not tell you all their tormenting tricks, which never kept Horace from working steadily on; or how they got the black, inky, printer’s balls, and rubbed them all over his yellow hair, and played other roguish tricks to torment him; and how he kept steadily on with his work, never getting angry, never noticing their nonsense, till they were forced to let him alone, for it is no fun to keep on trying to plague any body who don’t mind it a bit. I couldn’t tell you all his adventures, but I will tell you that when he earned money he always sent nearly the whole of it to his father and mother, never buying what young lads like best to spend money for, in the way of eatables and new clothes. I will tell you that he did become a printer, and astonished every body by his learning and intelligence; that he not only became a printer but an editor, and a member of Congress, and what is better, always in his paper takes the part of the working-people and farmers, among whomhe was brought up, instead of turning his back upon them and getting proud because he grew rich; and famous—he tells them all about new plows, and new breeds of cattle, and how to manage their farms to the best advantage, and always has a kind, encouraging word for those who, like himself, are struggling to get on in the world without friends or fortune; and that is the best part of the whole. And now, when the carrier drops his paper at your father’s door, I want you to read the articles Horace Greeley writes for it, and feel proud, if he does not, of him and of theNew York Tribune.