TRUE sronjES OF S "%»r; /^ TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICAN MEN FOR YOUNG AMERICANS TELLING IN SIMPLE LANGUAGE FOR BOYS AND GIRLS THE INSPIRING STORIES OF THE LIVES OF George Washington Abraham Lincoln John Paul Jones Ulysses S. Grant Benjamin Franklin Robert E. Lee Patrick Henry James A. Garfield George Peabody Theodore Roosevelt And Others. By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED WRITERS FOR YOUNG PEOPLl PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED CHARLES FOSTER PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA. PA. ■ hA:RYof niifJfiREssI fWO OOPIBS .'teceivtx: ifcp iO 1905 COPT S. ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, 1898- 1904-1905 BY W. E. SCULL, IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS, AT WASHINGTON, D. 0. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INTRODUCTION. THERE is nothing which our boys and girls so much love to read, or have told to them, as true stories of the lives of great and noble people. This book gives such true stories. It deals especially with the early life of America's great men. It shows what were their natures and their habits when they were boys. It tells about their mothers and fathers and their homes ; it tells of the cir- cumstances which surrounded them and relates scores of incidents of their childhood days, and their daily doings, their jolly sports, their trials and difficulties and how they met and overcame them. It shows us what books they read, what schooling they had, how they came to be great and famous, and the wonderful things they did in the world. Every boy and girl who reads this inspiring volume will want to get out and do something in the w^orld. It is as charming and entertaining as a fairy tale, but every word of it is TRUE. It is written in easy language for the boys and girls of America. II CONTENTS. PA6B GEORGE WASHINGTON— His Boyhood Days and How HE Became the Father of His Country 17 JOHN PAUL JONES— The Plucky Little Scotch- man, WHO Removed to America and Became Captain of our Navy 3-7 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN— The Candlemaker's Son WHO, WITH His Kite, Discovered Lightning TO BE THE Same as Electricity 53 PATRICK HENRY— Who from a Farmer Boy Be- came A Lawyer and the Famous Orator of THE Revolution 81 ROBERT FULTON— The Thinking Boy. The Builder of the First Successful Steamboat 107 ABRAHAM LINCOLN— The Poor Boy, the Noble Man, the Preserver of the Union . . . .125 ULYSSES S. GRANT— The Farmer Boy and the Hero of the Greatest of Modern Wars . .143 ROBERT E. LEE— The Noble Boy, Brave Soldier AND Model Man. The Idol of the South . 159 GEORGE PEABODY — The Boy Clerk who,when he Became Rich, Gave Millions to Charity. America's First Philanthropist 176 THOMAS A. EDISON— The Greatest Electrician OF the World 201 JAMES A. GARFIELD— The Boy on the Canal Boat. The Second Martyr President .. . 227 13 List of Illustrations, PAGB George Washington's Inaugural Proces- sion •. . . 17 Young George Washington Riding a Colt 19 General Braddock's Defeat 21 Nomination of Washington as Com- mander-in-Chief of the Continental Army 23 George Washington Crossing the Dela- ware 24 General Washington at Valley Forge . 26 Meeting of Washington and Rocham- beau 27 George Washington's Inauguration . . 28 George Washington, the First President 29 George Washington's Bedroom, Mount Vernon, in which he Died .... 31 Carpenter's Hall, Philadelphia .... 33 John Paul Jones 37 John Paul Jones as a Sailor Boy .... 39 John Paul Jones' men at Sea 41 J. P. Jones Approaching Whitehaven . 43 J. P. Jones' Men Ashore — Whitehaven 45 Jones* Fight Between "Bon Homme Richard" and " Serapis " .... 47 British Captain Surrendering Sword . . 49 Franklin's Kite Leads the Way to the Modern Use of Electricity .... 53 Ben. Franklin Moiilding Candles in his Father's Shop 57 Franklin Slipping his Contributions to the Paper under the office Door . . 59 Early Days in the Colonies 6i A Fashionable Chaise in which People Rode in the Days of Franklin ... 63 Old-style Printing Press 65 Wireless Telegraphy — Electricity as Ap- plied in the 20th Century 71 Independence Hall, Philadelphia ... 73 PAGB Dr. Benjamin Franklin as Minister to France 77 Franklin's Grave, Corner Fifth and Arch Sts., Philadelphia 79 Patrick Henry 81 Patrick Henry Shooting a Deer .... 85 " Often at the country parties he played the fiddle for many a jolly 'Old Vir- ginia Reel ' " 87 ' ' Many a day you might have seen Pat- rick plowing among his stumps in his ' New Ground ' " 91 A Typical Virginia Courthouse in the Days of Patrick Henry 97 An Old Virginia Mansion, common in the Time of Patrick Henry .... 99 Patrick Henry Making His Speech be- fore the House of Burgesses . . . . lOI Development of Steam Navigation Fol- lowing Fulton's Discovery .... 107 The " Oregon " Rushing Home . . . . 109 James Watt m What You Would See To-day at a Steam- boat Landing on the Mississippi River 117 " Chicago," one of the " White Squad- ron ' ' Warships of the United States 119 Robert Fulton 121 Model of a Modern U. S. Man-of-War . 123 Abraham Lincoln's First Home .... 125 The Boy Lincoln Studying 127 Abraham Lincoln the Wrestler .... 130 Abraham Lincoln, as Hired Man, Tell- ing a Story 131 Abraham Lincoln Keeping Store ... 133 Abraham Lincoln on the Flatboat ... 135 Abraham Lincoln Entering Richmond . 137 Abraham Lincoln I39 Lincoln's Grave, Springfield, Illinois . 142 15 i6 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FAGB " I Propose to Move Immediately Upon Your Works."— Gen. U. S. Grant 143 Ulysses S. Grant's Childkood Home . 145 Ulysses S. Grant after the Battle of Bel- mont 147 Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh 149 Ulysses S. Grant 151 Ulysses S. Grant at Windsor Castle . . 153 Ulysses S. Grant in Japan 155 President Grant's Funeral Procession . 157 Tomb of U. S. Grant, New York ... 158 Robert E. Lee as Cadet 159 Young Lee Riding in Front of "Staf- ford," Va 161 •'Lee always to be found where the fightiug was the fiercest " 163 Captain Lee at Cerro Gordo 165 General Lee Fortifying Richmond . . 167 " He waved his sword above his head and dashed to the front " 169 General Lee to the Rear 171 Robert E.Lee 175 George Peabody 179 Modern Stores in Boston 181 "Johnny Bull," or No. i, the First Lo- comotive Used . 183 The First Friends' Meeting House, Bur- , lington, N. J 187 The Bullock-Hoe Perfecting Press ... 189 Memorial Hall, Harvard College ... 193 Chapel of Yale College 197 The Prince of Wales . , 199 " I never did anything worth doing by -ccident, nor did any of my inven- rA«E tions come by accident." — Thomas A. Edison 201 The Birthplace of Thomas A. Edison, at Milan, Ohio 203 Thomas A. Edison when Publisher of the "Grand Trunk Herald," Fifteen Years Old 205 Edison Experimenting in His Father's Cellar 209 Edison as a Young Telegraph Operator 209 Shop in which the First Morse Instru- ment was Constructed for Exhibi- tion before Congress 213 The Triumphs of Electric Lighting as Seen at the Pan-American Exposi- tion at Buffalo in 1901 215 Edison and His Great Invention . . . 217 Mr. Marconi's Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy 219 Thomas A. Edison 223 President James A. Garfield 227 The Boy James A. Garfield Bringing His First Day's Earnings to His Mother 229 Garfield's Birthplace and the Home of His Childhood 231 Garfield on the Tow-path 233 Garfield at the Age of Seventeen when he Entered the Seminary 235 Hiram College, where Garfield went to School and of which he became President 237 The Capitol, Washington, D. C 239 Assassination of President Garfield . . 241 Tablet in Waiting-room where Garfield was Shot 244 The Inspiring History OF George Washington First President of the United States. DO you know what the twenty-second of February is? It is the birthday of George Washington. Do you know who George Washington was ? He was the greatest and best man that ever Hved in this dear home-land of yours, which you call America. He had no little boys or girls of his own, but he has always been called "The Father of His Country." Do you know (17) i8 GEORGE WASHINGTON why people call him that ? Let me tell you how he got this name. Many years ago, on the twenty-second of February, in the year 1732, a little baby was born in a comfortable-looking old farm-house down in Virginia. This baby was named George Washington. His father was a farmer, who planted and raised and sold large crops of tobacco in the fields about his house. These fields were called plantations, and George Washington's father was what is called a planter. The name of George's father was Augustine Washington. His mother's name was Mary Washington. She was a very wise and good woman and George loved her dearly. When George was a very small boy, his father died, and he was brought up by his mother in a nice, old farm-house on the banks of the Rappahannock River, just opposite the town of Fredericksburg. Ask some one to show you just where that is on the map. George was a good boy. He was honest, truthful, obedient, bold and strong. He could jump the farthest, run the fastest, climb the highest, wrestle the best, ride the swiftest, swim the longest, and *' stump" all the other boys he played with. They all liked him, for he was gentle, kind and brave ; he never was mean, never got " mad," and never told a lie. His mother had a sorrel colt that she thought very much of, because it came of splendid stock, and, if once trained, would be a fine and fast horse. But the colt was wild and vicious, and people said it could never be trained. One sum- mer morning, young George, with three or four boys, were in the field looking at the colt, and, when the boys said again that it could never be tamed, George said : " You help me get on his back and I'll tame him." GEORGE WASHINGTON 19 After hard work they got a bridle-bit in the colt's mouth and put young George on its back. Then began a fight. The colt reared and kicked and plunged, and tried to throw George off. But George stuck on and finally conquered the colt so that he drove it about the field. But in a last mad YOUNG WASHINGTON RIDING A COLT. plunge to free itself from this determined boy on its back, the colt burst a blood-vessel and fell to the ground dead. Then the boys felt worried, you may be sure. But while they were wondering what George's mother would say, the boy went straight to the house determined to tell the truth. 20 GEORGE WASHINGTON "Mother," he said, "your colt is dead." "Dead!" sajd his mother. "Who killed it?" " I did," said George, and then he told her the whole story. His mother looked at him a moment, then she said : " It is well, my son. I am sorry to lose the colt; it would have been a fine horse, but I am proud to know that my son never tries to put the blame of his acts upon others, and always speaks the truth." So you see, that early in his life, this boy was one to be depended upon. This story, too, shows you that besides his being so truthful and honest, young George Washington did not give up trying to do a thing until he had succeeded. He was bound to tame that fierce sorrel colt, and he stuck to it until he had conquered the animal, instead of letting it con- quer him. He loved the woods, and he loved the water. He wanted to be a sailor, but when he saw that his mother did not wish him to go away to sea, he said : "All right, mother," and he staid at home to help her on her farm. When he was sixteen years old he gave up going to school and became a surveyor. A surveyor is one who goes around measuring land, so that men can know just how much they own and just where the lines run that divide it from other people's land. This work kept George out of doors most of the time, and made him healthy and big and strong. He went off into the woods and over the mountains, surveying land for the owners. He lived among Indians and bears and hunters, and became a great hunter himself. He was a fine-looking young fellow then. He was almost six feet tall. He was strong and active, and could stand almost anything in the way of out-of-door dangers and experiences. He had light brown hair, blue GEORGE WASHINGTON 21 eycr, and a frank face, and he had such a nice, firm way about him, although he was quiet and never talked much, that peo- ple always believed what he said, and those who w^orked with him were always ready and willing to do just as he told them. When he was a boy it took a brave man to be a surveyor. He had to live in the forests, in all sorts of dangers and risks; .fe-. \^^ BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. he had to meet all kinds of people, and settle disputes about who owned the land, when those who were quarreling about it would be very angry with the surveyor. But young George Washington always won in the end, and his work was so well 22 GEORGE WASHINGTON done that some of his records and measurements have not been changed from that day to this. He liked the work, because he liked the free life of the woods and mountains. He liked to hunt and swim and ride and row, and all these things and all these rough experiences helped him greatly to be a bold, healthy, active and courage- ous man, when the time came for him to be a leader and a soldier. People liked him so much that when there was trouble between the two nations that owned almost all the land in America when he was a boy, he was sent with a party to try and settle a quarrel as to which nation owned the land west of Virginia, in what is now called Ohio. These two nations were France and England. Their Kings were far over the Atlantic Ocean. Virginia and all the coun- try between the mountains and the sea, from Maine to Geor- gia, belonged to the King of England. There was no President then ; there were no United States. George Washington went off to the Ohio country and tried to settle the quarrel, but the French soldiers would not settle it as the English wished them to. They built forts in the country, and said they meant to keep it all for the King of France. So George Washington was sent out again. This time he had a lot of soldiers with him, to drive the French away from their forts. The French soldiers would not give in, and Washington and his soldiers had a fight with the French and whipped them. Then the French King sent more soldiers and built more forts, and the English King sent more soldiers, and there was war in the land. War is a terrible thing, but sometimes it has to be made. GEORGE WASHINGTON 23 The King of England was very angry with the French, and he sent over soldiers from England to fight the French. They were led by a British general whose name was Braddock. He was a brave man, but he thought he knew how to do every- thing, and he would not let anyone else tell him how he ought to act. But he had never fought in such a land as Amer- ica, where there were great forests and In- dians, and other things very different from what he was used to. George Washing- ton knewthat if Gen- eral Braddock and the British soldiers wished to whip the French and the In- dians, who were on the French side, they must be very careful when they were marching through the forest to battle. He tried to make General Braddock see this, too, but the British General thought he knew best, and he told Washington to mind his own business. So the British soldiers marched through the forest just as if they were parading down Broadway. They looked very fine, but they wxre not careful of themselves, and one day, in the midst of the forest, the French and Indians, who were NOMINATION OF WASHINGTON AS COMMANDER-IN- CHIEF OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY. 24 GEORGE WASHINGTON hiding behind trees waiting for them, sprang out upon them and surprised them, and surrounded them and fired guns at them from the thick, dark woods. The British were caught in a trap. They did not know what to do. General Braddock was killed; so were many of his soldiers, and they would all have been killed or taken pri- s on er s if George Washington had not been there. H e knew just what to do. He fought bravely, and when the British sol- diers ran away, he and his Americans kept back the French and Indians and saved the British army. But it was a terrible defeat for the soldiers of the King of England. He had to send more soldiers to America and to -^- WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE. GEORGE WASHINGTON 25 fight a long time. But at last his soldiers were successful, and, thanks to Colonel Washington, as he was now called, the English lands were saved and the French were driven away. After the war was over, George Washington married a wife. All American boys and girls know her name. It was Martha Washington. They went to live in a beautiful house on the banks of the Potomac River, in Virginia. It is called Mount Vernon. It was Washington's home all the rest of his life. The house is still standing, and people nowadays go to visit this beauti- ful place, just to see the spot that everyone thinks so much of because it was the home of Washington. Perhaps, some day, you will see it. You will think it a beautiful place, I am sure. While Washington was looking after his great farm at Mount Vernon, things were becoming very bad in America. The King of England said the people in America must do as he told them, and not as they wished. But the Americans said that the King was acting very wrongly towards them, and that they would not stand it. They did not. When the King's soldiers tried to make them do as the King ordered, they said they would die rather than yield, and in a place called Lexington, in Massachusetts, some of the Americans took their guns and tried to drive off the British soldiers. This is what is called rebellion. It made the King of Eng- land very angry, and he sent over ships full of soldiers to make the Americans mind. But the Americans would not. The men in the thirteen different parts of the country — called the thirteen colonies — got together and said they would fight the King's soldiers, if 26 GEORGE WASHINGTON the King tried to make them do as he wished. So they got up an army and sent it to Massachusetts, and there they had UZ^^'-^' a famous battle soldiers, called Bunker Hill, the leading men saw that they man at the head There was but thought of for who — G e o r g e He rode all the Vernon, in Vir- brido^e, in Massa- horseback, be- they had no steamboats in he was riding cut, with a few guard, a man came galloping across pie how the Battle of Bunker Hill WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE. with the King's the Battle of After the battle, in the colonies must put a brave of their army, one man they this. You know Washington, way from Mount ginia, to Cam- chusetts, on cause, you know, steam -cars or those days. As through Connecti- soldiers as his the country, tellim had been fought. The GEORGE WASHINGTON 27 British soldiers had driven the Americans from the fort, and said they had won. But it had been hard work for the sol- diers of the King. Washington stopped the rider and asked him why the Americans had been driven out of the fort. "Because they had no powder and shot left," replied the messenger. "And did they stand the fire of the British guns as long as they could fire back?" asked Washington. "That they did," re- plied the horseman. "They waited, too, un- til the British were close to the fort, before they fired. That was what Washington wished to know. He felt certain that if the American farmer boys who stood out against the King's soldiers did not gfet O MEETING OF WASHINGTON AND ROCHAMBEAU frightened or timid in "^''° commanded the soldie_rs^of France who came to help the the face of the trained soldiers of the King, that they would be the kind of soldiers he needed to win with. He turned to his companions, "Then the liberties of the country are safe," he said, and rode on to Cambridge to take command of the army. If ever you go to Cambridge, in Massachusetts, you can see 28 GEORGE WASHINGTON the tree under which Washington sat on horseback, when he took command of the American army. It is an old, old tree now, but everybody loves to look at y — -"--,.. it and to think of the splendid-look- ^'^'^n *""*"! 'O^ ^"^ soldier, in his uniform of buff and ! n[nr3^- - '' ; ^^^^^' ^^^^' °^ ^ -^^^y ^^y^ ^°"^' ^^"^ ^IBljW MW\ ago, sat his horse so gallantly be- neath that shady elm, and looked at ' — - r^ i' ■ T ' y-' 'f \ ^ffm\ WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION. the brave men who were to be his soldiers, and by whose help he hoped to make his native land a free and independent nation. GEORGE WASHINGTON 29 So, at his camp at Cambridge, he drilled his army of farm- ers and fishermen, and when he was ready he drove the Brit- ish away from Boston without a battle, when all the American leaders met in the City of Philadelphia and said they would obey the King of England no longer, but would set up a nation of their own. They called this new nation the United States of America, and they signed a paper that told all the world that the men of America would no longer obey the King of England, but would be free, even if they had to fight for their freedom. You know what this great paper they signed is called — the Declaration of Inde- pendence. The day that they de- cided to do this is now the greatest day in all America. You remember it every year, and celebrate it with fire-crackers and fire-works and flags, and no school. It is the fourth of July. Well, the King of England was very angry at this. He sent more ships and soldiers over the sea to America, and there was a long and bloody war. It was called the Ameri- can Revolution. There was fighting for seven years, and, through it all, the chief man in America, the man who led the soldiers and GEORGE WASHINGTON, THE FIRST PRESIDENT. 30 GEORGE WASHINGTON fought the British, and never gave up, nor ever let himself or his soldiers grow afraid, even when he was beaten, was Gen- eral George Washington. If the British drove him away from one place, he marched to another, and he fought and marched, and kept his army brave and determined, even when they were ragged and tired, and everything looked as if the British would be successful. When the British whipped him in the Battle of Long Island, at Brooklyn, and thought they had caught all the American army, Washington, one stormy night, got all his soldiers safely across the river to New York, and the British had to follow and fight. And, again, when it looked as if the Ameri- cans must surely give in, Washington took his soldiers, one terrible winter's night, across the Deleware river and fell upon the British, when they were not expecting him, and won the battle of Trenton. There were many hard and bitter days for George Wash- ington through these years of fighting. One winter, especi- ally, was very bad. The British soldiers seemed victorious everywhere. They held the chief cities of New York and Philadelphia, and the weak American army was half-starved, cold and shivering in a place in Pennsylvania, called Valley Forge. Washington was there, too, and it took all his strength and all his heart to keep his soldiers together and make them believe that, if they would only "stick to it," they would beat the British at last. But when their loQf huts" were all covered with snow, and they had hardly clothes enough to keep them warm, or food to keep them from being hungry, it was not easy for the soldiers to see victory ahead, and, if it had not been for Washington, the American army would have melted away, owing to that dreadful winter at Valley Forge. GEORGE WASHINGTON 31 But he held it together, and when spring came, marched away from Valley Forge. Part of his army was attacked by the British at a place called Monmouth Court House, and was almost beaten and driven back, when General Washington came galloping up. He stopped the soldiers who were run- ning away ; he brought up other soldiers to help them, and he fought so boldly and bravely, and was so determined, that at last he drove off the British, and won the important batde of Monmouth. You see, Wash- ington s i m p 1 y ^^ would; not give \ * in when peoplef I told him! I he would ' ; have to. - -^r ^ and that the Brit- ish would WASHINGTON'S BEDROOM, MOUNT VERNON, IN WHICH HE DIED. get all the cities and towns. He said that the country was large, and, that sooner than give in, he would go with his soldiers into the mountains and keep up the war until the British were so sick of it that they would finally go away. So he kept on marching and fighting, and never giving in, even when things looked worst, and, at last, on the 19th of October, in the year 1781, he captured the whole British army, at a place called Yorktown, in Virginia, and the Revolution was ended. 32 GEORGE WASHINGTON So the United States won their freedom. They have been a great nation sver since, and every American, from that day to this, knows that they gained their freedom because they had such a great, brave, noble, patriotic, strong and glorious leader as General George Washington. After the Revolution was over, and Washington had said good-bye to his soldiers and his generals, he went back to Mount Vernon and became a farmer again. But the people of America would not let him stay a farmer. They got together again in Philadelphia, and, after much thought and talk, they drew up a paper that said just how the new nation should be governed. This is called the Consti- tution of the United States. The Constitution said that, instead of a king, the people should pick out — elect is w^hat they called it — one man, who should be head man of the nation for four years at a time. He was to preside over things, and so he was called the President. When the time came to elect the first President, there w^as just one man in the United States that everybody said must be the President. Of course you know who this man was — George Washington. It was a great day for the new nation when he was declared President. This is what we call being "inaugurated." All along the way, as he rode from Mount Vernon to New York, people came out to welcome 'him. They fired cannon and rang bells, and made bonfires and put up arches and decora- tions ; little girls scattered flowers in his path and sang songs of greeting, and whenever he came to a town or city, every one turned out and marched in procession, escorting Wash- ington through their town. When he came to New York, after he had crossed the bay in a big row boat, he went in a fine procession to a building GEORGE WASHINGTON 33 called " Federal Hall," on Wall Street, and there he stood, on the front balcony of the building, in face of all the people, and, with his hand on an open Bible, he said he would be a wise and good and faithful President. Then the Judge, who had read to him the words he repeated, lifted his hand and cried out: "Long live George Washington, President of the United States!" A flag was run up to the cu- pola of the hall, cannon boomed, bells rang, and all the people cheered and cheered their hero and general, whom they had now made the head of the whole nation. So George Washing- ton became President of the United States. He worked just as hard to make the new nation strong and great and peaceful as he did when he led the army in the Revolution. People had all sorts of things to suggest. Some of those things were foolish, some were wrong and some would have been certain to have broken up the United States, and lost all the things for which the country fought in the Revolution. But Washington was at the head. He knew just what to do, and he did it. From the day when, in the City of New York, he was made President — that is what we call his CARPENTERS' HALL, PHILADELPHIA. ■Where the Convention met which made the Constitution for the United States and over which George Washington presided. 34 GEORGE WASHINGTON ^ inauguration — he gave all his thought and all his time and all his strength to making the United States united and pros- perous and strong. And, when his four years as President were over, the people would not let him give up, but elected him for their President for another four years. When Wash- ington was President, the Capital of the United States was first at New York and afterward at Philadelphia. Washing- ton and his wife, whom we know of as Martha Washington, lived in fine style, and made a very noble-looking couple. They gave receptions every once in a while, to which the peo- ple would come to be introduced and to see the man of whom all the world was talking. Whasington must have been a splendid looking man then. He was tall and well built. He dressed in black velvet, with silver knee and shoe buckles ; his hair was powdered and tied up in what was called a " queue." He wore yellow gloves, and held his three-cornered hat in his hand. A sword in a polished white leather sheath, hung at his side, and he would bow to each one who was introduced to him. He had so good a memory, that, if he heard a man's name and saw his face at one introduction, he could remember and call him by name when he met him again. But though he was so grand and noble, he was very simple in his tastes and his talk, and desired to have no title, but only this — the President of the United States. His second term as President was just as successful as his first four years had been. He kept the people from getting into trouble with other countries ; he kept them from war and danger, and quarrels and loss. But it tired him all out, and made him an old man before his time. He had given almost all his life to America. When his second term was ended, the people wished him to be President for the third time. But he would not. He wrote GEORGE WASHINGTON 35 a long letter to the people of America. It is called "Wash- ington's Farewell Address." He told them they were grow- ing stronger and better, but that he was worn out and must have rest. He told them that if they would be wise and peace- ful and good, they would become a great nation ; that all they had fought for and all they had gained would last, if they would only act right, and so they would become great and powerful. So another man was made President, and Washington went back to his farm at Mount Vernon. He was the greatest, the wisest and the most famous man in all America. People said it was because of what he had done for them that their country was free and powerful and strong. They said that George Washington was "The Father of His Country." I think he was; don't you? He was very glad to get back to Mount Vernon. He loved the beautiful old place, and he had been away from it eight years. He liked to be a farmer, with such a great farm to look after as there are in Virginia. He found very much to do, and he mended, built and enlarged things, rode over his broad plantations, or received in his fine old house the visitors who came there to see the greatest man in all America. There came a time wdien he thought he would have to give up this pleasant life and go to be a soldier once more. For there came very near being a war between France and the United vStates, and Congress begged Washington to take com- mand of the army once more. He was made lieutenant general and commander in chief, and hurried to Philadelphia to gather his army together. Fortunately, the war did not occur, and the new nation was saved all that trouble and bloodshed. So he went back again to his beloved Mount Vernon. But he did not live long to enjoy the peace and quiet that were his right. For, one December day, as he was riding over his farm, he caught cold and had the croup. He had not the strength that 36 GEORGE WASHINGTON most boys and girls have to carry him through such a sickness. He was worn out, and, though the doctors tried hard to save his Hfe, they could not, and in two days he died. It was a sad day for America — the twelfth day of December, in the year 1 799. All the world was sorry, for all the world had come to look upon George Washington as the greatest man of his time. Kings and nations put on mourning for him, and, all over the world, bells tolled, drums beat and flags were dropped to half- mast, when the news came that Washington was dead. When you grow up and go to Mount Vernon, as every Ameri- can boy and girl should do some day, you will see his tomb. It is a plain and simple building, just as plain and simple as he was, and it stands close to his house, on the green banks of the beautiful Potomac River he loved so much. Then, sailing up the Potomac, or riding on the steam-cars, you will come to the beautiful city that is named for this great man — Washington, the capital of the United States. Then you will see the great w^hite dome of the splendid Capitol, the building in which the American people make laws for the nation that Washington founded; there is the White House, where all the Presidents since his day have lived, there is the tall, white monument, — the highest in the world — that the American people have built to honor his memory and his name. And in the cities and towns in America are statues and streets and parks and schools and buildings named after him, and built because all the world knows that this great American general and President was the best, the noblest and the bravest man that ever lived in all America — Georcfe Washington, "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." Love him, children. Never forget him. Try to be like him. Thus may you grow to be good men and women, and, there- fore, good Americans. THE ENTERTAINING HISTORY OF John Paul Jones, First Captain in the United States Navy. O NCE upon a time there lived in Scotland a poor gardener, who had a little son. The gardener s name was John Paul; that was his son's name, too. The rich man's garden that big John took care of was close by the sea, and little John Paul loved blue water so much that he spent most of his time near it, and longed to be a sailor. This blue water that little John Paul loved was the big bay that lies between Scotland and England. It is called Solway Firth. When little John Paul was born, on the sixth day of July, in the year 1747, both far-away Scotland, in which he lived, and this land of America, in which you live, were ruled by the King of England. (37) JOHN PAUL JONES. 38 JOHN PAUL JONES The gardener's little son lived in his father's cottage near the sea until he was twelve years old. Then he was put to work in a big town, on the other side of the Solway Firth. This town was called Whitehaven. It was a very busy place, and ships and sailors were there so much and in such num- bers that this small boy, who had been put into a store, much preferred to go down to the docks and talk with the seamen, who had been in so many different lands and seas, and who could tell him all about the wonderful and curious places they had seen, and about their adventures on the great oceans they had sailed over. He determined to, go to sea. He studied all about ships and how to sail them. He studied and read all the books he could get, and when other boys were asleep or in mischief, little John Paul was learning from the books he read many things that helped him when he grew older. At last he had his wish. When he was but thirteen years old, he went as a sailor boy in a ship called the " Friendship." The vessel was bound to Virginia, in America, for a cargo of tobacco, and the little sailor boy greatly enjoyed the voy- age, and was especially delighted with the new country across the sea, to which he came. He wished he could live in America, and hoped some day to go there again. But when this first voyage was over, he returned to White- haven, and to the store where he worked. But, soon after, the merchant who owned the store failed in business, and the boy was out of a place and had to take care of himself So he became a real sailor, this time. For thirteen years he was a sailor. He was such a good one that before he was twenty years old he was a captain. This is how he became one. While the ship in which he was sailing was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a terrible fever broke out. The captain JOHN PAUL JONES 39 died. The mate, who comes next to the captain, died ; all of the sailors were sick, and some of them died There was no one who knew about sailing such a big vessel, except young John Paul. So he took command, and sailed the ship into port without an accident, and the owners were so glad that they made the young sailor a sea captain. JOHN PAUL JONES AS A SAILOR BOY. John Paul had a brother living in Virginia, on the banks of the Rappahannock River. This is the same river beside which George Washington lived when he was a boy. John Paul visited his brother several times while he was sailing on his voyages, and he liked the country so much that, when his brother died, John Paul gave up being a sailor for a while, and went to live on his brother's farm. 3 -40 JOHN PAUL JONES When he became a farmer he changed his name to Jones. And so Httle John Paul became known ever after, to all the world as John Paul Jones. While he was a farmer in Virginia, the American Revolu- tion broke out. I have told you about this in the story of General George Washington, who led the army of the Uni- ted States to victory. . John Paul Jones was a sailor even more than he was a far- mer. So, when war came, he wished to fight the British on the sea. This was a bold thing to do, for there was no nation so powerful on the sea as England. The King had a splen- did lot of ships of war — almost a thousand. The United States had none. But John Paul Jones said we must have one. Pretty soon the Americans got together five little ships, and sent them out as the beginning of the American navy, to fight the thousand ships of England. John Paul Jones was made first lieutenant of a ship called the "Alfred." The first thing he did was to hoist for the first time on any ship, the first American flag. This flag had thir- teen red and white stripes, but instead of the stars that are now on the flag, it had a pine tree, with a rattlesnake coiled around it, and underneath were the words: "Don't tread on me!" The British sea captains who did try to tread on that rattle- snake flag was terribly bitten, for John Paul Jones was a brave man and a bold sailor. When he was given command of a little war sloop, called the Providence, he just kept those Brit- ish captains so busy trying to catch him that they could not get any rest. He darted up and down Long Island Sound, carrying soldiers and guns and food to General Washington, and, although one great British war ship, the "Cerberus," tried for weeks to catch him, it had to give up the chase, for John JOHN PAUL JONES 41 Paul Jones could not be caught. For all this good work, this bold sailor was made Captain Jones, of the United States Navy, and it is said that he was tHe first captain made by Congress. He sailed up and down the coast, hunting for British ves- sels. He hunted so well that in one cruise of six weeks he captured sixteen vessels, or " prizes," as they were called, and destroyed many others. Among these was one large vessel, PAUL JONES' MEN AT SEA. loaded with new warm clothing for the British army. Captain Jones sent the vessel and its whole cargo safely into port, and the captured clothes were all sent to the American camp, and were worn by Washington's ragged soldiers. The next year Captain Jones sailed away to France in a fine new ship called the ** Ranger." Before he sailed out of Portsmouth Harbor, in New Hampshire, he "ran up" to the masthead of the ** Ranger" the first ** Stars and Stripes" ever 42 JOHN PAUL JONES raised over a ship — ^Washington's real American flag with its thirteen stripes and its thirteen stars. He went to France and had a talk with Dr. Benjamin Franklin, the great American who got France to help the United States in the Revolution. Then, after he had sailed through the whole French fleet, and made them all fire a salute to the American flag — it was the first salute ever given it by a foreign nation — he steered away for the shores of England, and so worried the captains and sailors and storekeepers and people of England that they would have given anything to catch him. ' But they couldn't. The English king and people had not supposed the Ameri- cans would fight. Especially, they did not believe they would dare to fight the English on the sea, for England was the strongest country in the world in ships and sailors. So they despised and made fun of "Yankee sailors," as they called the Americans. But when Captain John Paul Jones came sailing in his fine ship, the " Ranger," up and down the coasts of England, going right into English harbors, capturing Eng- lish villages and burning English ships, the people began to think differently. They called Captain Jones a "pirate," and all sorts of hard names. But they were very much afraid of him and his stout ship. He was not a pirate, either. For a pirate is a bold, bad sea robber, who burns ships and kills sailors just to get the money himself But John Paul Jones attacked ships and captured sailors, not for selfish money-getting, but to show how much Americans could do, and to break the power of the English navy on the seas. So, this voyage of his, along the shores of England, taught the Englishmen to respect and fear the American sailors. After he had captured many British vessels, called "prizes," JOHN PAUL JONES 43 almost ill sight of their homes, he boldly sailed to the north and into the very port of Whitehaven, where he had "tended store," as a boy, and from which he had first gone to sea. He knew the place, of course. He knew how many vessels were there, and what a splendid victory he could win for the American navy, if he could sail into Whitehaven harbor and capture or destroy the two hundred vessels that were anchored within sifjht of the town he remembered so well from childhood. JONES APPROACHING WHITEHAVEN, EARLY MORNING. With two row-boats and thirty men he landed at White- haven, locked up the soldiers in the forts, fixed the cannon so that they could not be fired, set fire to the vessels that were in the harbor, and so frightened all the people that, though the gardener's son stood alone on the wharf, w^aiting for a boat to take him off, not a man dared to lay a hand on him. Then he sailed across the bay to the house of the great lord for whom his father had worked as a gardener. He meant 44 JOHN PAUL JONES to run away with this great man, and keep him prisoner until the British promised to treat better the Americans whom they had taken prisoners. But the great lord whom he went for found it best to be **not at home," so all that Captain Jones' men could do was to carry off from the big house some of the fine things that were in it. But Captain Jones did not like this ; so he got the things back and returned them to the rich man's wife, with a nice letter, asking her to excuse his men. But while he was carrying on so in Sol way Firth, along came a great British warship, called the "Drake," determined to gobble up poor Captain Jones at a mouthful. But Captain Jones was not afraid. This was just what he was looking for. "Come on!" he cried; "I'm waiting for you." The British ship dashed up to capture him, but the " Ranger" was all ready, and in just one hour Captain Jones had beaten and captured the English frigate, and then, with both vessels, sailed merrily away to the friendly French shores. Soon after this, the French decided to help the Americans in their war for independence. So, after some time, Captain Jones was put in command of five ships, and back he sailed to England, to fight the British ships again. The vessel in which Captain Jones sailed was the biggest of the five ships. It had forty guns and a crew of three hun- dred sailors. Captain Jones thought so much of the great Dr. Benjamin Franklin, who wrote a book of good advice, under the name of "Poor Richard," that he named his big ship for Dr. Franklin. He called it the "Bon Homme Richard," which is French for "good man Richard." The "Bon Homme Richard " was not a good boat, if it was a big one. It was old and rotten and cranky, but Captain Jones made the best of it. The little fleet sailed up and down the English coasts, cap- turing a few prizes, and greatly frightening the people by JOHN PAUL JONES 45 saying that they had come to burn some of the big Enghsh sea towns. Then just as they were about sailing back to France, they came — near an English cape, called Flamborough Head— .^S.' JONES' MEN ASHORE— WHITEHAVEN. upon a great English fleet of forty merchant vessels and two war ships. One of the war ships was a great English frigate, called the "Serapis," finer and stronger every way than the ''Bon Homme Richard." But Captain Jones would not run away. " What ship is that ? " called out the Englishman. '' Come 46 JOHN PAUL JONES a little nearer, and we'll tell you," answered plucky Captain Jones. The British ships did come a little nearer. The forty mer- chant vessels sailed as fast as they could to the nearest harbor, and then the war ships had a terrible sea fight. At seven o'clock in the evening the British frigate and the "Bon Homme Richard" began to fight. They banged and hammered away for hours, and then, when the British captain thought he must have beaten and broken the Americans, and it was so dark and smoky that they could only see each other by the fire flashes, the British captain, Pearson, called out to the American captain: ''Are you beaten ? Have you hauled down your flag?" And back came the answer of Captain John Paul Jones : *'I haven't begun to fight yet!" So they went at it again. The two ships were now lashed together, and they tore each other like savage dogs in a terri- ble fight. O, it was dreadful ! At last, when the poor old "Richard" was shot through and through, and leaking, and on fire, and seemed ready to sink. Captain Jones made one last effort. It was successful. Down came the great mast of the "Serapis," crashing to the deck. Then her guns were quiet ; her flag came tumbling down, as a sign that she gave in. At once, Captain Jones sent some of his sailors aboard the defeated "Serapis." The captured ves- sel was a splendid new frigate, quite a different ship from the poor, old, worm-eaten and worn-out "Richard." One of the American sailors went up to Captain Pearson the British commander, and asked him if he surrendered. The Englishman replied that he had, and then he and his chief officer went aboard the battered " Richard," which was sink- ing even in its hour of victory. JOHN PAUL JONES 47 But Captain Jones stood on the deck of his sinking vessel, proud and triumphant. He had shown what an American captain and American sailors could do, even when everything was against them. The English captain gave up his sword to the American, which is the way all sailors and soldiers do when they surrender their ships or their armies. The fight ■ had been ? a brave J one, and ' the Eng- ': I . lish King h' knew that his captain had made a bold and desperate i resistance, even if he had been whipped. V^^^^ So he re- • "V^- :. ^v: : s-^ii.k'^---'^ warded THE TIGHT BETWEEN BON HOMME RICHARD" AND "SERAPIS." Captain Pearson, when he at last returned to England, by giving him the title of "Sir," and when Captain Jones heard of it he laughed and said: "Well, if I can meet Captain Pearson again in a sea fight, I'll make a 'lord' of him." For a "lord" is a higher title than "sir." 48 JOHN PAUL JONES The poor *' Bon Homme Richard" was shot through and through, and soon sank beneath the waves. But even as she went down, the Stars and Stripes floated proudly from the masthead, in token of victory. Captain Jones, after the surrender, put all his men aboard the captured " Serapis," and then off he sailed to the nearest friendly port, with his great prize and all his prisoners. This victory made him the greatest sailor in the whole American war. The Dutch port into which he sailed was not friendly to America, but Captain Jones had made his name so famous as a sea fighter, that neither the thirteen Dutch frigates inside the harbor, nor the twelve British ships outside, dared to touch him, and, after a while — when he got good and ready — Cap- tain Jones ran the Stars and Stripes to the masthead and, while the wind was blowing a gale, sailed out of the harbor, right through two big British fleets, and so sailed safely to France, with no one bold enough to attack him. He had made a great record as a sailor and sea fighter. France was on America's side in the Revolution, you know, and when Captain Jones went to France after his great vic- tory, he was received with great honor. Everybody wished to see such a hero. He went to the King's court, and the King and Queen and French lords and ladies made much of him and gave him fine receptions, and said so many fine things about him that if he had been at all vain, it might have "turned his head," as people say. But John Paul Jones was not vain. He was a brave sailor, and he was in France to get help and not compliments. He wished a new ship to take the place of the old "Richard," which had gone to the bottom after its great victory. So, though the King of France honored him and received JOHN PAUL JONES 49 him splendidly and made him presents, he kept on working to get another ship. At last he was made captain of a new ship, called the ** Ariel," and sailed from France. He had a fierce battle with an English ship called the "Triumph," and defeated .-; ' '^' ■ \ her. But she es- caped be fore s u r rendering, and Cap tain Jones sail e d across the sea to America. He was received with great honor and applause. Congress gave him a vote of thanks "for the zeal, pru- dence and intrepidity with which he had supported the honor of the American flag" — that is what the vote said. People everywhere crowded to see him, and called him hero and conqueror. Lafayette, the brave young Frenchman, you know, who came over to fight for America, called him "my ^^ THE BRITISH CAPTAIN SURRENDERING HIS SWORD TO PAUL JONES. 50 JOHN PAUL JONES dear Paul Jones," and Washington and the other leaders in America said, "Well done, Captain Jones ! " The King of France sent him a splendid reward of merit called the ** Cross of Honor," and Congress set about build- ing a fine ship for him to command. But before it was fin- ished, the war was over, and he was sent back to France on some important business for the United States. After he had done this, the Russians asked him to come and help them fight the Turks. This was often done in those days when soldiers and sailors of one country went to fight in the armies or navies of another. Captain Jones said he would be willing to go if the United States said he could, "for," he said : " I can never renounce the Sflorious title of a citizen of the United States." The United States said he could go to Russia, but the British officers who were fighting for Russia, refused to serve under Jones, because, as they said, he was a rebel, a pirate and a traitor. You see, they, had not forgiven him for so beating and frightening the English ships and people in the Revolution. And they called him these names because he, born in Scotland, had fought for America. They made it very unpleasant for Captain Jones, and he had so hard a time in Russia that, after many wonderful adven- tures and much hard fighting, at last he gave up, and went back to France. He was taken sick soon after he returned to France, and, though he tried to fight against it, he could not recover. He had gone through so many hardships and adventures and changes that he was old before his time, and although his friends tried to help him and the Queen of France sent her own doctor to attend him, it was no use. He died on the eighteenth day of July, in the year 1792, JOHN PAUL JONES 51 when he was but forty-five years old. He was buried in Paris, with great honor. The French people gave him a great funeral, as their token of respect and honor, and the French clergyman who gave the funeral oration said : ** May his example teach posterity the efforts which noble souls are cap- able of making when stimulated by hatred to oppression." John Paul Jones was a brave and gallant man. He fought desperately, and war is a dreadful thing, you know. But as I have told you, sometimes it has to be, and then it must be bold and determined. Captain Jones did much by his dash and courage to make America free. He gave her strength and power on the seas. He fought twenty-three naval battles, made seven attacks upon English ports and coasts, fought and captured four great war ships, larger than his own, and took many valuable prizes — to the loss of England and the glory of America. American boys and girls know too little about him. If you are to learn about those who have fought for America on land and sea, you must surely hear of him who was the first cap- tain in the United States Navy, and whose brave deeds and noble heroism is the heritage and example of American sail- ors for, all time. ' ' I have ever looked out for the honor of the American flag, he said, and Americans are just beginning to see how much this first of American sailors did for their liberty, their honor and their fame. Some day they will know him still more, and in one of the great cities of this land which he helped to save from destruction in those early days, a noble statue will be built to do honor to Captain John Paul Jones — the man who was one of the bravest and most successful sea fighters in the history of the world. W'^ s.*!m- FRANKLIN S KIT "<; LEADS THE WAY TO THE MODERN USE OF ELECTRICITY. Benjamin Franklin, The Candlemaker's Son, who with his Kite Discovered that Lightning is an Electric 5park. DID any of my little readers ever look at a lightning rod putting up from the roof of a house, and do you know what that lightning rod is for ? I will tell you. When you hear the thunder in the heavens, there is a strong force which darts out in zigzag lines of fire, and if it strikes anything like a tree or house, it tears it to pieces, and perhaps sets it on fire; but if it strikes a person or an animal, it does not break even the skin, but passes through them in the twinkling of an eye and often kills them. This strange force most people call lightning, and the lightning rod is put on the house to catch it and to carry it down into the earth before it strikes the building. 53 54 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Two hundred years ago nobody knew how to catch the hgntning, and everybody stood in great dread of it. Now we know how to catch it and carry it away from our houses, and we also know how to make it run along wires and carry mes- sages from one friend to another so fast that, if you were a thousand miles away, your friend, if he were at the end of the wire, would be receiving the message while you were at the other end sending it. We have also learned how to make it carry the human voice for a thousand miles, so that if you were in New York you might step up to a little box, called the telephone, and talk into it, and your mother, father, or friend could hear your words plainly in Chicago, nearly a thousand miles away. It would pass so quickly that you and they could talk back and forth almost as easy and quickly as if you were in the same room. We also make this wonderful force pull our street-cars through our great cities, thus setting free the horses that used to have to do it. We also make it light our streets and houses, and we call it electricity Is this not a very strange and a very wonderful power ? And would you not like to hear the story of the great man who first caught from the skies this vivid, flashing lightning, and found out that he could harness it, almost as easily as we can har- ness a horse, and make the very thing which people had always dreaded as a terrible destroyer, the best friend and servant of man? Did you say you would like to hear his story ? I will tell it to you. His name was Benjamin Franklin. A very long time ago, perhaps about four hundred years, there lived in Northamptonshire, England, a poor blacksmith whose name was Franklin. In that country at that time, the oldest son always followed the same trade or work which his father followed. So the oldest son in the Franklin family BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 55 always became a blacksmith, and he always got the property which belonged to his father when the father died. The other children had to get out and shift for themselves. The young- est son in one of the large Franklin families was named Josiah. He couldn't be a blacksmith, as his older brother took up that business and inherited his father's shop. So Josiah went out and gave himself to a man who made soap and tallow candles, and agreed to serve him, without any pay except his board and clothes, until he was twenty-one years of age. All this he did that he might learn the trade of a soap-boiler and candle-maker. When he was twenty-one his employer gave him, as was the custom, a new suit of clothes, a few dol- lars for his personal use, and a letter saying that he had learned his trade well. With that letter to show, young Josiah was able to go and hire himself to work where he could get pay for his labor. The hired man nearly always lived in his employ- er's family, and received his board and a few dollars per month. After a little while, Josiah was married and continued to live in England and work at his trade until his wages were hardly sufficient to support himself, his wife and three children on the coarsest kind of food. He did, however, save up, in his earlier years, a little money, and the stories of the New World — America — kept coming to his ears. He heard that there were few candlemakers and soap-boilers in America, and that a young man who understood his trade would have a much better chance here than in England ; so in the year 1682, a little more than two hundred years ago, he took his wife and three children, and such clothing, bedding and household things as they could bring, on board a big sailing vessel and came to America. He landed in Boston, and soon set him- self up as a soap and candlemaker. He found it much easier to support his family here than in the old country, and he 4 56 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN became very much in love with his new home. In the year 1706, twenty-four years after Josiah Franklin and his wife and three children came to America, a little baby boy was born. Like his father, he proved to be the last child in the family, and his father named him Benjamin. You remember Jacob's youngest son was named Benjamin. But Ben Franklin had sixteen brothers and sisters older than himself Don't you think that was a big family ? Seventeen boys and girls besides the mother and father ! But you must remember they were not all then in the house. The oldest of his brothers was nearly thirty years of age when Ben was born, and they had gone into various kinds of business for themselves. Benjamin was a good boy and his father loved him very much ; you know how parents often love the youngest the best The little fellow learned to read when he was very young, but he was sent to school only for two years, and then he was taken away, when he was only ten years of age to work in his father's candle-shop. His business was to cut wicks for the candles, fill the moulds with the melted tallow, tend the shop and run the errands. But "Ben," as he was called, did not like this business. He would very much rather look in picture books and read the easy stories. He always loved to go down to the water's edge, and he often did an errand very quickly, running all the way to save some time, that he might jump in a boat or go swimming with the boys. Thus he learned to handle a boat and to be an expert swim- mer. He had heard the sailors talk about far-away countries, and the strange people and wonderful sights, and he thought it would be a splendid thing to be a sailor, and he told his father how much he would like to be one and go to sea. But his father would not consent, and so Benjamin, like an obedient son, gave it up, though he often lay awake at nights and thought BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 57 how grand it would be to bound over the great billows and to visit all the ^H||_gM_|^_H countries of the world. Sometimes he ^^^^^^^^^^^^H would dream he away on the ^^^^^H^^^^JV ocean and would wake uptofindhim- H|P^HV |M self in his own little bed. was also a great lover Every chance he got, tie boy companions Frankli n of fi s h i n g . he and his lit- would get out up their pants, their lines, and, rolling would wade into l. the marsh and hsh in a mill-pond. Sometimes the water was too cold, and besides he had heard it was not healthy to stand in the water. So he said to the boys that it would be a good thing to build "^^^ franklin^moulding^candles m his 58 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN a wharf to stand on as the men did for their work about the water. They all thought so too. There was a pile of stones not far away which were to be used to build a new house. So they said the men could get more for themselves, or, perhaps, they had more than they wanted ; and in the evening, when the men quit work the boys slipped out — for they knew it was not just right — and they carried enough of these stones away to make them a good pier far out into the water. Next day when the workmen came they wondered where their rocks had gone. Upon searching around, they found what the mischievous boys had done, and, as they had seen them there often fishing, they knew just who had done it and went straight to their parents about it. Some of the mothers and fathers only laughed, but Mr. Franklin took Ben aside and began to lecture him. Ben tried to argue with his father that the pier was very necessary as it kept the boys' feet dry while they fished, and he pretended to think it was a good thing they had done. But Mr. Franklin told him that noth- ing was good or right that was not honest, and, to impress the lesson on his mind, he gave Benjamin a sound thrashing and forbade his fishing there any more. Ever after that, Ben was an honest boy and an upright man. But Ben did not get over his desire to go to sea. He did not dare to ask permission, but he was always talking about what the sailors said, and using words which showed he had learned the different sails and miuch about ships. So his father grew afraid that his son would run away and go to sea as one of his other sons had already done. One day after Ben had been in the tallow-candle shop for two years — and was now ten years old — his father began to talk with him about other trades. He took him frequently to walk and they would stop BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 59 to look at different kinds of workmen, such as bricklayers, carpenters, iron-workers and many others. He hoped the boy would like some of these better than tlie life of a sailor, but Benjamin did not care for any of them. By this time he had, however, grown very fond of reading. He poured over his father's dull books and sold little things of his own to buy more. Often he w^ould trade his old books at the second- hand book-stores for others he had not read. So Mr. Frank- lin, seeing he was so fond of read- ing books, thought it was best to , THE BOY FRANKLIN SLIPPING HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE PAPER make a under the office door. printer of him. His oldest son, James Franklin, already had a printing office and press. Benjamin said he would like this trade, so he was apprenticed to his brother to learn it. When we say Ben was "apprenticed " we mean he was given to his brother to have as his own until he should be twenty-one 6o BENJAMIN FRANKLIN years old. He was to work for his brother without any pay, except his board and clothing. As Benjamin was then about eleven years old, he would have to serve his brother for ten years to learn his trade. Benjamin liked this trade very much. He got to see many new books and could always borrow all he wanted, and used to sit up sometimes all night to read a book so he could return it unsoiled, to the store in the morning. The boy took a great fancy to poetry and at odd moments wrote some verses himself When he had quite a lot, he showed it to his brother James. Certainly it was, as Franklin after- wards called it "wretched stuff," but James printed it and sent Ben around Boston to peddle it. He was doing this with much pride when his father laughed at him and made fun of his poetry, and told him he would always be a beggar if he wrote verses for a living. He stopped short his writing and peddling poetry. But he was bound to write, for he loved to do it, and I will tell you how he played a nice trick off on his brother : James Franklin published a little Newspaper. It was Ben's duty after the paper was printed to carry loads of them around and deliver them to the subscribers. The boy read this paper, and he thought he could write as well as many whose articles were published in it. But he would not dare to ask his brother James to let him write, nor would he let anyone know what he wrote. His father would be sure to make fun, as he did of his poetry, if he saw it. So he wrote almost every week and slipped his pieces under the office door after it was closed. James printed them, and his father read them, but they did not dream that Ben wrote them. Now I will tell you of a way he saved money to buy books. Remember he got no wages for his work, but he always had money. A boy is not of much account if he does not have BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 6i L money. When you see a boy always going around without a cent, it is a pretty good sign he will never save anything. Franklin had got the notion that it was wrong to eat meat. Now his brother paid his board, you know. So the boy told his brother that if he would give him half what his board cost he would board himself As that would save James something, he agreed. Ben- jamin quit eating meat and lived on bread and other cheap foods. Thus he saved money to buy books, and by eating only a bit of bread and a tart for dinner he had half an hour every day to devote to read- ing, while the others were eating heavy dinners ; and this is the way he educated himself Would you think it strange if I told you that Benjamin did not like his brother James ? It is a fact, he did not. They often quarreled, for James did not treat his little brother right and sometimes gave him beatings. I will tell you how he got free from him. One day James printed something in hia paper which made EARLY DAYS IN THE COLONIES. fo BENJAMIN FRANKLIN the Governor of the Colony mad. They arrested him and put him in jail for a whole month. Benjamin published the paper while his brother was in prison, and he said some very ugly things about the government, but was careful not to say any- thing for which they could get him in prison. This pleased James very much. But when they let him out of prison they forbade his publishing the paper any longer. Now what was James to do? He was a shrewd business man, so he said to Benjamin that he would set him free and run the paper in his name. So they destroyed the papers that bound the boy in law. Ben, however, said he would remain with his brother until he was twenty-one years old. This agreement was made and so it started, but soon James tried to impose on Ben as he had done before ; but as Ben was no longer bound to him, he left him. Ben afterwards said that he did not do fairly in this, and he was sorry for it, though it was, perhaps, nothing more than James deserved. Benjamin now tried to hire himself to other printers ; but none of them would take him because he had broken his con- tract with his brother. Besides, they had all agreed together that when one of their apprentices left, none of the others should hire him. What was he to do ? He was only seventeen years old, but he was not to be discouraged. Gathering a few of his books, he went aboard a sloop setting sail for New York. In that city he tried for days, but could get no work. Some one told him to try Philadelphia. It was a tedious and dangerous journey as it must be made by water. There were no rail- roads then. He took a sail-boat to Amboy, New Jersey. A storm came up and the boat was driven ashore, and the poor frightened boy lay all night in the little hold of the boat with the waves dashing over it, and the water, leaking through, BENJAlVnN FRANKLIN 63 soaked him to the skin. It took him thirty-two hours to get to Amboy, and all that time he had neither a drink of water nor a bite to eat. Having very little money he set out on foot and walked to Burlington. Here he was met by trouble he had not looked for. His ragged clothes, wet and soiled, made him look like what w^e now call a tramp ; but there were no tramps in those days. They thought he was a runaway and came very near putting him in jail, and he says he was then sorry he had not remained in Boston with his brother James. But it was now too late to go back, so he found a man with a row-boat at Burlington who was going to Philadelphia, and with him and to pay his pas- Philadelphia in A FASHIONABLE CHAISE IN WHICH PEOPLE RODE IN THE DAYS OF FRANKLIN. Franklin agreed to go help him row the boat sage. They arrived at the night, but as there were then no street lamps in the city, they passed by without knowing it. At length they went ashore and made a fire to dry them- selves, and waited until morning and rowed to the city. Poor Benjamin Franklin, all soiled, tired and very hungr}^ started up the street to find something to eat. He had no trunk or valise for his extra clothing, so he stuffed his extra stockings and shirt in his pockets. He soon found a baker shop and asked for biscuits as he used to buy in Boston. The baker did not know what they were. They did not make bis- cuits in Philadelphia. So Franklin asked him to give him threepenny worth of bread of any kind, as he was very hun- gry. The baker gave him three loaves, and putting one under 64 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN each arm, he chewed vigorously on the other as he walked along. Don't you suppose he looked very odd and funny walking along the streets in his soiled clothes with his pockets stuffed with socks and a shirt, a loaf of bread under each arm and eating another? Well, so he did. And as he passed along a pretty girl named Deborah Read, looked out of the door, and he saw her laughing " fit to kill," and making all manner of fun of him. His pride was stung, but he was too hungry and helpless to do anything then. Many years afterwards, he married this very girl, and she was very fortunate and proud to get him. Franklin soon found a place to work with a printer named Keimer, and he very quickly showed that he was quite differ- ent from other workmen and boys about the place. He knew all about printing, so he was a valuable workman, and he had read and knew so much in books that those who knew him liked to hear him talk, and they used to refer to him to settle disputes on all sorts of questions. Instead of spending his evenings at the tavern drinking or gossiping, as other young men did, he went to his room and read good books or went in the company of those of whom he could learn something. Such young men as these always attract the attention of others. One day Mr. Keimer, the printer, looked out and saw two finely dressed gentlemen coming to his place. He went out to meet them and found it was no other than Sir William Keith, the Governor of Pennsylvania, and one of his friends. They had on silver knee-buckles and powdered wigs and ruffled shirts and gay-colored coats and silk stockings. Such fine people had never visited his shop before, and Keimer was much pleased, thinking what an honor it was to him, and, perhaps, he thought they might give him a big bill of printing to do. How great must have been his disappointment when the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 65 Governor asked to see a young man by the name of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin came out with his sleeves rolled up and wearing leather breeches — such as nearly all workmen wore in those days. He was quite surprised that the Governor should visit him, but was not ashamed to be an honest workman, and with- out ceremony he walked away between the two fine gentlemen to the tavern. Now what do you suppose the fine Governor wanted with this common young printer in his leather breeches? He told him that he wanted him to start a printing office of his own, as none of the other men of the city were first-class workmen. Franklin was veiy proud of the Governor's good opinion, but told him that he could not think of starting for himself as he was too poor to buy a press and types of his own and he did not think his father would help him. The Governor wrote a letter to Franklin's father urging him to help his son, and sent Franklin to Boston, dressed up nicely, wearing a watch, and with money in his pocket, to carry the old-time printing PRE^i. letter. His parents were delighted to see him looking so large and strong and so much improved in every way. But when he showed the Governor's letter, asking his father's aid in bu)- ing a press, he was told by the old gentleman that he v.^as too young to go into business for himself Franklin returned to Philadelphia with a heavy heart and reported to the Governor what had happened. The Governor seemed very much disappointed, and told Franklin that, if he would go to England to buy the presses and types, he would start him in business for himself. Benjamin agreed to do this, and at the appointed time called on the Governor to get the <6 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN letters of introduction and credit which the Governor said he would give him so he could buy whatever he wanted. They were not ready, but the Governor told him he would send them to the ship with other mail and he would get them before land- ing in England. So Franklin went aboard the vessel and for many days had a delightful sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Just before they came to land, the mail-bags were opened, but what was his amazement to find that there was no letter from the Governor for him. They searched carefully all through the letters sent by the Governor to make sure, but there was not a word for or about Franklin or the printing press and types he was to buy. Here he was, a poor young man with no money and no friends, several thousand miles from home. It would take about six weeks to write to the Governor and hear from him. Rethought it over and wondered if the Governor had forgotten it or just treated him meanly. A man on the ship told him that the Governor did many strange things, that he had no credit abroad, and could not have bought a printing press for himself, and that was the reason he had sent no letter of credit. Then Franklin made one of his wise sayings, " Fine clothes do not make a fine gentleman," which we still often hear repeated. But Franklin had learned to depend on himself and knew his printer s trade well, and he at once got a position to set type in London, where he learned many things that he did not know before. One was to engrave pictures and handsome let- ters on metal. Another was to make printer's ink, and yet another how to cast type or letters. This was all very useful to him in after years. We have told you that Franklin would- eat no meat. He also refused to drink wine or any intoxicating drink. Now, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 67 all of the English printers and laborers drank a great deal of beer, and when lunch-time came, and Franklin sat down with his cup of milk or water, they laughed at him, and told him that water would make him weak, and he would be of no account if he did not drink beer or whisb^ or something, and eat meat to make him strong. Franklin told them that was a mistake, and, to prove it, he lifted heavy weights and showed himself stronger than any man in the shop. One holiday in the summer they went out for a swim in the River Thames, and Franklin could swim farther and faster than any of them. They also thought as he had come from the " wild new world," he did not know much, but after they had talked to him a bit they found out he had read more books than any of them, and instead of going out at nights he spent his time reading. There was ?. man near by who kept a second-hand book store, and Franklin used to pay him so much a week to let him take out books and read them. By and by he found he had saved enough money to return to America, so he came back and got a position as a clerk in a store, but his employer died and he went back to work at the printer s trade. He hired himself to his old master, Keimer, and proved himself very useful in engraving plates to print a new paper money which was then being used in the Colony. After a while Franklin bought a press and started a printing house of his own. He had to go greatly in debt for it, but by very hard work he believed he could pay the debt. He used to get up in the mornings when other men were asleep and go to work, and he was in his office at night after others were in bed. If he had not been a very strong and robust man, this would have made him sick. Perhaps he stood it better because he lived on nothing but milk and bread and drank no 68 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN intoxicating drinks. He did everything about his printing office. He made a wise saying : " If you want a thing done well, do it yourself." So when he wanted paper, he took a wheelbarrow and went over to the paper house, bought what he wanted, and wheeled it home himself He soon started a little newspaper, and he had read so much that he was able to write for himself, almost everything he printed in it. He also set a large portion of the type ; and for a long time worked his printing press with his own hands, for there were no steam presses in those days. People saw how industrious he was, and, as he was the best printer in Philadelphia, he soon had more work than he could do, work- ing early and late. Now, I will tell you an interesting thing that happened. You remember I told you about the girl who laughed at him, when he, with his pockets stuffed full of socks and a shirt, walked up the streets several years before, eating a loaf of bread and carrying two others under his arms. Well, when Frank- lin was away in England, this pretty young lady, whom he always liked very much, got married, and when he came home he was sorry to hear it, for he had always hoped that he might become able to take a wife himself, and, if he should, she was the one he meant to ask to marry him. Some time after Franklin came home, the husband of his old-time sweetheart died. Franklin waited until she took off her mourning, and he had gotten himself well started in his own shop, then he went over and told her what he had always intended to do, and said if she was willing to marry him now, he believed he could make a good living for the two in his own business, but, of course, they would have to live poor at first. He also told her that he was thinking of starting a litde book store in front of his BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 69 printing office, and if she would marry him, she could be his clerk in the book store. She readily consented, for she had always liked Franklin. So they were married and the young couple set to work to pay off the debts for the printing office. They had no servant and they lived on very plain food. Franklin still ate for his breakfast only plain bread and milk out of a plain earthen dish, with a pewter spoon. His wife attended the store, sold books and stationery, and, long before they expected to be so, they were out of debt and beginning to grow rich. If you had gone into a house in those days you would have found very few books, but in every home you would have found something which people read very little now-a-days, namely, an almanac. It told the people about the weather, the days of the month and the weeks, put in a lot of recipes for cooking and all sorts of household remedies. In addition to this, it had wise sayings and choice bits of reading. So you see the almanac was a calendar, a cookbook, a doctor book and a reading book. Franklin concluded to print an almanac. He called it " Poor Richard's Almanac," and it is noted to-day for its wise sayings. Franklin signed the wise sayings, "Richard Saunders,'" and that is w^hy it is called "Poor Richard's Almanac;" but everybody knew Benjamin Franklin wrote it. By this time Franklin was one of the most learned men in the Colony, for, although he had never been to school since he was ten years old, he had, by studying at odd times, learned to speak and write several languages. One of the great needs of the people, he said, was an opportunity to read good books. There were very few books in the country and they were mostly in the libraries of rich people in their homes. So Franklin started a public library in Philadelphia. It was the first one 70 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN started in this country, and he encouraged all the working peo- ple to spend their evenings and holidays at the library reading. About this time there was a great deal of talk about a strange influence called electricity, and wise men of Europe wrote much about it. Franklin read everything they wrote. Nobody knew what it was. Some of the wise men from the Old World came over to Philadelphia and lectured, and Franklin told them he believed that electricity was nothing more than the same power which caused the lightning and the thunder in the skies. They laughed at him, of course, so he determined to try and find out if it was not the same. How do you suppose he did it? I will tell you. Franklin noticed that the electricity in the batteries of machines which these men used, if applied to a hemp string, would make the short ends of the hemp stand up straight like the hair on a cat's tail when the cat is mad or excited. He also noticed, when he touched the battery, he felt a shock from the electricity. "Now," he said, "if the lightning from the clouds is electricity, it will also make the ends of the hemp string stand up, and if I could only get it to come to me, through apiece of metal, I would feel the shock as I did from the electric battery." The serious question was how he could get the hemp string up to the clouds. After a while he remembered that when he was a boy, he had often made a kite fly up as high as the clouds. So he took a silk handkerchief, made himself a kite and tied a long hemp string to it and put a steel point at the end of the kite, for he had found out that steel would attract electricity. On the other end of the hemp string, down close to his hand, he tied a metal key, and then from the key he tied a silk string which he held in his hand. They had found that electricity would not go through a silk string, and he BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 71 reasoned that, if there was electricity in the clouds, it would be caught on the metal point of the kite and pass down the hemp string to the metal key, but would not pass down the silk string to his hand, as silk does not conduct electricity. WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY-ELECTRICITY AS APPLIED IN THE 20TH CENTURY. He was afraid if he should fly his kite in the daytime a great crowd would gather around him, and, if his experiment should not prove successful, they would laugh at him ; so one night when there was a w^ind and a thunderstorm, he went out all alone and sent his kite up. W^hen it was way up among the 72 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN clouds, and the thunder was pealing and the lightning was flashing, he saw the hemp on his string stand up on ends. Then he reached his finger to the key and received a shock just as he felt it in an electric battery. He had proved that lightningis due to electricity, and he hadfound how to catch it The learned men of the Old World were astonished that a man who had never been to school since he was ten years of age had beaten them all so far in this mysterious and strange discovery. They said he was a philosopher, and called him " Doctor Franklin." Many people, however, only laughed at the story. Some of Franklin's friends said to him: ** Now that you have discovered it, of what use is it?" Franklin answered simply : *' Of what use is a child ? It may become a man." He meant to teach them that a discovery of any truth is a very important matter, and that all knowledge may be turned to good use. Franklin then set to work and invented the lightning rod, which is, as we have said, a steel point placed on a house to catch the lightning and run it down a metal rod into the ground, just as the steel point on Franklins' kite caught the electricity from the clouds and ran it down the hemp string. Franklin was now a great man, and the Americans were very proud of him. So they sent him on a journey to London in the interest of the people. Dr. Franklin was now reminded of a proverb of Solomon which his father used to repeat when he was a boy: *'Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings." He was now going to stand before the •' Privy Council" of the King of England ; and what do you suppose he was going for ? I will tell you. When Pennsylvania was settled, William Penn was made the Governor, and a large amount of land was given him by BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 73 the King for his father's faithful services When William Penn died, his sons inherited this large amount of land, and they claimed that they should on it and refused to do R thought they ought to g and so did Franklin, t to London to plead the ^ against the sons of Wil- R result was the King taxes like everybody came home more hon- He had stood before the a great cause for the not pay any taxes so. The people pay like others, hence he was sent cause of the people liam Penn. The made them pay else, and Frankhn ored than ever. King and gained people. Seven ■ ^ INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA. years after this the English people undertook a very great injustice to the American Colonies. Always before this, when 74 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN the King wanted money from the colonists, he had asked for it by his Privy Council and they had sent it freely. During the French and Indian War against England, the colonists had given so freely that the King said they had sent too much, and he made England pay back two hundred thousand dollars a year for several years. Now in 1 763 there was a man by the name of George Grenville made Prime Minister of Eng- land, and he was Lord of the Treasury. Without asking the King he decided to tax the Colonies in America, and to do it he had stamps made which he said should be put on all legal documents of whatever kind, and the people who used them would have to pay for these stamps. The people said they would give money when the King wanted it and asked for it, as they had always done ; but as they had no representative iii Parliament to plead for them, and as Parliament never had taxed them, they would not now submit to being taxed in this way. So the colonists from all over the country sent Dr. Franklin to England again, and he showed them how unjust it would be to make his country buy these stamps. He told them that the people of America would give money when the King asked for it. He showed them how liberal they had always been in giving more than was required. He told them the stamps on the papers would look like compulsion, and, while they could persuade the American people to do anything, they were too liberty-loving to be forced to do an unjust thing. But Mr. Grenville also persuaded Parliament to pass the law putting a special tax on tea and other articles as well as requiring stamps on legal papers. That meant the people of America had to pay England for the privilege of buying goods. This made the Americans very angry and they would not buy the goods. But a few people did buy them, and that made BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 75 the true patriots very angry. So one day when a ship loaded with tea came into Boston harbor, with the hated tax imposed on it, some people went aboard and threw it into the sea. A few months later, the mean Mr. Grenville was removed from the office of Prime Minister and, through Dr. Franklin's influence. Parliament repealed the unjust taxes. Dr. Franklin was very popular in England. His learning and wisdom were so great that Oxford University gave him the degree LL. D., and other universities gave him degrees of honor. But, in spite of Dr. Franklin's efforts and popularity, other unjust laws were made and kept in force, and the quarrel already started grew worse and worse. The people saw Eng- land had no love for them, and was only holding them to help support the English king and rich people. This made them hate the mother country. Patrick Henry, the fiery orator, had made a great speech in Virginia, and urged the colonists to go to war rather than submit. This speech had been printed and gone all over the country, and fired the people against their oppressors. Meantime, England sent warships to Amer- ica to frighten the people into submission. So Dr. Franklin after ten years' hard work to keep peace left England in April, 1775. ■ When he landed on May 6th, he found that the battle of Lexington had been fought, and the war w^as really begun. As soon as he reached Philadelphia, he again tried to do what he could to bring about peace, for he feared our small Bation of about three millions of people — not so many in all the country as there are now in the city of greater New York — would be almost destroyed if they tried to fight against the great kingdom of England with her many trained soldiers and great w^arships. But finding that England would not do right, he determined, w^ith Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and other 76 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN great men, that it was better to die as a free man than to Hve in such slavery as England wanted to put upon us. He was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, where the greatest men came from all the Colonies ; and he helped make, and signed the Declaration of Independence. He next went to work to get up soldiers — but he was a statesman instead of a soldier, and General Washington asked him to go to Canada and see if the Colonies there would not join us in our war, and make England set them free also. Franklin went and tried hard to induce them, but finally had to give it up and come home. He was made Postmaster General of the United Colonies ; that is, he had general charge of all the mail. When the war had been going on two years, everybody saw we must have help, or we should be beaten, our country would be ruined, and all our great men would be hung or shot as traitors to the English Government. France had been secretly helping us for some time, for they hated the English, but they would not come out boldly, for they were afraid of getting into a great war with England themselves. The colonists, knowing that Dr. Franklin could speak French, having learned it by studying at odd times while a young man, and also that he was the wisest and most popular man in the country, decided to send him to the Court of France to beg them to help us. Thus Franklin again stood before a king. He was now a venerable man, seventy years of age, but full of vigor and full of life and one of the shrewdest men who ever went abroad for his country. The people of Paris — the gayest city and the proudest Court in the world — were charmed with his wise say- ings, his simple ways and his quaint manners, for he pre- tended to be only a poor colonist, although he was famous all BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 77 over Europe for his wise statesmanship, his learning in books, his discoveries and inventions. Franklin made himself very friendly, accommodating and pleasant; for while his heart was almost bleeding for his suffer- i n g country- men, and he wanted France to send aid quickly, he knew he must go about it in a very shrewd way and make them like him so much they could not re- fuse him. This teaches us a lesson. If we want people to help us, w e m u s t make them like us. Italso reminds us of another wise saying : " X'ineofar nev^- ^-^ DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AS MINISTER TO FRANCE. er catches flics." So Franklin went into their society. He talked with their learned men about science and philosophy and every- thing they wanted to discuss. One day he found a lot of scientific men talking very excitedly. He listened, and found 78 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN out they were trying to answer by science, why it was that a dead fish if dropped into a bucketful of water would cause it to run over, but if a live fish of the same size were put into the bucket it would not run over. Many reasons were given by the learned French doctors, differing so much that they got into quite a war of words. Presently, some one said, " Mr. Franklin, we have not heard your explanation yet." With a smile Franklin asked them to bring in a bucket of water and two fish the same size. This was done. " Kill one of the fish," said Franklin. This was done, and Franklin put it in the water, and it ran over just as the wise men had said. "Now," said Franklin, "fill up the bucket level full again." This was done and he dropped in the live fish. It "scooted" around and more water ran over than the dead fish displaced. "There," said Franklin, " before wasting time in argument, be sure of your facts." This is another one of his wise sayings, and to this day it is a maxim in France, where Franklin is almost as popular as in his native land. Franklin soon won over the French people to the American side. They wanted to help us very much, as our people wanted to help the Cubans in their recent successful struggle for freedom from Spain's tyranny. But then the Government did not want to do anything for their fear of England. But after about a year of sleepless nights and thoughtful days, Franklin won the Government over too. It was a glorious day for him, when the treaty was made and sixteen big warships and four thousand French soldiers sailed out from France to help us fight. Besides this, Franklin could now buy more vessels, and as you read in the life of Paul Jones in this book, he fitted him out with ships after the loss of his own vessel. Do you not BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 79 remember the fearful fight between the "Bonne Homme Richard " and the " Serapis ? " The " Bon Homme Richard " was Paul Jones' ship, and it was gotten for him in France with Franklin's aid. " Bonne Homme Richard " is French, and it means the good man Richard. It was so named in honor of Franklin's " Poor Richard's Almanac," which Jones read and found full of good advice. It is believed that this treaty with France and the aid the French people gave us are what saved our country from defeat. If so, is not Franklin almost, or quite, as great as George Washington ? Dr. Franklin remained in France during the whole of the war and kept her send- ing us help, and when Gen- eral Cornwallis surrendered to General Washington, he helped to make the treaty of peace with England, signing them both — for there was first a treaty and afterwards a final one — in Paris. He then made a treaty with Prussia which was of great benefit to our country. After all these great deeds and many smaller ones, which it would fill a book to tell, he prepared to leave France, where he had been for more than ten years. He was over eighty years of age and beginning to suffer with gout. So the Queen of France had him carried to the sea in her private easy chair, hung with silk curtains and lined with fine cushions and borne by two mules, one walking in front and the other behind. When Doctor Franklin reached home, everybody, from the FRANKLIN'S GRAVE. Corner Fifth and Arch Streets, Philadelphia. 8o BENJAMIN FRANKLIN highest to the lowest, joined in his praises and all those near enough went to see him. He was, next to Washington, the most honored man in the country. But v.^ould you not think they would let the dear old man rest the balance of his life? Certainly, if he so desired, but they thought he ought to be the President of Pennsylvania for them, anyhow for a while, and he served them in that office three years. Then all the free Colonies sent their great men together to name the new country and make a Constitution for it. Franklin was among them, and he told them that God had given the victory, and they must open the meeting every day with prayer, "because," he said, " if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, an empire cannot rise up without His aid." So they did as he advised. The new country was named the United States of Ainerica, and its Constitution, declaring all men to be born free and equal, was made and adopted. George Washington was made President in 1789, and Franklin said it was the proudest day of his life when he saw him in office and this great country free, united, and under its own ruler. He had now but a short time to live, and though eighty-three years of age, he said he thought he ought to advise our people to free the negro slaves. Our Constitu- tion said all men were born free and equal, and if that were true we should not keep our fellow-man in slavery. So he became president of a society which undertook to persuade Congress to free the negroes, and signed a long letter called a memorial, begging Congress to buy the slaves from their owners, and set all the black people free. On the seventeenth day of April, 1 790, Benjamin Franklin died in Philadelphia, at the ripe old age of eighty-four years and three months. All the nation went into mourning for the good and great man. Patrick Henry, The Poor Boy Who Became a Lawyer and the Famous Orator of the Revolution. E I VERY boy and girl loves to hear a great speaker, and almost everyone has heard of the wonderful orator who stirred up the people and made them re- sist the tyrant King of England, who made our forefathers pay unjust taxes and kept them from being a free and independent people. His name was Patrick Henry Like almost all other great men, he has an interesting life. He made himself what he was. After failing in several other undertakings, he finally entered the calling to which he was exactly suited and became famous. His life will teach my girl and boy readers not to despair if they fail once or twice, but to keep on trying. There is some line of work or some profession in which every boy and girl can succeed, if they will only do as Patrick Henry did, find out just what they can do best; and, once they have undertaken it, stick to it and work with all their might. Like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and 81 89 PATRICK HENRY many of the great men in the early history of our country, Patrick Henry was born and raised in Virginia. His father was named John Henry, and came to this country, when a boy, from Scotland, about the year 1730, to seek his fortune in the New World. He got acquainted with the Governor's family, and the Governor introduced him to a Colonel Syme, who commanded the soldiers in Virginia. John Henry became a great friend of Colonel Syme and his wife. Mr. Henry also had a good education, and he was very useful to the Governor in the Colony. After a while he wrote back to his brother Patrick, in Scotland, who was a minister of the Church of England, and invited him to come to this country. Soon the Rev. Patrick Henry arrived. He was a smart man and quite an orator, and was made the preacher of St. Paul's Parish in Hanover, Virginia. It was for this good man that Patrick Henry, our great orator, was afterwards named. Colonel Syme, who commanded the Virginia soldiers, died, and his good friend, John Henry, was made Colonel in his stead. After a little while he married Mrs. Syme, the widow of his former friend, and they had two sons ; the older one they named William, after the brother of Mrs. Henry, and the younger boy was named Patrick, after his father's brother, whom we have just told you about. The two boys, William and Patrick, grew up together, and until Patrick was ten years old, he and his brother William went to school in the neighborhood, where they learned to read and write and studied arithmetic. About this time their father opened a grammar school in his own house, and the boys attended this school, where they studied Latin and also a little Greek. Patrick was, however, more fond of arithmetic and algebra and geometry. In fact, he disliked to study any- thing else, and if we must tell you the plain truth — he was PATRICK HENRY 83 very lazy about studying anything, and got out of all the lessons he could without telling stories or being dishonorable. Like George Washington, he always told the truth, and is said never to have done a dishonorable thing in his life. But when it came to play, Patrick was different. He loved to play ball, to go swimming and to go hunting. So fond was he of the woods that sometimes when the school hour arrived Patrick was far away in the forest with his gun and his dog, or along the banks of the brook with his angle rod, though it is said he seldom brought home any fish. When school was out, as soon as he got his breakfast in the morn- ing, he was away to the woods, where he would spend whole days together, for weeks at a time, seeming to grow more fond of the deep and lonely stillness of the vast forest, which covered almost the entire country at that time. He preferred rather to go alone than with the other boys and join in the jolly fox-chase or rabbit hunt, as boys do now and as boys did then. It is true that he often started off with them, but after a little while they would find out that Patrick was not among them. Sometimes they would follow him, and they would nearly always find him lying alone by some rippling brook, where he seemed to be delighted with the music of the waters, or he would be flat on his back looking up into the blue sky. They naturally thought that he was too lazy to run about with them, but often when they slipped up on him, they would hear words in measured tones of oratory coming from his lips. He always seemed much ashamed when they caught him "talking to himself," as they called it, and he was too modest to tell them what he really was doing. It was found out in later life that he was thinking of the beauties of nature, studying about the strange things in the woods and the streams and the sky, and making to himself pretty speeches 84 PATRICK HENRY about them or about people. Thus wc see, in early life, how his mind was inclined, and how he was naturally training himself. There were at that time a great many deer in Vir- ginia, and it was sport to hunt them with dogs. One part of the men and boys who went out to hunt would go on what they called the ''drive;" that is, they would take the dogs and go into a part of the forest and march straight through. If the dogs "jumped" a deer, it would run off in the other direction. The hunters followed, the dogs barking and the men hallooing with all their might, and the poor frightened deer would speed away in the other direction, as fast as its nimble legs would carry it. The other part of the men were called the "standers." They would go a mile or two ahead of where they expected to start the deer, and stand in the little forest paths along which the animals passed to and fro in the forest. When the frightened deer came bounding along the pathway, the " standers " would shoot it down. When the deer was killed, the lucky hunter would blow his horn with all his might, and all the hunters would come together, and they would have a great jubilee. They had a fashion, when a young man first killed a deer, to take the blood of the animal and literally smear him all over with it, and it is said that Patrick, although he was a constant hunter, was a good deal larger and older boy when he got his first smearing than a majority of his companions in the neighbor- hood. Patrick Henry was very fond of deer hunting, but he never went on the " drive." He always took one of the "stands," and was not at all choice about which stand they gave him, for it seems he would much rather remain alone with his thoughts than to be the heroic hunter who should bring down the deer. In fact, he frequently failed to answer the call of the lucky hunter who bagged the game, and was PATRICK HENRY 85 absent at the jollification around the slain animal. This was a breach of politeness on the part of the hunter which his com- panions were very slow to for- give. We must not conclude, however, that Patrick did not like societ^^ On the contrary, It. he was very fond of it, but his enjoyments were of a peculiar cast. He did not mix in thewild and mirthful scenes, but usually sat quiet, taking little part in the conversation, seldom, it is said, ever smiling or telling a joke. He seemed lost most of the time in his thoughts. For this reason, people used to think he did not know what was going on ; but they found out their mistake when they asked him about it, for he was able to repeat every word of the conversation better than any of the others could do Patrick was very fond of music and he learned to play on PATRICK HENRY SHOOTING A DEER. 86 PATRICK HENRY the flute and violin, and often, at the country parties, he played the fiddle for many a jolly "old Virginia reel," which was the most popular dance in those days. He frequently joined in the dance, and, while he appeared to enjoy it immensely, it was said that he was very awkward and danced all over rather than with his feet. It was funny to see his long lanky arms and his big shoulders flying and shrugging about, while his feet seemed so heavy that he could scarcely get them off the floor. Patrick's school-days ended when he was fifteen years of age. By that time there w^ere so many brothers and sisters in the family that the father was scarcely able to support them ; so he had to let the two older boys leave school. Pat- rick was placed behind the counter of a country store, where he stayed for one year as a clerk. His father then thought Patrick and William ought to be able to run a store for them- selves, so he bought them a stock of goods, and in a country store "set them up in trade," as it was then called. Patrick was the manager of the store, because he had a year's experience, and William, though older, must be his clerk, at least until he could learn all the mysteries of store- keeping from his younger brother. But the boys thought that keeping store wasn't work, but only play, and all they needed to do was merely to wait on the customers, and give them what they called for. Furthermore, they thought everybody was perfectly honest, and so they were generally, but often people who do not have the money buy more things than they can pay for. So Patrick and William trusted everybody and about one-half of the time forgot to charge the things they sold on credit, and, at the end of the year when their father came to see how much money they had made, lo ! he was surprised to behold that they had sold almost everything in their store, and that they had very little money, and what PATRICK HENRY 87 they had charged up to the neighbors, if all collected, would not leave one half so much as he had started the boys in business with at the beginning. Thus Patrick Henry and his brother had proved great f;ii lures as merchants, and hunt work with the farmers, or get clerks "OFTEN AT THE COUNTRY PARTIES HE PLAYED THE FIDDLE FOR MANY A JOLLY ' OLD VIRGINIA REEL." " other stores where they would have nothing to do with the management. But while the money had been wasted, Patrick's 88 PATRICK HENRY time had not been wasted. His store was one of the most popular places in the neighborhood. People used to go there to talk and gossip with the " Henry boys," as they called them. No other place was so entertaining, or such a jolly good place to go. Every Saturday afternoon and almost every night found quite a throng of men and boys seated before the store-door in the summer time, or on goods boxes around the store in the winter, in animated conversation. No matter where else they might go, they never talked like they did in the " Henry boys' " store ; the reason of it was this : Patrick Henry, while he did little talking himself, every time he could get a crowd together began to ask somebody questions about some matter of history or something of com- mon interest. He would carry his questions from one to another, around the company, until he would get them into a lively debate, which often ended in quarrels and sometimes in a fist-light, for they were great fighters in those days. But no matter what they were doing, whether engaged in heated discussions or pommeling each other, with their fists, Patrick was watching them and studying human nature. You remember that he formerly studied the woods, the birds, the brooks and the things he found in the forest. He was now studying men, and how they might be moved to good or bad deeds by speech. Perhaps he had no thought of ever becom- ing a great orator. He studied humian nature because he loved to be doing it, and he thus gained a knowledge of men which afterwards enabled him to control them so powerfully with his wonderful eloquence. During this period at the store, Patrick also began to read books of history. He particularly loved to study the lives of the grand old Greek and Roman heroes. He read all the orations of that wonderful orator, Demosthenes, who lived in PATRICK HENRY 89 the city of Athens more than three hundred years before Christ, and who used to make such fiery orations against King Philip of Macedonia, who was oppressing his countrymen, so that the people of Athens would rise up and shout in their frenzy, " Let us march against Philip.'' He read also the beautiful speeches of Cicero, the silver-tongued orator of the Romans, whose voice was so melodious, words so well chosen and sentences so beautifully put together that it was like listening to sweet enchanted music to hear him speak. Frequently, when customers came into the store, they heard Patrick in the back room, repeating some of these master orations, and they used to pause in the doorway before asking for the goods they wanted, and listen for a few moments to the beautiful expression he gave them. Thus it will be seen how he prepared himself to speak as forcibly as Demosthenes, yet as musically and beautifully as Cicero. Let not any of my young readers think this time was wasted. Not so ; it was very profitably spent. It is not what we learn in school so much as the private training we give ourselves which makes us great in any cause. We have spoken above of Patrick Henry's playing the violin and flute at country parties. Like all true-hearted and manly boys, he liked the girls, and was fonder of being with them than in the society of the men, for he was always pure- minded and never given to telling vulgar stories, nor did he enjoy listening to them from others. At one of the parties he attended, when he was about seventeen years of age, he met and fell in love with a farmer's daughter, and when he was only eighteen years old did a very foolish thing which we would not advise any of our young readers to imitate. What did he do, did you ask ? Why, at this early age he got married, without any money himself, and his wife's father was 90 PATRICK HENRY SO poor he could not help her. What do you think of an eighteen-year-old boy with, a wife? But before we blame Patrick Henry too much, we must remember that in those days people got married earlier than they do now. In the South many of the young men marry at the age of eighteen or nineteen years, and the girls from fifteen to seventeen. If we go into some of the far south countries, like Mexico, we find them marrying even younger. So while Patrick Henry was, as we think, a very young groom, he was not in that day entirely out of fashion. One day soon after the wedding, Mr. John Henry and Mr. Shelton — that was the name of Patrick's wife's father — met, and, between them, gave the young people enough land to make them a small farm. They built them a little house, and the young husband went to work with a will digging in the earth to support himself and his new wife. Their little cottage consisted of two rooms ; one in which they cooked and ate, and the other was their sleeping-room, their sitting- room, their parlor and their spare-room, so that when any ot their friends came to see them and stayed all night, as they frequently did, Patrick and his wife gave up the bed to the visitors and made for themselves a pallet in a corner. This, you must remember, was not as poor a home as Abraham Lincoln had when he w^as a boy ; but a poorer one than he had when he started his married life. Many a day you might have seen Patrick, then a young husband not yet nineteen years of age, plowing among the stumps in his "new ground," as he called it, cleared up in front of his cabin, with his happy girl-wife busy inside the house, or feeding the chickens about the door. It was too bad that the first year the crop on Patrick's farm was a failure. He did not make enough to keep them alive and in the poorest PATRICK HENRY 91 kind of clothes. He proved himself to be as poor a farmer as he had been a merchant, for at the end of the year he came out in debt. He and his wife talked the matter over, and it was decided that they should get out of debt by selling their little farm and all they had, and he should take the remainder of the money and go again into business as a merchant. He no doubt flattered himself that he would be able to profit by his past experience and make a success. The farm was sold, and the store was opened. MANY A DAY YOU MIGHT HAVE SEEN PATRICK PLOWING AMONG THE STUMPS IN HIS 'NEW GROUND.*" 93 PATRICK HENRY His old friends came again. He had no trouble to get customers, but he was too good-hearted to press anybody for money ; and he occupied so much time in playing his violin and flute for the pleasure of those who came to his store to buy, and got up so many debates, and his customers had such a good time generally, that at the end of two years he was worse off than before and had to give up his store. Thus, before he was more than twenty-three years of age, he had failed twice as a merchant, once as a farmer, and altogether in everything else he had attempted to do except to make people like him and to learn more about human nature and the way to control and influence men. In this he was wiser than any- one else about him. The little store being given up, he did such various jobs of work as he could get and thus earned a poor support for his family. He had by this time also become a great reader. During his idle hours he studied geography and history, learned all about the different countries, their rulers and their manners and customs. He was said by everybody to be the best-read man in the community. Often he had to go hungry or eat the very poorest and coarsest of food, but he was always cheerful and never despondent. *' No use of crossing the bridge before we get to it," he used to say to his wife. " There's a good time coming by and by" was another of his favorite expressions, though there was little prospect at this time for any good times for Patrick Henry or his family. But it did come, as we shall see, and one of the best lessons which young people can learn from his life is that of cheerfulness and hopefulness. He was, also, truthful and rigidly honest, as we have said before. He was, also, a man of very firm character. He could not be led into anything he thought was wrong, and he PATRICK HENRY 93 was a believer in God and a true Christian. Thus he was able to be cheerful and hopeful under troubles which would cause many men to despair. Up to this time he had never thought of becoming a lawyer, nor had any of his friends suggested it to him. He had not made a public speech, not even in a debating society, but he had read the history of the nations of the world ; he had studied oratory for his own pleasure, and it suddenly dawned upon him that he might make a lawyer. When Patrick Henry was twenty-four years old, he set to work to read law. For six weeks or two months he shut himself up with a few law books and then he went before the board of examiners and asked them to see if he did not know enough to practice law. He told them how much he had read, and they laughed at him ; but in talking with him they found out that he knew so much about history and other things that a lawyer needed to know, that two of them gave him their consent to practice. The other one of the examiners, Mr. Randolph, who was not present when the other two gave him their consent, was so shocked at Mr. Henry's personal appearance and poor clothes, when he came to see him, that he told him he was not fit to be a lawyer — that no man who looked like him could be a lawyer, and he would not examine him at all. This made Patrick angry, and he answered the learned man in such a manner and gave him such a lecture on his duty that Mr. Randolph was greatly surprised, and he tried to punish Mr. Henry for it by getting him into an argument in which he meant to show him how ignorant and unfit he was; but here Patrick Henry was at home, and he talked so smart and so well that the judge exclaimed : " Mr. Henry, I will never trust to appearances again. If your industry be only 94 PATRICK HENRY half equal to your genius, you will become an honor to your profession ; " and he signed Patrick Henry's license, though it is said young Henry was at this time so ignorant of the forms of practice that he could not make out a case or present it before the court. Like most young lawyers, he had to wait a good while before he had anything to do, and when It came it was rather by accident ; but it gave him an opportunity, and that oppor- tunity made him famous We will now tell you about his first law case and his first speech. There was at that time in Virginia an established church like they had in England. It was called the Episcopal Church, and the ministers were hired by the Governor. Vir- ginia was a great tobacco-raising country, and they had a law that the farmers might pay their debts in tobacco. The sheriff and the judges of the court were paid so much a year in tobacco for their services, and the ministers also received a certain number of pounds of tobacco each year. That seems very funny to us now ; but you know there was once a time, in certain parts of the South, when they even used cdon-skins for money. There are many cases where a man even paid for his license, when he wanted to get married, in coon-skins, and when the preacher " tied the knot," the young man, if he was generous and liberal, would always load the preacher up with coon-skins as pavment for his ser- vices. This was not generally so, but it Vvas often done in new countries where coons were plentiful and money was scarce. So in Virginia the farmer could pay his debts in tobacco at sixteen shillings a pound. But one year tobacco went up to fifty shillings a pound, therefore the farmers, who were in control, had a law made that they might pay their debts in money, if they wanted to, instead of tobacco. PATRICK HENRY 95 This law was made to hold good for only ten months, and after that time they again paid in tobacco, the price of which had gone down as low or lower than it had been before. But a few years later there came another short crop in tobacco, and the price went up to fifty shillings again, so the farmers had another law made permitting them to pay in money, but they very cautiously made this new law so that it would not run out ; but the ministers seemed not to have noticed it was so made and after the first year wanted their pay in tobacco again, because it would bring them nearly double what they would get, if they were paid in money. This brought on quite a war between the people and the ministers, and they had a big suit in court. The farmers were very mad with the clergymen, and the clergymen were very mad with the farmers, each party accusing the other of wanting to cheat. The clergymen sent word to the King of England, and the King took their side, and said that the farmer's law should be '' null and void,'' which means that it should not be enforced, that the clergymen should be paid in tobacco. The King was very shrewd in this, and while it appeared that he only wanted to take the ministers' part, he was, in reality, planning to enrich himself; because, if the clergy could collect their dues from the people in tobacco, which was worth more than twice as much as the money they were entitled to, the King said he would also collect his taxes in tobacco. So you see how wise and yet how mean the King was in his decision. The people had the law on their side, and the clergymen wanted to collect twice what the people owed them, and the King said that they should do it. The clergy- men made a great noise that the people were swindling them out of their just rights. They wanted tobacco, they did not 96 PATRICK HENRY want money. They argued that it was a shame and a disgrace to swindle the ministers in that way, and insisted that they were right, because the King himself said so. The people, on the other hand, said that the ministers and officers were employed for so much a year, and that they had no right to demand their tobacco, which they could sell for two or three times as many pounds of money as they had engaged to work for. This looks entirely reasonable, and the people were right ; but the clergymen and the officers and the King wanted the tobacco. You would think that it would have been better if the sheriff and the King and the judges had brought suit against the people to collect their claims in tobacco ; but you will see how cunning they were in having the ministers to do it instead of doing it themselves. All the people loved the ministers, and they would sympathize with their cause perhaps, when they would not sympathize with the officers. Therefore it was decided that the ministers should bring suit, and if they could make the people pay them in tobacco, then they would have to pay the officers and the King also in tobacco. A lawyer by the name of Lewis was to plead the cause of the people, and a Mr. Lyons was to plead the cause of the clergymen ; but when the King decided that the clergymen were right and the people were wrong, and that the law should not be obeyed, Mr. Lewis, the people's lawyer, told them they could not gain their cause against the King, and so he gave it up. There were very few lawyers then in the country; and they were nearly all in the employ of the King, so the people could find no one to plead their cause, and, as the last resort, they turned to Patrick Henry, a young lawyer of twenty-four years, who had never made a public speech in his life. The place where the case was to be tried was at Hanover Court-house, PATRICK HENRY 97 and the judge who was to sit on the bench was Patrick Henry's own father, and among those who opposed the people was his own uncle for whom he was named, the Rev. Patrick Henry. Was this not an embarrassing situation for the young lawyer who had never made a speech, to find himself in ? A TYPICAL VIRGINIA COURTHOUSE IN THE DAYS OF PATRICK HENRY. The day came. It was one of those beautiful Indian sum- mer days which comes in November in the South. Patrick Henry was early at the courthouse and great throngs of people gathered in from all directions. Never before in Hanover had there been so many farmers present on any court day. The decision of the case amounted to thousands of dollars of loss or gain to them. The clergymen came from all over the State, which was then, you know, only a Colony — though 9S PATRICK HENRY much larger than it is now. There were twenty or more of the most learned clergymen of the nation present They had come to frown upon the young lawyer who was to plead against them and to scowl at the people, who, they pretended, were trying to rob them. Patrick Henry was nervous. It was his first case. He had never spoken in court, and he walked restlessly about among the farmers, speaking a word here and there to this or that one, with many of them pulling at his elbows, offering him advice. He could plainly see that they were afraid they had a very poor lawyer, and he felt, himself, that they had. Pres- ently, he saw his learned and eloquent uncle. Rev. Patrick Henry, drive up in his carriage, and, before any of the clergy- men could get to him, the young lawyer dashed up, grasped his uncle by the hand and pleaded with him to go away.. The young lawyer said : " Sir, I have never spoken in my life, and your presence here will add to my embarrassment. My own father must sit on the bench, and that will be bad enough. Besides, there will be twenty clergymen to criticise me. All of this I can stand; but I am sure I could not have my own uncle, whose name I bear, sitting among them frowning upon me. For my sake, I beg you to go away." The uncle replied in kindly but regretful tones : " Patrick, I am surprised to find you arrayed against the ministry ; you are doing yourself great injustice and ruining your future prospects for usefulness." ''That may be," said Patrick, "but I see no moral reason v/hy I should not accept the case for the people, besides, in my own heart, I am firmly convinced that they are right, and, with all due respect, sir, that you and the clergy are wrong. For my sake and the respect that I bear you, will you not go away? I shall have to say some hard words against the PATRICK HENRY 99 clergy this day. ZTid I would not speak them in your ears." There was a : espectfulness in his tones that his uncle could but appreciate and an earnestness in his manner which he could not resist, so re-entering his carriage, he simply said : " For your sake, Patrick, I will be absent; though your cause is wrong, I have too much respect for your feelings to allow my presence to embarrass you." So saying, he drove pf away. The court was opened. The array before Patrick's eyes was almost fearful. The most learned men of the Colony, the severest critics in the New World were against him, and the courthouse was crowded. On the outside, the win- dows were thronged with anxious faces looking in. Mr. Lyons made a short speech,simply explaining to the jury the fact that the King had decreed his side to be right. He pleaded that the clergy were the greatest benefactors of the Colony, that it was a shame to mistreat them, and that this law, if enforced, simply robbed them of their just allow- ance. His closing was eloquent and beautiful, and the min- isters nodded their assent when he took his seat. He had presented their cause well Now came the first trial of Patrick Henry's strength. No one had ever heard him speak, and every one was curious. Even his opponents seemed to feel sorry for him. He rose AN OLD VIRGINIA MANSION, COMMON IN THE TIME OF PATRICK HENRY. loo PATRICK HENRY and stood for a moment in an awkward manner, and, when he began, faltered much in his speech. The people hung their heads, and the ministers exchanged sly, smiling looks of derision at each other. His father, it is said, almost sunk behind the desk, he was so mortified and confused ; but these circumstances lasted only for a few moments. Patrick Henry's soul rose within him, his whole appearance changed, the fire of his eloquence was kindled, and he seemed to forget himself ; his figure stood erect, his bearing was lofty, and his face shone with a grandeur that no one had ever seen upon it before. His awkward actions became graceful to behold ; his voice, no longer faltering, was charming and beau- tiful. Words seemed to crowd for utterance : there was light- ning in his eyes as he turned upon the clergymen that seemed to rive them like a thunderbolt. He literally made their blood run cold and their hair rise on ends. All eyes were now fastened upon him. Men looked at each other with surprise, and then, held by the spell in his eyes, the majesty of his atti- tude and the power of his words, they could look away uo more. The old father stood erect behind the desk, with tears of delight streaming down his cheeks. The jury seemed bewildered. No one can describe that speech, and it has never been printed. It was delivered under the impulse of the moment ; but it was declared by the clergymen themselves, against whom it was spoken, that no such speech, as they believed, had ever fallen from the lips of man, and, to this day, in Hanover, Vir- ginia, the highest compliment that can be paid to a speaker is to say : " He is almost equal to Patrick Henry when he plead against the parsons." The clergymen had sued for heavy damages, hut .the jury, without scarcely leaving their seats, granted them only one penny. Mr. Lyons made a motion PATRICK HENRY for a new trial ; that is, he tried to get his case tried over, but the court refused to give the par- sons a newhearing. Was ever such a \'ictory won by a n e w lawyer ? It was the first speech Patrick Henry ever made, and it was un- doubtedly one of the greatest speeches ever de- livered in the world before a court. At its close the people, who had hung their heads in shame at the beginning, rushed into the courthouse, seized the young lawyer in spite of the sheriff's cry for or- der, hoisted him on their shoul- ders, carried him out of the house and over the town, with a wild multitude screaming his praises at the top of their voices PATRICK HENRY MAKING HIS SPEECH BEFORE THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES. following and I02 PATRICK HENRY Patrick Henry had at last found the calKng for which he was intended, and to which he was suited. From this time forward he was the greatest lawyer, not only in Hanover Courthouse, but of all Virginia. He had all the cases he could attend to, and made plenty of money to support his family, who had for many years been struggling with poverty. He lived for nearly forty years after this memorable day at Hanover Courthouse. His life was full of honor and useful- ness to his country, and he has made several other speeches, parts of which every schoolboy has at one time or another used as a declamation. And now that we have told you of the hardships and trou- bles of Patrick Henry's early life, let us tell you of the great things he did in the service of his country. In January, 1765, the famous "Stamp Act" (which we explained in the life of Benjamin Franklin) was passed by the British Parliament The colonists were to be oppressed, and no one dared to openly rebel against it. In May, Patrick Henry was elected to the House of Bur- gesses (that is what the Virginia Legislature was called in those days), and he pledged himself to his people to do all he could to oppose the enforcement of the Stamp Act. There were many learned and eloquent speakers in the House and he was not expected to take the lead. The fine gentlemen in the assembly, who lived in fine old Virginia mansions, and wore fine clothes, made fun of Pat- rick's country way of talking, his "homespun" clothes and his awkward manners ; but when he spoke they could not help admiring his wonderful command of language and his power over men. His first speech was against rich men who wanted to lend the Colony's money to themselves and their friends. This made them his great enemies, but the other PATRICK HENRY 103 side — the common people — admired him more than ever. At last it came time to consider the hated "Stamp Act." None of the great men dared to speak against it openly. So Patrick Henry drew up some resolutions declaring that the English Parliament had no right to make this tax upon the people, and, furthermore, they had no right to make any laws against the interest of the Colonies. He said they were responsible to the King alone, and that the House of Burgesses and the Governor alone had the right to make the colonists pay taxes. After the reading of his resolutions, Patrick Henry was assailed by a storm of words and much ridicule by those who favored or were afraid of England. There were hot speeches from several gentlemen, and a less heroic spirit than Henry's would have said not a word more. No one thoueht the resolutions would pass. At length when the storm had subsided, Patrick Henry arose to speak. His face was deathly pale, his thin lips quiv- ered, but his eyes had a look of awful determination in them. Stretching his long arms at full length toward the President (called the Speaker) he began and delivered the greatest speech perhaps ever heard in America. The walls rang with the mighty force of his words, and everyone was overpowered with his wonderful eloquence, as they had been in the famous "Parson Case." They shouted "treason" at him, but he could not be frightened, but all the time grew bolder and more eloquent. When he closed this great speech every member but two voted for his resolutions. Patrick Henry had been the first one who dared oppose England. His wonderful speech was printed and sent all over the Colonies, north and south, and it was even sent to England ; and in a few months Parliament repealed (that is, removed) the hated " Stamp Act." 7 I04 PATRICK HENRY But the spirit of liberty was now awake in the people, and they demanded relief from other unjust laws which England tried to impose, and in this effort Patrick Henry was one of the foremost men in the country. He was greater than all other men in Virginia, and he, with Thomas Jefferson ajid Richard Henry Lee, kept telling the people they ought to be free. In 1 773 — eight years after his great speech — Mr. Henry, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Lee and many others got the House of Burgesses to elect men to write to the other Colonies about their grievances against England. This was a great benefit, for the different Colonies were thus brought together in their efforts and protests against cruel laws. Through this Com- mittee of Correspondence, it was decided that the Colonies should hold a congress in Philadelphia in 1774. Every Col- ony sent representatives. Mr. Henry was one of those from Virginia. Patrick Henry opened the Congress with a great speech, in which he said, '' I am not a Virginian, but an American.^ Everybody soon saw he was the most powerful orator in Congress, and many said he was the greatest man in the nation, for he was as wise and just as he was eloquent. In March, 1775, Mr. Henry made another speech in the Virginia House of Burgesses, which is said to have been the grandest effort of his life up to this time. He wanted the Colony to raise soldiers and prepare for war. Almost every schoolboy knows part of this speech. Patrick Henry then went to work and got up a company and made the Governor, who was but the servant of the King, give up the colonists' gunpowder, which he had taken away to the English ships. This was the first resistance by arms, to England in Virginia. He also made the Governor pay for the damage he did the people. PATRICK HENRY 105 Patrick Henry now went back to the Continental Congress, as they made him commander of all the Virginia soldiers ; but he was too good a statesman to spend his time in the war, and so his friends begged him to stay in the Virginia Legis- lature and Continental Congress, which he did. In May, 1776, he got the Virginia Legislature to pass a vote requesting the Continental Congress to declare our country free from England, and to go to war with her if she would not let us go. He then helped make a new Constitu- tion for Virginia, and they elected him Governor of the Colony. Thus, in sixteen years after he began to study law, he Avas one of the most famous men in America and Gov- ernor of Virginia. How do you suppose those proud people who laughed at him felt now? The Revolutionary War now began in earnest, and it would take a big book to tell how he and John Adams and others, by their wise counsel and eloquent speeches, inspired the soldiers and helped General Washington to win in the end. Through it all Patrick Henry was in his State Legislature, or the General Congress, or serving as Governor. After the war was over, they made him Governor twice, and tried again, in 1786, to get him to serve them, but he declined, as he had already been Governor so much. He told them he did not think they ought to get in the habit of letting one man hold office too long. In this he was like George Washington You know Washington would not let them make him Presi- dent but twice. But the people loved Patrick Henry so much that they tried to make him Governor again ten years later, in 1796, but he told them no, he had been honored enough. President George Washington offered to make Mr. Henry his Secretary of State in 1795. This is the very highest office ill the nation, next to the President and Vice-President. io6 , PATRICK HENRY Patrick Henry said no, there were better men for it Mr. Washington then wanted to appoint him Chief Justice of the United States, and President John Adams asked him to be our special minister to France, where, you remember, Benja- min Frankhn was so long our representative, but he said no to both of these, because he preferred to remain a private cit- izen and live with his family — he now had many interesting children. Finally, in 1799, the Virginia Legislature passed a very bad law, which George Washington — who was now a private citizen again — thought was very dangerous and might cause trouble to the whole United States. So he begged Patrick Henry to offer himself as a candidate for the Legislature, for he knew, with his powerful eloquence, Mr. Henry could over- come the bad law. Mr. Henry was elected, of course, but before he took his seat he died, at Red Hill, Charlotte County, Virginia, June 6, 1799, when only sixty-three years and a few days old. Patrick Henry was regarded by everyone as the greatest of American orators. Thomas Jefferson and John Randolph declared he was the greatest orator who ever lived, and he was often compared to Demosthenes and Cicero as the only speakers of ancient times worthy to be ranked with him. Patrick Henry's wife, Sarah Shelton, died some years before her noted husband, and he afterward married the grand- daughter of Governor Spottswood, of Virginia. Mr. Henry throughout his life was a devoted Christian, and left a spotless name tor honesty and uprightness of character. s GREAT BATTLE SHIP "KEARSARGE" ■ ;:r:::"""\--> THE TRUE STORY OF Robert Fulton, rhe Builder of the First Suc= cessful Steamboat. , FITCMS STEAMBOAT RAN BETWEEN PHILADELPHIA ANO BUR J^^es-- *I3P»^ ^i- O any of my young read- ers think, when they go to take a boat-ride and are carried along, al- most as fast as a bird would fly over the waters, in the great fast- moving steamboats, that it is not yet one hundred years since the first successful steamboat was floated on the water? Would FOLLOWING FULTON'S DISCOVERY, you not like to kHow somcthmg 107 ilton ■• Ith^his sice DEVELOPMENT OF STEAM NAVIGATION io8 ROBERT FULTON about the man who made it ? I shall be very glad to tell you this story, for he was one of our own countrymen, and we feel proud of him as we do of Franklin, who invented the lightning rod, and Morse, who invented the telegraph, and Bell, who made the telephone, and Edison, who invented the phonograph, and many other famous Americans who have dis- covered and made such wonderful things for the benefit of the world. We like to tell the great deeds they have done for the benefit of mankind. I shall have to commence by telling you again of a very poor boy. His name was Robert Fulton. He was born in the State of Pennsylvania in 1765. His father was an Irish- man who had moved to the New World, and he was a tailor ; that is, he made clothes for other people. I shall have to tell you the truth and say that Robert was not fond of books when he was a boy, but he liked to be always making things. He could make lead pencils, and he could also make skyrockets for his and his friends' Fourth of July celebration. Every- thing that the boy looked at in the way of a machine, he won- dered if he could not make it better. He was given but very little education, first because he did not like to study books, and second because his parents were so poor that he had to go to work very young. They put him with a jeweler to learn the trade of watchmaking; but he soon began to use his extra time in drawing pictures and painting. He also learned to make portraits of people which looked very much like them (you know they could not take photographs in those days), and he sold portraits and pictures of landscapes to get money, which he carefully put away. This boy also loved various kinds of sports. He was par- ticularly fond of fishing, and he used to go out with the boys on an old fiatboat which they pushed along the river with a ROBERT FULTON 109 R.U5HING HOM.t. pole. This was very laborious work, so Robert showed them how to make two paddlewheels, one on each side of the boat, which they hung by cranks over the sides, and by turning the cranks, as a boy would turn a grindstone, the paddles went around in the water and pushed the boat along. This was great fun, and it set Robert thinking and wondering why such wheels might not be put on big boats, to push them when there was not wind enough for the sails. The one trouble about this was that such bie wheels would o be required they could not get men enough around the cranks to turn them in the water. Still Robert kept thinking about it, and after a while you will see how valuable this thought was to him. All this time Robert Fulton kept painting pictures and selling them. He wanted very much to be a great artist, like Benjamin West, who, he learned, had commenced in America ; but had now grown to be such a great artist that he was living in London, getting lots of money for his pictures. In the meantime, his father died, and Robert was left to support his widowed mother. By the time he was twenty-one years of age he had earned enough money to buy a little farm for his mother so she could keep cows, have a garden, and raise chickens, tur- key and other foul to sell. Then, with his mother's consent, he took the balance of his money and sailed away to Europe to study art. A large part of his time he spent with the famous artist, Benjamin West, in London, and became a good painter. But all this time his mind kept running on inventions, and he no ROBERT FULTON made a number of new machines. Among other things was a Httle boat which he could make run under water. He intended it to blow up war vessels, but somehow the people did not think it of any use. About this time he began to be interested in the steam engine, which was invented by James Watt, a young Scotchman, a good many years before. These engines had been used to work pumps and to do all sorts of things on the land, and one Englishman tried to make it run a boat. This Englishman's idea was to make the engine push a thing, like a duck's foot, through the water. Just like the inventor of the flying machine now tries to use something like a bird's wing to fly with, so this inventor thought he must use something like the duck's foot to swim the boat along with. The engine worked the foot all right, but it was not a success. Fulton began to study how he could make a steam engine run a boat. He heard of an American who tried to run a boat by forcing a stream of water through it, pumping it in the bow and pushing it out the stern with a steam engine. This was a pump-boat, and though it made the boat go, something about it was wrong, and it failed. Another man by the name of John Fitch had made a steamboat with paddles on the sides of it like ordinary oars. The engine was made to run the oars back and forth as the men did when they held them in their hands. This man was also an American and ran his boat on the Delaware River in 1787. It made trips between Burling- ton, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, a distance of twenty miles, but it moved so awkwardly, though it went pretty fast, that people said it was no good, and poor John Fitch died broken- hearted. But before he died he told the people a steamboat would yet be built to please them, and then they would be ashamed for laughing at him. ROBERT FULTON " Now," said Robert Fulton, after he had studied all about these other boats, "why can I not take a steam engine and instead of making it work a duck's foot, or pump in and out a stream of water, or work oars like men, all of which have been a failure, why can I not," he said to a friend, "make it to run paddle wheels such as 'we boys' used to use on our old flatbo ats, when we went fish- So Fulton thought i t over many days, and at last he got up two plans. You know he was now a great artist. JAMES WATT Came to think of the Power of Steam by observing the lid of his Mother's Tea Kettle bobbing up and down by the escaping Steam. He had also studied engineering while in Europe, and he had also studied navigation and written a book on the subject of running boats on canals, which was then a matter of very great interest in Europe. 112 ROBERT FULTON In 1797, when Fulton was thirty-two years old, he met Mr. Joel Barlow, the American Minister to the Court of France. Mr. Barlow found Fulton was a very sensible young man and in every way a fine fellow, so he invited him to go to Paris and live in his family as long as he wished. Fulton accepted this kind invitation and went to Paris, which he made his home for seven years. He continued to study and to make inven- tions of various kinds, all the while keeping his plans for the steamboat in mind. He also learned the French language, and, by reading good books, tried to make up for his lack of education. After a while his friend, Mr. Barlow, gave up the position of American Minister to France, and a Mr. Livingston was appointed in his place. Fulton soon made the acquaintance and gained the friendship of this excellent man, and showed him his plans for a steamboat. Mr. Livingston had already read much on the subject, and was greatly interested in Ful- ton and his plans. One of these plans was to use paddles in a new way, and the other, as we have said, was to use the paddle wheels. They concluded that wheels would be the best, so Fulton built a small steamboat, which was to be tried on the River Seine in Paris. But the machinery was too heavy, and the boat broke in two in the middle before the trial. This, of course, was a very great disappointment to Fulton and Mr. Livingston, but it did not show their plan was a fail- ure, but that they had not built their boat strong enough. So Fulton went to work and built another boat, and a great crowd of the gay people of Paris gathered on the banks of the river to see it move. This trip was a success, and all the people shouted as it moved off in the river ; but it did not go as fast as they expected, and in this respect they were disap- pointed. But Fulton said he knew what the trouble was, and €>• ROBERT FULTON 113 the next time he would shape his boat differently, and he was sure it would run fast enough. Mr. Livingston was also satisfied that this could be done. These men were both Americans ; and now that they were satisfied their boat would be a success, they determined to leave Paris, come to America, and build another boat in order that the first successful trip of a steamboat in the world might be made in their own native land. This was great patriotism, and they are entitled to our honor and respect for their loyalty to our country. So Fulton and his friend started for America. In the mean- ti m e Fulton :E3;oX.X,ANJD ^UBIvtAKJ>TE" 3C had made de- f signs for a new ( steam engine P^ to be built dif- (^^ ^^ • ^ — ferently from t;. .^ -^ ^^^^^ any others, so .[- that it would %-^^__^^^^^^^^^A exactly suit the fe'^^P^^^^^^^^^^^B purpose f o r g, which he de- sired it in running his steamboat. So he and Mr. Livingston sent their plans to James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, who was then in the business of making steam engines for all sorts of purposes, and he built them just the kind of a machine that Fulton w^anted to furnish the power for his new steamboat. While the engine was being built in England, Fulton and Mr. Livingston were in New York building the boat. In this work Fulton looked after every detail. He was particularly careful to see that the shape of the boat was just right. In 114 ROBERT FULTON the first place, he wanted it strong in the middle, so it would not be broken in two by the weight of the machinery or the force of the waves. He built several little models, and, it is said, floated them in a bathtub. He put little sails on them and would blow his breath against the sails to see how the differently shaped boats would move. He found that those with the very thin, narrow bow and stern would get through the water much easier than those with a wide bow and stern. He therefore made his new boat with a narrow, sloping bow, so that it would cut easily through the water. At last, when his boat was almost complete, the engine came and was placed in the boat where it could work the paddle wheels to the great- est advantage. He was also very careful in making the pad- dle wheels to see that they were perfectly true and correct. Then he placed a mast near the front and another near the stern of his boat, and to these he had sails attached, so that i( the wind should blow in the direction his boat was running he could hoist those sails and have the help of the wind in addition to the steam power. At last the boat was ready the engine was in place, and Fulton looked it over carefully and said it was all he could desire. He decided to make a bold start by running from New York up to Albany, a trip which the sail-boats had been making regularly every day or two. Albany, you know, is the Capital of the State, while New York is the great business city, where most of the large merchants live. Therefore, there was every day or two a large number of passengers going back and forth between New York and the beautiful city of Albany, which is about one hundred and fifty miles north of New York on the Hudson River. Mr. Livingston and Robert Fulton were very anxious to have as many well-known people as they possibly could get ROBERT FULTON 115 to go on their boat, as they advertised in the papers several days before that the "Clermont" — that was the name of Fulton's new boat — would make its trip from New York to Albany on a certain day, and all those who wanted to go might have a free ride. The newspapers printed a great deal about the boat, but they did not believe it would be a success. Many people ridiculed it so much that the people talked about it, not as the steamer "Clermont," but as "Fulton's Folly." Some of the wiser men said that it Was all right to run a steam engine on a solid place on the ground, but if any one should put it on a floating boat, which was continually swaying about, it would cause the steam engine to explode, and it would blow every- thing to pieces, and the people who were foolish enough to go on it would, most likely, all be drowned. This was as unwise and poor an argument as was made by some of the philosophers in England when the first railroad train proposed to run twenty miles an hour. They said if the railroad train should go as fast as twenty miles an hour, the people could not get their breath, and they would all be dead when they came to the end of their journey. Even the doc- tors said this ; so the people were very much afraid of the railroad trains, until after it had been found that those who traveled twenty miles an hour were not dead, nor even sick from passing through the air so fast. The day for the boat to make its trial trip was Friday, August 1 1, 1807. Now, you know, some people are supersti- tious about Friday. They say that it is bad luck to move, or begin a new garment, or to start anything new on Friday ; but Fulton did not belong to this ignorant, stupid class. He thought that Friday was just as good a day as any to make a trial. Even if it had been the thirteenth day of the month, ii6 ROBERT PULTON it would have made no difference to him. He was not one of those silly people who would not sit down to the table with thirteen present any more than he thought Friday an unlucky day. He thought such ideas foolish. On the morning of August iith, Fulton went down to his boat very early. His engineer had been there all night, and had built a fire in the engine, and, when morning came, from the foot of Cortland Street, New York, the black smoke was seen puffing up from the large iron stack-pipe of the "Clermont." The whistle blew loud, and Fulton and Mr. Livingston stood on the deck and smiled at the great crowd that gathered to look at ''the wonderful sinoking monster,'' as some of the people called it. All the house-tops were filled with people, as they are now when a great naval parade or something extraordinary happens on the river. Mr, Fulton and Mr. Livingston hoped tc see some of the distinguished men of New York come down and get on their boat, but they were disappointed. It was all they could do to induce twelve people to accept their invitation, for everybody agreed that one could scarcely do a more risky thing than trust his life on that great " new-fangled" boat, as they called it, with a fire machine inside of it. No doubt there were young men and boys who would have been willing to risk their lives for the novelty of the trip, but their friends and parents would not let them. We think very strange of this now, but we must remember it was new then. Many people had never seen a steam engine of any kind and did not know anything about it ; and those who had seen one, as we told you, believed it would explode if put on a floating craft and shaken up and down, as it would be by the waves. At last, about one o'clock, long after the hour appointed for starting, Fulton grew afraid the twelve ROBERT FULTON 117 people whom he had gotten on board would become so fright- ened by the crowd on the bank that they would get off the boat ; so without waiting for more, he started off The boat moved beautifully, and all the people from the house-tops waved their handkerchiefs and shouted as it glided out like a great duck on the bosom of the North River. The tide was running slightly against them, and the wind was also in the WHAT YOU WOULD SEE TO-DAY AT A STEAMBOAT LANDING ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER other direction ; hence, as they could not use their sails, they rolled them up tightly, and the people saw that the boat was traveling entirely by steam. The crowd was struck with won- der as they looked at the black smoke rushing from the pipes and the great paddle wheels revolving, throwing the spray into the air, and the boat speeding along without spreadmg her sails. "8 ROBERT FULTON If you look at a steamboat now, you will see that the pad- dle wheels on her sides are covered by what they call the wheel-house ; but Fulton did not think of this, and he left his great paddle wheels out in the air where everybody could see them. As the boat went up the river, all the wharves, piers and house-tops, and almost the whole water-front of the city, and the banks through the country, were thronged with the people. All along the route there was great excitement. Hats and handkerchiefs were waved and shouts and praises greeted the ears of the happy inventor, the captain, the crew and the pas- sengers. The "Clermont" was successful. Navigation by steam was a reality. Robert Fulton became that day one of the greatest men of his country. Now, how long do you suppose it took them to get to Al- bany ? If you were to go to New York now, and take one of the magnificent steamers which are made entirely ot steel, instead of wood, you would go to Albany in about ten hours. Of course, you don't expect that Fulton's boat ran as fast as one of these? He had no such powerful engines, and' boat building was not then so perfect as it is now, and it took Ful- ton just three times as long as it takes one of our present steamers to make the trip. The "Clermont" reached Al- bany in thirty-two hours from the time she left New York, but, as we said, she traveled against the wind and tide. In coming back she made the trip in thirty hours. That was very much faster, however, than any other boat had ever traveled on the Hudson River. After this, regular trips were made two or three times a week by the " Clermont " between Albany and New York, and Fulton had no lack of patronage. As soon as it was found out that there was no danger, nearly all the fine people who ROBERT PULTON 119 traveled beween the two cities paid a higher price to go by the steamer "Clermont," so Fulton and Mr. Livingston made money very fast. They got so much patronage that the " Clermont " could not carry one-fourth of the people who wanted to travel on her, and under Mr. Fulton's direction, in a short time, many other boats were built and plying, not only between New York and Albany, but on all the great American rivers. Mr. Fulton "CHICAGO," ONE OF THE "WHITE SQUADRON" WARSHIPS OF THE UNITED STATES. continued to labor to make more perfect machinery, and to have his boats built in a better shape for fast running. I wdll tell you a story about the ''Clermont's " first trip up the Hudson. It is said as she was plowing along in the night, she met some sail ships. The sailors had never heard of her or had not expected to meet her, and when they saw this creature of fire and smoke coming near them in the night, and heard her puffing and steaming, and her machinery planking I20 ROBERT FULTON and her wheels splashing in the water, they were so frightened that they were almost crazy. Some of them fell on their knees and prayed ; others took to small boats, and some even jumped overboard on the other side and swam ashore. Others ran with all their might down into the hold of their vessel and covered themselves up in the bunks in the forecastle to escape the monster. This true story was, perhaps, read by Mr. Samuel L. Clemens, our great American funny man, com- monly called " Mark Twain," before he wrote the funny story of Uncle Dan'l, the old negro, who became so frightened when he saw a steamboat coming up the Mississippi River, that he fell on his knees and prayed for deliverance, thinking that the steamboat was either the Lord himself, or else it was " old Satan" coming to destroy him. Now that Fulton built and successfully ran steamboats, what do you suppose happened to him ? Why, the very same thing that happens to every man or boy who shows that he knows something more than other people, or can do things that are useful to mankind. He became famous and got more work to do building steamboats than he could possibly do. The United States Government employed him to act as engi- neer for them in the construction of steamboats, the building of canals, and helping along navigation, which, you know, means travel by water He also made for the Government torpedoes, or war instru- ments, for blowing up vessels by exploding under the water. This, you know, he had invented and shown in Europe, but he did not then have any fame, and they did not think much of his invention. He was now able to improve them and get the Government to adopt them. Very many great war vessels in the world now carry torpedoes to use in this way, and for the suggestion we are, no doubt, indebted to Robert Fulton. ROBERT FULTON Our Government thought so much of Fulton and had so much confidence in his ability that Congress voted three hun- dred and twenty thousand (nearly one-half million) dollars to be used in building a steam warship under Fulton's direction. This act of the Govern- ment, show- i n g how much they esteemed the great inven- tor, gave Fulton more pleasure, he said, than anything else that happened in his life. It took more than one year to build this great warship, and it was suc- c e s s f u 1 1 y launched in the sight of a multitude of people, and what do you suppose the Government named it? I have no doubt that you will guess aright, for the great ship bore on its bow the name Ful- ton the First. It is believed by some that this ship furnished the model for the great Swede, John Ericsson, who afterw^ards ROBERT FULTON. 122 ROBERT PULTON came to America and improved on Fulton's models, until we have the wonderful floating forts and terrible cruisers which now make up the war vessels of the great nations of the world. But Fulton not only knew about steamboats and steamboat machinery ; he was a thorough mechanic and understood the most difficult inventions of all kinds of machinery, and this knowledge helped him to expose a rascally fellow who was once imposing a fraud upon the people. This is how it was. You have heard about perpetual motion, have you not? Well, that means something which, when once set in motion, will move on forever without any new supply of power from without to keep it going. Many men have spent the greater part of their lives trying to discover or invent some new way of producing perpetual motion. Some have grown so much interested in the subject that they have lost their minds. Others have been so disappointed, after spending years in trying to discover it, that they have killed themselves over their disappointment. Well, in Fulton's time, there came a man to New York by the name of Redheffer, who said he had invented a perpetual motion machine. Many people paid a dollar a piece to see the wonder ; and even learned men visited it and could not account for its continual motion. They told Fulton about it. He said, it must be a "humbu«:," because he knew that no machine could be made that would run of itself. However, his friends kept coaxing him until he went with them to see it. After looking at it in a careless way, as others had done, Fulton sat down and began to study its motion. He noticed that its running was not regular. Sometimes it would go faster and sometimes slower. Then he became more con- vinced that it was a " humbug," and he put his ear closer up to the machine to listen. ROBERT FULTON 123 Presently he said : '* This motion is made by some one turn- ing a crank," for he had noticed, when he was a boy, in turn- ing a grindstone, that the stone, in pushing the crank down and in pulHng it up, moved with a different rapidity. Hence, he concluded there must be someone turning a crank some\yhere, and he said : " If you people will help me, I will prove to you that what I say is true." The people agreed, and at once they set to work to pull off some strips of wood, when they saw a string running from ^ODEL OP . .=^ U.S. AIam op War ' -BuiLt- foR- E;(hiBiy . at- Wof\LD5.FAia MODEL OF A MODERN U. S. MAN OF WAR. the machine back through the wall and passing up through the floor above. They quickly ran upstairs and found an old man turning a crank, which was connected with the machine by the string. This old fellow had been there all the time turning this crank, while Redheffer pretended his machine was running of itself Fulton and his friends ran back to the machine-room, but somebody had told the impostor, Red- heffer, and he had run away and was never heard of after that. One of Fulton's greatest friends was the wise and. good Dr, 124 ROBERT FULTON Franklin, of whom we have told you in a previous chapter in this book, and many are the pleasant evenings he may have spent with Dr. Franklin in explaining his new ideas and experiments. Besides the steamboat and torpedoes, which were his great inventions, Robert Fulton still found time for planning out flat-docks and many other improvements and inventions for the good of trade and convenience in his native country. With it all, he was so modest and quiet that, while he lived, very few people knew or thought of what a great man he was, until he was taken away by sudden death, in the year 1815, when he was only fifty years of age. After his death great steamers were built to cross the ocean, and locomotives were made to pull railroad trains over the world. We cannot honor Robert Fulton's memory too much. If he had not lived, perhaps to-day we would travel by sailing vessels, taking weeks of time instead of only a few days to cross the ocean. And but for him, perhaps, even the railroads would not be in use ; for, while he did not invent the railway locomotive, he built the first successful steamboat and made all the world recognize that steam could be used to give us faster modes of travel. Not only America, but every country in the world is indebted to Robert Fulton for teaching them this important truth. His life furnishes an interesting lesson to every ambitious and honest boy, however poor. There are other things more wonderful than the steamboat yet to be invented ; and as sim- ple little things, as Robert Fulton's paddles on the old flat- boat when he went fishing as a boy, will teach the boys of to-day how to invent. Then keep your eyes open and study the whys and wherefores of little things. Be studious as Robert Fulton was, and you may also become great and useful to your couutry and to mankind. THE NOTABLE HISTORY OF Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States. DID you ever read the fairy stories about the poor boy who be- came a prince? Do you wish to hear a true story about just such a boy ? Let me tell it to you. It is the story of Abraham Lincoln, the hero who saved his country. He was as poor a boy as ever lived in Amer- ica; he rose to be greater and grander and more royal than any prince, or king, or emperor who ever wore a crown. Lis- ten to his story: r m 126 126 ABRAHAM LINCOLN There was once a poor carpenter, who Hved in a miserable little log cabin out West. It was on a stony, weedy little hillside, at a place called Nolin's Creek, in Kentucky. In that log cabin, on the twelfth day of February, in the year 1 809, a little baby was born. He was named Abraham Lincoln. I don't believe you ever saw a much poorer or meaner place in which to be born and brought up than that little log cabin. Abraham Lincoln's father was poor and lazy. He could not read and he hated to work. Abraham Lincoln's mother was a hard-working young woman, who dreamed about having nice things, but never did have them. Their house had no win- dows, it had no floor, it had none of the things you have in your pleasant homes. In all America no baby was ever born with fewer comforts, and poorer surroundings than little Abra- ham Lincoln. He grew from a baby to a homely little boy, and to a homelier-looking young man. He was tall and thin and gawky. His clothes never fitted him ; he never, in all his life, went to school but a year ; he had to work hard, he could play but little, and many a day, he knew what it was to be cold and hungry and almost homeless. His father kept moving about from place to place, living almost always in the woods, in Kentucky and Indiana and Illinois. Sometimes their home would be a log cabin, some- times it was just a hut with only three sides boarded up, and little Abraham Lincoln was a neglected and forlorn little fellow. His mother died when he was only eight years old. Then Abraham and his sister, Sarah, were worse off than ever. But pretty soon his father married a second wife, and Abraham's new mother was a good and wise woman. She washed him and gave him new clothes ; she taught him how to make the most and do the best with the few things he had and the chances that came to him ; she made him wish ABRAHAM LINCOLN 127 for better things ; she helped him fix himself up, and encour- aged him to read and study. This last was what Abraham liked most of all, and he was reading and studying all the time. There were not many books where he lived, but he borrowed all he could lay his hands on, and read them over and over. THE BOY LINCOLN STUDYING. He studied all the hard thino^s he could find books on, from arithmetic and grammar to surveying and law. He wrote on a shingle, when he could not get paper, and by the light of a log fire, when he could not get candles. He read and studied in the fields, when he was not working; on wood-piles, where he w^as chopping wood, or in the kitchen, rocking the cradle 128 ABRAHAM LINCOLN of any baby whose father or mother had a book to lend him. His favorite position for studying was to lay stretched out like the long boy he was, flat on the floor, in front of an open fire. Here he would read and write and cipher, after the day's work was over, until, at last, he grew to be as good a scholar as any boy round. Once he borrowed a book of an old farmer. It was a "Life of Washington." He read it and read it again, and when he was not reading it he put it safely away between the logs that made the wall of his log cabin home. But one day, there came a hard storm ; it beat against the cabin and soaked in between the logs and spoiled the book. Young Abraham did not try to hide the book nor get out of the trouble. He never did a mean thing of that sort. He took the soaked and ruined book to the old farmer, told him how it happened, and asked how he could pay for it. "Wall," said the old farmer, " 't'aint much account to me now. You pull fodder for three days and the book is yours." So the boy set to work, and for three days "pulled fodder" to feed the farmer's cattle. He dried and smoothed and pressed out the " Life of Washington," for it was his now. And that is the way he bought his first book. He was the strongest boy in all the country 'round. He could mow the most, plough the deepest, split wood the best, toss the farthest, run the swiftest, jump the highest and wrestle the best of any boy or man in the neighborhood. But though he was so strong, he was always so kind, so gentle, so obliging, so just and so helpful that everybody liked him, few dared to stand up against him, and all came to him to get work done, settle disputes, or find help in quarrels or trouble. When he was fifteen years old he was over six feet tall and very strong. No man or boy could throw him down in a ABRAHAM LINCOLN 129 wrestle. He was like Washington in this, for both men were remarkable wrestlers when they were boys. And both always wrestled fair. Once, when he had gone to a new place to live, the big boys got him to wrestle with their champion, and when the champion found he was getting the worst of it he began to try unfair ways to win. This was one thing that Lincoln never would stand — unfairness or meanness. He caught the big fellow, lifted him in the air, shook him as a dog shakes a rat, and then threw him down on the ground. The big bully was conquered. He was a friend and follower of Lincoln as long as he lived, and you may be sure the "boys" all about never tried any more mean tricks on Abraham Lincoln. So he grew, amid the woods and farms, to be a bright, willing, obliging, active, good-natured, fun-loving boy. He had to work early and late, and when he was a big boy he went to work among the farmers, where he hired as a "hired man." He could do anything, from splitting rails for fences to rocking the baby's cradle; or from hoeing corn in the field to telling stories in the kitchen. And how he did like to tell funny stories ! Not always funny, either. For, you see, he had read so much and remem- bered things so well that. he could tell stories to make people laugh and stories to make people think. He liked to recite poetry and "speak pieces," and do all the things that make a person good company for every one. He would sit in front of the country store or on the counter inside and tell of all the funny things he had seen, or heard, or knew. He would make up poetry about the men and women of the neighborhood, or "reel off " a speech upon things that the people were interested in, until all the boys and girls, and the men and women, too, said "Abe Lincoln," as they called him, knew about everything, and was an "awful smart chap." Sometimes they thought he knew I30 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^ r^^ too much ; for once, when he tried to explain to one of the girls that the earth turned around and the sun did not move, she would not believe him, and said he was fooling her. But she lived to learn that " Abe," as she called him, was not a fool, but a bright, thoughtful, studious boy, who understood what he read and did not forget it. He worked on farms, ran a ferry-boat across the river, split rails for far m fences, worked an oar on a "flat- boat," got up a machine for lifting boats out of the mud, kept store, did all sorts of "oddjobs" for the farmers and their \\- i \^ e s, and was, i n fact, what we call a regular "Jack of all trades." And all the time, though he was jolly and liked a good time, he kept studying, studying, studying until, as I have told you, the people where he lived said he knew more than anybody else. Some of them even said that they knew he would be President of the United States some day, he was so smart. The work he did most of all out-of-doors, was splitting great logs into rails for fences. He could do as much as three men ^v LINCOLN. WRESTLER. AHK\AI1AM l.lNllDl.N i.'J .it tlii^ work, lie was so s(i..i);;. Willi one Mow lie ( oiiM I II .1 l)lll\ llic .i\r in lllf wood. ( )lh c \\c ',|>lil ciioll;;!! r.lil'> lol .1 w oiii.in to |».i\ Itu' .1 suit o( ( lollic . -Ill- iii.idc lor liim. .md .ill the l,lmll■I^ round Iiki-d toii.ixr " .\l)c I.iii(t>ln."' .t ■ iIm \ <.ill.d liim, '.plit llicir I. Ills. lie I on Id t.iki" tin- li( ,i\ \ .i\f 1>\ tlic ( nd ol 111! Ii.indlf .ind :r > 'N i ;(. '■'1 I INCOLN. AH IIIKI I I INt. A UU.KY, hold ii out sliMi;.dit iVoni his ^llonid« i. I li.il i - •.oinctliin;' lli.it oidy .1 vt-ry slroni^-.trincd person (.in d(», In ku t. .is I li,i\c told you, lu' was tlu* chain pioii stroii-.- hoy of his nci'dihoi li< »od. and. though he w.is never (Hi.ii i (■ls( mie or .i h;dil( i, Ik dnl enjoy a liieiidly wrestle, .ind, weaic lold, th.il he (oiild strike the h.ii.h 4 l)low with .i\e or in. ml, juinj) higher and f.irlhcr 132 ABRAHAM LINCOLN than any of his comrades, and there was no one, far or near, who could put him on his back. He made two trips down the long Ohio and the broad Mississippi rivers to the big city of New Orleans, in Louisiana. He sailed on a clumsy, square, flat-bottomed scow, called a flatboat. Lincoln worked the forward oar on the flatboat, to guide the big craft through the river currents and over snags. On these trips he first saw negro men and women bought and sold the same as horses, pigs and cattle, and from that day, all through his life, he hated slavery. When he became a young man, a war broke out in the Western country with the Indians. They were led by the famous Indian chief called Black Hawk. Lincoln went with the soldiers to fight Black Hawk. He was thought so much of by his companions that they made him captain of their company. Captain Lincoln's soldiers all liked him, and they were just like boys together. Sometimes they were pretty wild boys and gave him a good deal of trouble, but he never got real angry at them but once. That was when a poor, broken-down, old Indian came into camp for food,and shelter, and Lincoln's "boys " were going to kill him just because he was an Indian. But Lincoln said, " For shame ! " He protected the old Indian, and standing up in front of him, said he would knock down the first man that dared to touch him. The soldiers . knew that Lincoln meant what he said, and thought even more of him after that. And the old Indian's life was saved. When the soldiers' time was up, and most of them went back home, Lincoln would not go with them. He joined another regiment as a private soldier and staid in the army until the Indians were beaten and driven away, and Black Hawk was taken prisoner. Then Lincoln started for home with another soldier boy. They had great adventures. Their ABRAHAM LINCOLN »33 ^T horse was stolen, and they had to walk ; then they found an old canoe and paddled down the rivers until the canoe was upset and they were nearly drowned ; then they walked again until they "got a lift" on a row-boat, and so, at last, walking and paddling, they got back to their homes, poor and tired out, but strong and healthy young men. Then Lincoln tried store-keeping again. He had already been a clerk in a country store ; now he set up a store of his own. He was not ^ — i very successful. He loved to read and study better than to wait on customers, and he was so oblig- ing and goodnatured that he could not make much money. Then he had a part- ner who was lazy and crood for nothin^^, and who eot him into r i \ '^'^. ''^- i^'^^^i: I: M LINCOLN KEEPING STO! trouble. But, through i it all, Lincoln never e did a mean or dis- honest thing. He paid all his debts, though it took him years to do this, and he could be so completely trusted to do the right thing for everyone that all the people round about learned to call him "Honest Abe Lincoln." That's a good nick- name, isn't it? After Lincoln got through keeping store he was so much liked by the people that they chose him to go to the capital of the State, as one of the men who made laws for the State 134 ABRAHAM LINCOLN of Illinois, in what is called the State Legislature. He was sent to the Legislature again and again, and one of the first things he did was to draw up a paper, saying what a wicked thing slavery was. At that time, you know, almost everybody in the southern half of the United States owned ne^o men and women and children, just as they owned horses and dogs and cows. Lin- coln did not believe in this. Once, when he was in New Or- leans, on one of his flatboat trips, he went into a dreadful place where they sold men and women at auction. It made young Lincoln sick and angry, and he said if ever he got the chance he would hit slavery a blow that would hurt it — though, of course, he did not think he was ever to have the real chance to "hit it hard " that did come to him. But when he was a young man no one said much against slavery, and the people thought Lincoln was foolish to act and talk as he did. But, you see, one of the strongest things about Abraham Lincoln was that he was sympathetic — that is, he felt sorry for any one in trouble. He was tender, even with ani- mals — pigs and horses, cats and dogs, and birds. If he found a little bird on the ground, he would take it up tenderly and hunt around until he found its nest, and leave it there. He would get down from his horse to pull a pig out of the mud, and, when he was a boy, he went back across an icy and rush- ing river to help over a poor little dogthat was afraid to cross. So you will not wonder that, when he grew to be a man, he hated slavery, for slavery was unkindness to men and women. After he came back from the LecrisLiiure, he became a lawyer — he had always been studying law, you know. He was a bright, smart and successful lawyer. What is better still, he was a good and honest one. He never would take a case he did not believe in, and once when a man came to ABRAHAM LINCOLN 135 engage him to help get some money from a poor widow, Lin- coln refused, and gave the man such a scolding that the man did not try it again. So Mr. Lincoln grew to be one of the best lawyers in all that Western country. Because he was so wise and brave in speech and action, Lincoln rose to be what is called a great politician. He and -=Si 1 another famous man, named , ' / / Douglas, looked at things differently, and they had long public talks or discus- / sions about politics and slavery. These discussions f^ \^...^^.'~^^..^.^ ^-^^., ,..,v • ^ were held where all the Lincoln on the flat boat. people could hear them, in big halls or out of doors, and crowds of people went to listen to these talks, so that very soon every- body "out West" and people all over the country had heard of Lincoln and Douglas. At last came a time when the people of the United States were to choose a new President. And what do you think ? These two men were picked out by the opposite parties to be 136 ABRAHAM LINCOLN voted for by the people — Lincoln by the Republicans, and Douglas by the Democrats. And on election day the Republicans won. The poor little backwoods boy, the rail-splitter, the flat-boatman, the farm- hand, was raised to the highest place over all the people. Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. Is not that as good as your fairy story of the poor boy who became a prince ? It is even better, for it is true. It was a great honor, but it meant hard work and lots of worry for Abraham Lincoln. Bad times were coming for America. The men of the South, who believed in slavery and said that their States had everything to say, stood up against the men of the North, who did not believe in slavery, and said that the Government of the United States had more to say than any one of the separate States. Thus the men of the South said, "You do as we say, or we will break up the Union." And the men of the North said, "You cannot break it up. The union of all the States shall be kept, and you must stay in it." The South said, "We won't; we will secede" — that is, draw out of the Union. The North said, "You shall not secede. We will fight to keep you in and preserve the Union." The South said, "We dare you!" The North said, "We'll take that dare!" And then there was war. Abraham Lincoln, when he was made President, spoke beautifully to the people, and begged them not to quarrel. But, at the same time he told them that whatever happened, he was there to save the Union, and he should do so. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 137 But his words then had little effect. War had to come, and it came. For four dreadful years the men of the North and the men of the South fought each other for the mastery on Southern battle- fields. ^^'■• Many des- perate and terr i b 1 e battles were fought, for each side was bound to win. Neither side would give in, and brave soldiers, under brave lea ders, did many gallant deeds under that terr i b 1 e necessity that men call war. This war was especially dread- ful, because it was just like two brothers fighting with each other, and you know how dreadful that must be. During all those four years of war Abraham Lincoln lived in the President's house at Washington — the White House, as it LINCOLN ENTERING RICHMOND, 138 ABRAHAM LINCOLN is called. He had but one wish — to save the Union. He did not mean to let war, nor trouble, nor w^icked men destroy the nation that Washington had founded. He was always ready to say, " We forgive you," if the men of the South would only stop fighting and say, "We are sorry." But they would not do this, much as the great, kind, patient, loving President wished them to. That he was kind and loving all through that terrible war we know very well. War is a dreadful thing, and when it is going on some hard and cruel things have to be done. The soldiers who are sick or wounded often must first suffer to become well. As they lay in their hospitals, after some dreadful battle had torn and maimed them, the good President would walk through the long lines of cot-beds, talking kindly with the wounded soldiers, sending them nice things, doing every- thing he could to relieve their sufferings and make them patient and comfortable. In war, too, you know, even brave soldiers often get tired of the fighting and the privations and the delay, and wish to go home to see their wives and children. But they cannot, until it is time for them. So, sometimes they get impatient and run away. This is called desertion, and when a deserter is caught and brought back to the army, he is shot. Now President Lincoln was so loving and tender-hearted that he could not bear to have any of his soldiers shot because they had tried to go home. So, whenever he had a chance, he would write a paper saying the soldier must not be shot. This is called a pardon, and whenever a weak or timid soldier was arrested and sentenced to be shot as a deserter, his friends would hurry to the good President and beg him to give the man a pardon. He almost always did it. "I don't see how it will do the man any good to shoot him," he would say. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 139 "Give me the paper, I'll sign it," and so the deserter would go free, and perhaps make a better soldier than ever, because the good President had saved him. The question of slavery was always coming up in this war time. But when some of the men at the North asked Lincoln to set all the slaves in the land free, he said: " The first thing to do is to save the Union; after that we'll see about slavery." Some people did not like that. They said the President was too slow But he was not. He was the wisest man in all the world; the only one who could do just the right thing, and he did it. He waited patiently until just the right time came. He saw that the South was not willing to give in, and that some- thing must be done to show them that the North was just as determined as they were. So, after a great victory had been won by the sol- diers of the Union, Abraham Lincoln wrote a paper and sent it out to the world, saying that on the first day of Januar}^ in the year 1863, all the slaves in America should be free men and women — what we call emancipated — and that, forever after, there should be no such thing as slavery in free America. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. I40 ABRAHAM LINCOLN It was a great thing to do. It was a greater thing to do it just as Lincoln did it, and, while the world lasts, no one will ever forget the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lin- coln. Still, the war went on. But, little by little, the South was growing weaker, and, at last, in the month of April, 1865, the end came. The Southern soldiers gave up the fight. The North was victorious. The Union was saved. You may be sure that the great and good President was glad. He did not think that he had done so very much. It was the people who had done it all, he said. But the people knew that Lincoln had been the leader and captain who had led them safely through all their troubles, and they cheered and blessed him accordingly. But do you think the poor black people whom he had set free blessed him? They did, indeed. When President Lincoln at last stood in the streets of Richmond, which had been the Capital of the Southern States, he was almost worshipped by the colored people. They danced, they sang, they cried, they prayed, they called down blessings on the head of their emancipator — the man who had set them free. They knelt at his feet, while the good President, greatly moved by what he saw, bowed pleasantly to the shouting throng, while tears of joy and pity rolled down his care-wrinkled face. Don't you think it must have been a great and blessed moment for this good and great and noble man? But it was the same all over the land. There was cheering and shouting and thanksgiving everywhere for a re- united nation, and even the South, weary with four years of unsuccessful war, welcomed peace and quiet once more. Then, who in all the world was greater than Abraham Lin- coln? He had done it all, people said, by his wisdom, his patience and his determination, and the splendid way in which ABRAHAM LINCOLN 141 he had directed everything from his home in the White House. The year before, in the midst of the war, he had been elected President for the second time. '* It is not safe to swap horses when you are crossing a stream," he said. So the people voted not to ''swap horses." Lincoln made a beautiful speech to the people when he was again made President, He spoke only of love and kindness for the men of the South, and, while he said the North must fight on to the end and save the Union, they must do it not hating the South, but loving it. And this is the way he ended that famous speech. Remem- ber his words, boys and girls ; they are glorious : "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are jj^ * * * and achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." But just when the w^ar was ended, when peace came to the land again; when all men saw what a grand and noble and lov- ing and strong man the great President was; when it looked as if, after four years of worry, weariness and work, he could at last rest from his labors and be happy, a wicked, foolish and miserable man shot the President, behind his back. And, on the morning of the fifteenth of April, in the year 1865, Abra- ham Lincoln died. Then how all the land mourned ! South, as well as North, wept for the dead President. All the world sorrowed, and men and women began to see what a great and noble man had been taken away from them. The world has not got over it yet. Every year and every day only makes Abraham Lincoln greater, nobler, might:. No boy ever, in all the world, rose higher from poorer bcgii: nings. No man who ever lived did more for the world tlian Abraham Lincoln, the American. 142 ABRAHAM LINCOLN He saw what was right, and he did it; he knew what was true, and he said it; he felt what was just, and he stuck to it. So he stands to-day, for justice, truth and right. You do not understand all this now, as you listen to these words and look at these pictures. But some day you will, and you will then know that it was because Abraham Lincoln lived and did these things that you have to-day a happy home in a great, free, rich and beautiful country — "The land of the free and the home of the brave." So remember this, now, boys and girls: You are free and happy in America to-day, because Abraham Lincoln saved for you to live in the land that George Washington made free. LINCOLN'S GRAVE, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. THE REMARKABLE HI5T0RY OF Ulvsses S. Grant, General of the Armies of the United States. ^\^.yf THIS is the story of a great soldier and a good man. Everybody likes to see soldiers march- ing with their drums and guns and flags and uniforms. They make a fine sight, and the boys and girls all hur- rah and clap their hands as the regiments march by. But when these soldiers go marching to battle, it is quite another thing. For war is terrible, and some of the best and bravest " I propose to most, rels can move Immediately upon your works."— Cirw. O'.S. Grant. SOldiCrS hate it th Sometimes, however, great questions and bitter quar- be settled only by war and fighting, and then it is well 143 144 ULYSSES S. GRANT for the people to have their armies led to battle by such a great and gallant soldier as this story tells about. His name was Ulysses Simpson Grant He was born in a little town, out in Ohio, called Point Pleasant, on the twenty- seventh of April, in the year 1822. The house in which he was born is still standing. It is on the banks of the Ohio River, and you can look across to K&ntucky, on the other side of the river. When Ulysses was only a year old his father moved to a place called Georgetown, not far away, and there he spent his boyhood. He was a strong, healthy, go-ahead little fellow, who did not like to go to school very well. But, if he had anything to do, either in work or play, he stuck to it, until it was done. When he was seventeen years old, Ulysses was sent to the splendid school among the beautiful highlands of the Hudson River, in New York, where boys are taught to become soldiers of the United States Army. This is called the United States Military Academy, at West Point. He stayed four years at this famous school. He did not like the school part of it any more at West Point than he did at his Ohio school-house, but he loved horses, and became a fine horseback rider. When he left West Point, he was made second lieutenant in the United States Army. He went home, but in a year or two there was a war between the United States and the coun- try that joins us on the south. It is called Mexico, and this war is called the Mexican War. Young Ulysses Grant went to this war as first lieutenant and fought the Mexicans in many bloody battles. He was a daring young officer, and his men followed willingly wherever he led. In one of the hardest battles in this war with Mexico ULYSSES S. GRANT 145 — the battle of Monterey— the American soldiers charged into the town and then got out of ammunition — that is, powder and shot. To get any more, some one would have to ride straight through the fire of the Mexicans, who were in the houses of the town; so the general did not think he could order any soldier to do this. But he asked who would do it. This is what is meant by calling for volunteers. 1 ,s.i GRANTS CHILDHOOD HOME. Lieutenant Cxrant said at once he would go. He mounted his horse, but slipped over on the side furthest from the houses in which the Mexicans were hiding. Then he set his horse on a gallop, and so dashed through the town and past all the hostile houses, and brought back the ammunition in safety. He did many other brave and soldierly things when he was a young officer in this war with Mexico, but he was always 146 ULYSSES S. GRANT such a modest man that he never Hked to tell of his courage- ous deeds. When he did, he would generally say: "O, well; the battle would have been won, just as it was, if I had not been there." The brave men and the bravest boys, you know, never boast. In another of these battles in the Mexican war — it has a long, hard name — Chepultepec, young Grant was so bold and brave that his name was picked out as that of one of the brav- est soldiers in the fight. At another time, when a strong fort was in the path of the Americans, Lieutenant Grant dragged a small cannon away up in a church steeple, and pointing it at the fort, fired his cannon balls so swift and straight and sure that the Mexican soldiers had to run out of the fort, and the Am.ericans marched into it and soon after took the city it had defended. And when the news of this fight had been sent home to the United States, young Grant's brave act was made a part of it, and he was promoted to be a captain. The Mexicans were defeated in many battles, and, at last the cruel war was ended. The Ameri- cans were victorious and marched back north to their homes. Then Captain Grant married his wife; but, soon after, he had to go without her to California and Oregon, where his regiment was sent. He had a hard time getting there, for the dreadful cholera broke out while the soldiers were on the way, and if it had not been for Captain Grant's bravery and devo- tion most of the soldiers and their wives and children would have died. You see, a man can be just as brave taking care of sick people as when fighting in battle. After he had been in Oregon for a while he got tired of doing nothing, so he gave up being a soldier, and went back to his little farm near St. Louis, in Missouri. He lived in a log-house on this farm with his wife and children, and at times ULYSSES S. GRANT 147 ^ %- was quite poor. He tried farming, and buying and horses and collecting bills, and, at last, moved from St. to the town of Galena, in Il- linois, where he became a tanner and made leather with his fath- er and his brothers. W h i 1 e Grant w a s an unknown tanner in Il- linois a fear- ful thing oc- curred in America. The North- ern and Southern S t a t e s which, join- ed together, made these United States of selling Louis GRANT AFTER THE BATTLE OF BELMONT. things that, America, became angry with each other over some day, you will learn all about in school. The South said: "We won't stay in the Union any longer.'* The North said: "You've got to stay. We won't letyou go.'* 148 ULYSSES S. GRANT But the South determined to go, and, in the year 1861, they had gone and had made a new nation of themselves. Then the North said the South could not go and should not go, and tried to keep them in the Union by force. They began to fight with each other, and there was a terri- ble war in the land. We call it now the War of the Rebel- lion, or the Civil War. Captain Grant joined the army at once and marched away to the war with some soldiers from his own town, and, after a while, he was given command of a regiment and made a colonel. Soon after that he was pro- moted to be a brigadier-general. After the war had been going on for several months the men who were at the head of things found out what a good soldier General Grant was, and he was given command of a large number of men and marched with them against the Con- federates, as the Southern soldiers were called. There were some hard battles fought, among them that of Belmont, on the Mississippi, at which village a severe engage- ment took place. But Grant was victorious, and at last he got the Confederate soldiers cooped up in a place called Fort Donelson. When the general of the Confederate soldiers asked General Grant how he could save his soldiers and get out of the fort alive, the General said: "Unconditional surrender." That means, give me your fort and all your soldiers and guns and flags and swords. Then I will not fight you. If you will not do this, I shall make you do it. There was no other way, so the Confederates surrendered Fort Donelson. It was a great victory for the Northern sol- diers, and everybody praised General Grant. Then he marched to another place. It was called Shiloh. There was a terrible battle here. At first it was almost a defeat for the Union ULYSSES S. GRANT 149 soldiers, but General Grant stuck to it and fought so bravely, that at last the Confederates were beaten and driven back. It was the first o^reat battle of the war. It continued through 1 ^ ^-*:#«4!^f ' ft > ^^ :tmi 7#^? ' m >*/ GRANT AT SHILOH. two April days — Saturday and Sunday. The Confederates were led by their best and bravest general, Albert Sidney Johnston. Had it not been for General Grant's bravery, determination, persistence and good leadership, the Northern I50 ULYSSES S. GRANT troops would surely have been beaten, and the Union cause would have been sadly put back. But he stuck to it. He must win, that was all. And he did win. He rode up and down the line all that terrible Saturday and Sunday, giving orders, directing and encourag- ing his men. For he knew that they were mostly soldiers who had never seen a battle, and he knew that unless they were made braver by the courage and bravery of their lead- ers, they would not make good soldiers. So all through this dreadful battle of Shiloh, in which the dash and bravery of the South first met the courage and endurance of the North, General Grant was in the thick of it, inspiring his soldiers, bringing victory out of defeat, and show- ing the world what a great general he really was. So he kept driving the Confederate soldiers off whenever he fought them. They were brave, too, for they also were Am.eri- cans. But they had not so great a general to lead them in battle. At last Grant got the Southern army cooped up in a town called Vicksburg. He marched his soldiers against it and built forts around it and banged away at it with his great cannons until at last, when the Confederates in the town could get no help and could not get away, they gave up the town and all its forts and soldiers and guns to General Grant. That was the surrender of Vicksburg. It was another splen- did victory. Then General Grant was promoted to be a major-general, and marched off to fight more of the bold Southern soldiers. He fought them again at a place called Chattanooga, among the mountains. This was so hard a battle and so great a vic- tory for General Grant that the United States gave him a gold medal to commemorate it. Then he was given command of all the armies of the United States. So far he had fought in the ULYSSES S. GRANT 151 West. Now he came East and took the lead of all the North- ern soldiers in Virginia, which was called the Army of the Potomac. He fought the Confederates and their brave leader, General Lee, for a whole year in Virginia. There were some dreadful bat- tles. There never were harder ones in all the world. But General Grant knew that if he wish- ed to win, he must fight hard and terribly. The hardest fighting of all that cruel war was now to come, you see. It was in the region that separated the two capitals — Washington, the capital of tne United ulysses s. grant. States, and Richmond,' the Southern capital. Much of the fighting was in a section covered with thick woods and under- brush, and called " The Wilderness." For sixteen days the two armies faced each other in this wilderness, so close together that they could talk across, and so, watching by night 10 152 ULYSSES S. GRANT and fighting by day, the two generals, Lee, the Confederate, and Grant, the Union leader, fought each other in the most tremendous and desperate battles of modern times. They ended at last, not by really defeating Lee, but by forcing him back, inch by inch, until Grant and his soldiers got nearer to Richmond. You see, the men of the Nordi and the men of the South had now grown to be trained and coura- geous soldiers, and they were so equally matched in num- bers, bravery and determination, and were so ably led by their commanding generals that the conflict was a stubborn and desperate one. But General Grant would not be defeated. He never gave up; and when, in the hot w^eather, things seemed going badly and he was asked what he meant to do, he said, "Fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer." It did take all summer, and all the winter, too; but, at last, this great soldier was successful. The Southerners were beaten, and their gallant leader, General Lee, at a place called Appomattox Court House, on April 9, 1865, surrendered all his soldiers and flags and guns to General Grant. It was the end to a long and bitter w^ar. Probably no other soldier in Amer- ica could have defeated General Lee and his soldiers except General Grant. The Southern soldiers were brave and deter- mined; they were desperate; for they knew if they did not beat Grant and capture Washington the cause of the South must be given up. So they fought on, even after they began to get hungry and ragged, and the South was poor and empty. Gradually, how- ever, they grew weaker; and still General Grant kept at it, forcing them back, back, until at last they fled from Richmond. The Southern soldiers w^ere beaten or captured, and, as I have told you. General Lee surrendered at last to General Grant at ULYSSES S. GRANT 153 Appomattox Court House. The war was over. The North had won the great fight that had lasted through four terrible years, and General U. S. Grant was hailed as ''the Conqueror." It is hard for the boys and girls who have quarreled and got the best of it, not to clasp their hands and talk big. It is even r-^^ W] w o m e n. when he would not Ml: harder for men and But General Grant, had won the victory, "crow" over the defeated Southern- ers. "They are Americans," he said. He gave them back their horses so that they could plough their farms for planting; he gave them food and clothes, and sent them away friends; he said to South alike: "The Let us have course his great him a hero. He he hated to be so talked about ; he never made a show of him- self, nor said, as a good many boys and men do when they have done something fine: "Look at me!" General Grant was quiet, modest and silent. Of course, the world thought all the more of him because he did not try to put himself for- ward. His own land thought so much of him that they twice made him President of the United States, just as they did GRANT AT WINDSOR CASTLE. ■'JJ North and w a r is over. peace.' Of success made was one. But 154 ULYSSES S. GRANT Washington. It was a pretty good rise for a little Western farmer boy and tanner, wasn't it? After he was through being President he left his country and traveled around the world, and the world did him honor. Kings and queens and princes invited him to their palaces and were glad to see him. He visited the Queen of England in her palace of Windsor Castle; he talked with the soldiers and statesmen of the world, while emperors honored him as one of the world's famous men, and cities welcomed him as the foremost general of the day, and the man who had been President of the world's mightiest Republic. Amid all these festivities, in all lands and in all scenes set to do him honor, General Grant was still the same modest, quiet, silent man he had been all his life. The brilliant car- nival at Havana, which he saw and which honored him; the curious and strange surroundings in far-off Japan, where they were beginning to think and act for themselves; the court of China, which few Americans had ever seen; the storied places of the East — Jerusalem, Damascus, Constantinople, Alexan- dria — all these he visited, and in all he was welcomed and pointed out to the boys and girls of every nation, tribe and land as the great American — the visitor from the land beyond the sea. Great men, wherever he went, called upon him and made friends with him, and, as I have said, the people every- where, in Japan and China, and Egypt and Turkey, and Rus- sia and Germany, and Italy and France, and England ran after him just as their kings and princes had done. They hurrahed for him and made much of him. Never before had any man been so honored and entertained the world over as had General Grant. For, you see, people everywhere knew that General Grant was a great man, who, by his patience, his perseverance, ULYSSES S. GRANT 155 and his wisdom had carried a mighty nation through a terri- ble war, and won it ; had been made the chief man of that nation, and shown all the world how a man can be a great GRANT IN JAPAN. soldier and yet a quiet, simple, modest man. But they were to see him fight one other battle — the hardest that any boy or girl, any man or woman can fight — the battle against wrong 156 ULYSSES S. GRANT and death. He came back from his travels round the world, and as he did not like to be idle, he put what money he had into business and began — so he thought — to grow rich. He made his home in New York City, in a fine house which the people who honored him had given him as a token of. their respect and affection and their pride in the man who had done so much for them in four years of war, and who had governed his native land as President through eight years of peace. But his business ventures turned out badly. A wretched man worked against him, using the General's honorable name to mislead the people, and taking for himself both their money and that of General Grant. All of a sudden the end came. The bad man ran away and General Grant found himself without a cent. All his money was gone, and worse than that, others who had trusted in him had lost their money, too. It broke the great general down. It almost defeated the soldier who had never known defeat. It made him weak and sick. But, just as he had marched to war courageously, so, now, he faced disaster just as bravely. He set to work to make his losses good, and, because all the the world wished to hear about him, he began to write the story of his life and his bat- tles. By his power of will he succeeded in keeping himself alive to do this. For over a year he fought ruin and a terrible pain as stoutly as he had ever battled with real soldiers, while all the world looked on in love and pity, and kings and beggars sent him words of sympathy. He won the fight, for he did not give up until his book was finished. Then he died. On the twenty-first of July, in the year 1885, on the mountain-top to which he had been carried, near Sara- toga, in New York, General Grant died, and all the world mourned a great man gone. ULYSSES S. GRANT 157 The world mourned; men and women everywhere had learned to honor the great general as much for his victories over disaster, disgrace and pain as for his conquests in war and his governing in peace. His funeral, on August 8, 1885, was one of the grandest public ceremonials ever seen in America. The President of the United States, senators, and other famous York to show their and the poor boy of was buried amid of bells and firing governors, judge men came to New sorrow and esteem, the western prairies __ _ -^„_ -"Lv the solemn tolling grant-s funeral pRocEssior of cannon, while all people and all lands sent words of sorrow and sympathy to the Republic which so honored him in death as it had honored him in life. Upon a beauti- ful knoll in a beautiful park in New York rises a stately monument above his tomb. In the City of Chicago, in the State from which he came from poverty to fame, another splendid monument towers in his honor. His is not an uncommon name, and yet in all America, in all the world, there is but one Grant! 158 ULYSSES S. GRANT His story is one from which even the smallest boy and the tiniest girl can learn something. For it teaches them to be persistent, yet modest; strong, yet simple; magnanimous in victory; patient in distress and defeat. He was a great soldier, but he hated war; yet, when he had to fight, he did fight, and nothing could put him aside from the end he had in view. Though he became the foremost man of the world, he was always a quiet, modest and simple American gentleman, and, when he had to face both pain and loss, he did so patiently, uncomplainingly and heroically, never giving in until he had done what he had determined to do. To be a great soldier is a fine thing; to be a noble, truthful, simple man is still finer. General Grant was both; and while the boys and girls of America will never forget the" battles and victories won for their sake, let them also never forget that it was his simplicity, his loyalty, his devotion, his persistence and his honor that made all the world respect and love Ulysses Simpson Grant as a great American. S M t^i.t TOMB OF U. S. GRANT, NEW YORK. ON THE EVE OF GETTYSBURG.— General Lee Directing the Battle. THE STIRRING STORY OF Robert E. Lee, General of the Confederate Armies. CADET LEE. THIS is to tell you the story of Robert E. Lee. Every boy and girl in America knows who he was — a great American soldier. But he was more than a great soldier, he was a hero, and this is a hero story. Is there any boy or girl who does not like to hear about a hero ? You know what a hero is, do you not? It is one who does great deeds in a grand way. Ever since the world be- gan there have been heroes. Some have been soldiers, some have been kings, some have been just plain, poor men or boys. But the world has liked to hear their stories — from David, the who killed Goliath the to George Washington, who delivered his land from tyranny. In this dear America, which is our native land, we have had many heroes. 169 giant. i6o ROBERT E. LEE They have defended us in danger, fought for us in war, cared for us in peace, and every boy and girl in America is told the story of their lives and taught to love and respect and honor them. It is the story of one of these brave and heroic men that I wish now to tell you — the story of Robert E. Lee, who fought long and bravely for what he believed to be the rights and the liberty of his fellow-men in the southern half of the United States of America. Listen to his story. Many years ago, when your grandfather's grandfather was helping to make the Fourth of July, a certain brave and gal- lant soldier fought in almost all the battles of the American Revolution. People called him ''Light-horse " Harry Lee. This was because he was the leader of a number of dashing, fast-riding soldiers or cavalry called "light-horse," because the riders were dressed and armed as lightly as possible. In this dress they could ride swiftly and act quickly. ''Light-horse" Harry Lee was a splendid horseback rider, and his swift and daring dashes with his light-horse legion did a great deal toward whipping the British and making the American Revolution a success. General Washington thought very much of this brave Virginian horseman, and, when the war was over, wrote him a letter in which he sent him his "love and thanks" for what he had done in the American Revolution. And when the great and good Washington died, at his beautiful home at Mount Vernon, it was his friend the dashing cavalry soldier who spoke those splendid words about the greatest American — words which, I hope, you all know by heart: "Washington! first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen." Nearly twenty-five years after the American Revolution ended in success, when "Light-horse" Harry Lee had been Governor Lee of Virginia, and was writing a book about the ROBERT E. LEE i6i American Revolution, a little baby boy was born into his pleasant Virginia home. This baby was named Robert Edward Lee, and he was to grow up to become an even greater and nobler man than his famous father. Robert E. Lee was born on the nineteenth of January, 1807 .,-5^ -A ^•"^iiKia*- *> N .^ YOUNG LEE RIDING IN FRONT OF "STAFFORD," VIRGINIA, THE MANSION OF "LIGHT- HORSE" HARRY LEE. — the very year in which our great .Vmerican poets, Longfel- low and Whittier, were born. His father's house was at a beautiful country place in \'irginia, called Stafford. It was in Westmoreland County, on the Potomac River, the very 1 62 ROBERT E. LEE county in Virginia in which George Washington was born, and on the banks of the same Potomac River. He was a good boy in everything, good in his home, good in his school, good in his books, and good in his ways. His father was not very well when Robert was a little boy and had to be away from home a great deal hunting for good health; so Robert's mother brought her boy up. She brought him up well and made a man of him, because she made him true and manly from the start. He was never what boys call a "sissy" just because he was mild and good, but he was a manly, brave, true-hearted little fellow, kind to all about him, always in love with his mother, always obeying her, attentive to his studies^ doing his duty in every way as a real boy should. When Robert was four years old his father moved from his country home at Stafford to the little city of Alexandria, quite near to Washington, the capital of the nation. There Robert went to School in a queer, old-fashioned, yellow house that is still standing in Alexandria, and is still used for a boy's school. Its right name was Hallowell's School, from the master who kept it ; but the boys who went there called it, because of its yellow walls, " Brimstone Castle." When Robert was eleven years old his father, the famous "Light-horse" Harry Lee of the American Revolution, died in Georgia, w^here he had gone for his health. The fatherless boy clung closer to his mother than ever, and determined to do everything he could to help her ; but he had such a great respect for his father's memory, and felt so much pride in the deeds his famous father had done in the cause of liberty and his native land, that when the time came for him to decide what he would do when he became a man, he declared he would be a soldier just as his father had been. ROBERT E. LEE 163 So he went to West Point, the famous Military Academy on the banks of the Hudson River, where the United States trains boys to lead its armies and fight its battles. Robert E. Lee stayed four years at West Point. He entered K E FIERCEST. there as a "pleb," or new boy, in 1825, when he was eighteen years old, and leaving it, or "graduating" as it is called, as Lieutenant Lee in 1829. He did finely at the famous school. He was what they called a model cadet — always spick and 1 64 ROBERT E. LEE Span in his gray and white soldier suit, always at the head in his studies, always ready in his duties, in his drill, and in all he had to do. He never received a demerit, or bad mark, in all the four years that he was a cadet at West Point. Think of that! They said, there, that cadet Lee kept his gun so bright and clean that the inspecting officer could fairly see his face in its gleaming barrel and its polished stock. He was such a fine scholar at West Point that when he got through and graduated he stood second in his class — that is, next to head, you know. This gave him a chance to choose just where he would like to be in the army when he came out of West Point. He joined what is called the Engineer Corps, the pick of the whole army. The Engineer Corps is made up of men who look after building the forts and defences of our harbors, set our river channels straight, and protect the land from the sea as well as from the enemy. It is a fine position for a young officer, and generally gives him pleasant places to live in and agreeable things to do. Soldiers like it better than being sent off to lonely posts or to watching Indians, and it gives them a fine training in how to do things about forts and fighting. Lieutenant Lee was stationed at different places along the Atlantic coast. He helped plan and build Fortress Monroe, on beautiful Hampton Roads, in Virginia; he was stationed in Washington in one of the offices of the big War Depart- ment; he helped lay out the boundary line between the States of Ohio and Michigan ; he looked after the improvement of the harbor of St. Louis, and the changes that were made in the shifting channel of the mighty Mississippi River; he sup- erintended the building of the forts in New York harbor, and, when he got back from a war, which I will tell you about, he ROBERT E- LEE 165 was made Superintendent of the very place where he had gone to school — the Military Academy at West Point ; after that he had command of all the United States troops in Texas. H*? m RO GORDO. was Second Lieutenant in 1829, then First Lieutenant, then, in 1838, Captain in the regular army — so, you see, he kept going right on in the world, and was a great deal thought of in the army. The United States did not have a very big army 1 66 ROBERT E. LEE in those days, but whenever there was a war it grew quickly. In the year 1846 there came about a war between the United States and its next-door neighbor, the repubHc of Mexico. Never mind, what it was all about, you will learn that when you study the history of the United States. It was a cruel war, as all war is cruel ; but it was a great chance for Ameri- cans who wished to be real soldiers to show what they were good for and what they could do. They did well. They marched into Mexico, which is just the other side of Texas, you know, and they fought so bravely that in less than two years they had conquered Mexico and added to the United States all the land from Texas to Califor- nia and the Pacific Ocean. In this war Robert E. Lee made a splendid soldier. He was so brave and gallant, so ready and reliable, that he was always to be found where the fighting was fiercest. And yet he was so gentle and kind that he always struck at the point in the enemy's line where they could be beaten the quickest, so as to finish the fight with the smallest loss of men in killed and wounded. There was one battle in Mexico in which the young engi- neer was almost the leader and conqueror. This was the time when he got the best of the Mexicans at a place called Cerro Gordo, high up in the mountains. The Mexican soldiers held the zig-zag road up the mountains. It ran between great cliffs and chasms, and had cannon all along so as to keep the Americans from coming up. But Captain Lee, the engineer, said: *Tf we can't march against them, we must get behind them. I'll try." He hunted all about for a good place, and at last saw a way by which a sort of path could be cut through the mountains and come out behind the Mexicans. He did this so carefully, so swiftly and so silently that before the ROBERT E. LEE 167 Mexicans knew what they were about he was right upon them Captain Lee led the way, and showed the men just what to do They lowered the cannon by ropes down the steep cliff and FORTIFYING RICHMOND. hauled them up on the opposite hill-side ; they cut, and climbed and jumped, and dug until they got all the men, all the horses and all the cannon up behind the Mexican line. Then they 1 68 ROBERT E. LEE turned their guns upon the enemy, and so surprised and terrified them that ahiiost without a blow all that part of the Mexican army surrendered to the American commander, General Scott. This was one of Captain Lee's victories in Mexico. It was one of the kind he liked, because he had to think it out. It was the best kind of victory, too, for he won it without having to shoot down and kill many men. For his courage and his soldiership he was again and again promoted — Captain, Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel. He was on the staff of the commander, Winfield Scott, the Gen- eral of the American Army ; and, after the Mexican War was over, General Scott declared that his success in Mexico was largely due ''to the skill, valor and undaunted courage of Robert E. Lee." This is a good deal to say about one man, is it not, and fine, too ? After the Mexican war was over and all the soldiers had come home again. Colonel Lee was made Superintendent of the Military Academy at West Point, as I have already told you. For three years he was in charge there, directing the soldier boys in their studies and their drilling at that splendid military school on the banks of the Hudson. Then he was sent to join the army stationed in Texas. He was Colonel of a cavalry regiment, the same position that his famous father, *' Light-horse Harry," had held in the Army of the Republic, l.ater on he was placed in command of all the soldiers in what was called the Department of Texas. While he was away on a long vacation at his beautiful home in Virginia, called Arlington, just opposite Washington, the Civil War broke out. You know what that was, of course — the dreadful and terrible trouble between two parts of our dear native land — the North and the South. ROBERT E. LEE 169 It could not be settled peaceably. Men thought so differ- ently about things that one side would not give in to the other, so they just had to fight it out. It was a long and bitter war. Many good and brave men ^.. 0-' > HE WAVED HIS S' E HIS HEAD AND DASHED TO THE KkONT. were killed on both sides, and there was sorrow and distress all over the land. But when the war was over, the people of the United States became better friends than they had ever been before, and there will never be such a war agfain. lyo ROBERT E. LEE When the war broke out Colonel Robert E. Lee did not know just what to do. But he thought the matter over long and deeply, and then he said : "I cannot fight against my relatives, my children, my home. I have been a soldier of the United States, but I am a son of Virginia, and I must do as my State does." He resigned from the United States Army, giving up his position as Colonel, and was made Major-General of the forces of the State of Virginia. When Virginia went out of the Union — that is, when her people said, **We will not belong to the United States any longer, we will join the Confederate States," Colonel Lee said, "Then I must go with you." He was appointed military adviser to Jefferson Davis, the President of the newly-formed Confederate States — for so the States that went out of the Union called themselves. A year later he was made Commanding General of the Army of Northern Virginia, and for three years he led the brave Southern soldiers who fought for the Confederacy against the brave Northern soldiers who fought for the Union. What a splendid leader of those gallant Southern soldiers General Lee Was! He knew just where to have them march, just when to have them fight, just what to have them do. Richmond, in Virginia, was the capital of the Confederate States, just as Washington is the capital of the United States. General Lee surrounded it with forts and defended it so skil- fully that the Northern soldiers could not get into it, though they tried again and again, and whenever they tried to get through any of the approaches to the city, General Lee would march his soldiers against them and fight long and desperately. Boys, when they play at any good game, like a boy to be their laeder. You can do so much better if you have some one ROBERT E. LEE 171 to follow, some one who shows you what to do. It is just so with men — especially with soldiers — and General Lee was just such a leader. His soldiers learned to love him and look up to him almost as you do to your own father. They called him -^■:^5v^ ^ ^ *" v ~^^^""— --, "Marse Bob" '";^_'^#\^ "^ " - ' "^ and "Uncle ^^^^^^'"^ ' '•^'- -^ -^^ss. Bobby " — not to his face, of course, but \\' h e n the y talked togethcr abouthim. He was so kind, and patient, and gentle; he was always trying to help them, and cared for them so much that they knew he was their friend, even when he made them march the longest, and even when GENERAL LEE TO THE REAR. he made them fieht the hardest. But soldier has to fight, you know. That is why he is a soldier, and, although General Lee was always calm, and quiet, and gentle in speech and manner, he was a great soldier and sometimes a fierce fighter. 172 ROBERT E. LEE One day, when there was a terrible battle raging, he saw his soldiers beaten back by the Union troops from a place he wished them to keep. " They must not lose it," he said, and he waved his sword above his head and dashed to the front to lead his soldiers into battle again. But his men knew that General Lee's life was precious ; that if he were killed there would be no one to lead them to victory. " No, no, General ! " they cried ; "Go back ! Go back, Lee, to the rear ! We'll take it ! " And when he dropped back, he saluted his soldiers for their love and care for him, and pointed at the Union line with his sword. " Forward," he said, and his men charging forward, thinking of their brave and gallant leader, won back the place from which they had been driven. Once when his own son, who was also the commander of a large Confederate force of cavalry (his father and grandfather also were generals, you know), was in danger of being sur- rounded by a great force of the enemy, the General, cried out cheerfully, "Keep your men together. General, I'll get you out of this," and he did. " General," a young officer shouted, dashing up to him, just as a great battle was to begin, " The Federals are adv^ancing." General Lee looked at him with a funny smile, enjoying the young officer's excitement. "Well," he said, just as cool and calm as you please, " I did hear firing, and I was just begin- ning to think it was time some of you lazy young fellows were coming to tell me what it was all about." And I suppose that made the young officer laugh right on the edge of that battle, and to get from his calm and cool General all the more courage to do his best. So, you see, while he was brave and serious, he could see the funny side ROBERT E. LEE 173 of things, too, and did all he could to make his soldiers bright as well as brave, hopeful when things went wrong, calm in the midst of danger. This is what makes a real soldier, you know. The North had more men and more money than the South ; they kept on fighting, too, for neither side was willing to give in. But the North for a long time could get no soldier who was as great a general as Lee. On the third day of June, 1862, he was made General of the Army of Northern Virginia. That post he held through the war, under that name he led the Southern soldiers to battle and often to victory, while, by his wise way of directing his men, he kept the Northern troops away from Richmond for nearly three years. He won the battle of Malvern Hill, he won the Second Battle of Bull Run, he won the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsvill. Twice he marched his soldiers into the Northern lines, and at Gettysburg, in Penn- sylvania, in 1863, he fought a terrible three-days' battle which called for all the strength and all the skill of General Meade, the Northern leader, to turn it into a victory for the Union. Four generals of the Union led the armies against him in four great attempts to defeat and conquer him. But each time Lee was more than a match, and they fell back from Rich- mond, defeated. At last, in the beginning of the year 1864, General U. S. Grant, who had been a successful leader of the Union soldiers in the West, was called to the East to take command of the armies of the United States. Then there came a change. General Grant knew all about General Lee. They had both been in the Mexican War. He knew that to win he must do his very best. When some one asked him how long it would take him to get to Richmond, General Grant said, "Well, about four days, if General Lee is willing; if he isn't, well, 174 ROBERT E. LEE it's going to take a good deal longer." And it did. Gen- eral Lee did object; he objected with guns and swords and men, and the soldiers of the North and the soldiers of the South fought many terrible battles. The fighting grew fiercer and hotter. Grant would never give up, but kept pressing on. Bit by bit the Union soldiers drew about Richmond ; bit by bit the Confederate soldiers gave way, as their money, their strength and their numbers began to fail. But they fought gallantly still. General Lee was watchful and deter- mined. His eyes saw every weak spot in the Union line ; he could spread out his brave but tired and hungry soldiers so as to make the best show, and his men loved him so well and followed him so willingly that he was able to keep up the fight longer than any other general could have done. Never before in all the world had so many men been brought face to face in battle, and dreadful battles they were, there in the swamps and woods and fields of Virginia, in the year 1864. It was because both sides were brave men, and because brave and great generals led them, that these battles were so fierce, for Grant was bound to win, and Lee was bound not to let him. But when, at last, all hope of successfully defending Rich- mond was gone, when the brave chieftain had tried to break his way through the lines of Union soldiers, who now sur- rounded his army, and had failed, when he saw that to keep up the fight any longer was only a useless killing of men, a thing he always hated and tried to stop, then General Lee laid down his sword and surrendered himself and his army to his great foeman. General Grant, a man as gentle, as honorable and as kindly hearted as was he. It was a sad day for General Lee, when he at last deter- mined to give up the battle. ROBERT E. LEE 175 At first, when one of his soldiers saw how useless it would be to fight any longer, and told the General that he ought to surrender, the grand old soldier straightened himself up and said : " Surrender ? No , sir! I have too many good fighting men for that." But General Grant had more, and so, as I told you. General Lee saw this at last, and to stop the kill- ing of any more brave men, he gave it up — that is, he sur- rendered. It all came to an end at last at a place called Appo- mattox Court House, in Virginia. It was on the ninth day of April, 1865. The two Generals met between the lines at a farm-house near an apple orchard, and talked it all over. Both were glad to stop fighting ; both were proud of the heroism of their own men, and proud, also, of the courage of the other side, for all were Americans. General Grant said to General Lee, " If you will only promise for yourself and your soldiers not to fight any more against the United States, that is all I ask." ROBERT E. LEEl 176 ROBERT E. LEE General Lee promised, and so the greatest civil war that ever was fought was ended in the kindest way just because both the leaders were great as well as good, and when they made a promise would keep it. Then General Lee rode back to his army and told his men what he had done. "The war is over," he said. But when his soldiers heard it, although they were hungry and sick and tired out axid weary with so much fighting, they crowded about their good General when he came back from arranging things with General Grant, and cried like children. "General, take back that word," cried one. "We'll die, but we won't surrender ' General Lee looked on the brave men lovingly "No, no," he said. "We have done all brave men can do. If I let another brave man be killed I should be a murderer. Go home to your wives and children ; whatever may be my fate, you will be safe. God bless you all. Good-by 1 " And then he turned and went into his tent. After President Lincoln was killed, there was seme fear that the new President would do some harm to General Lee, because he had been the leader of the Confederate soldiers. But General Grant stood up boldly and said : " You must not touch him. I gave him my solemn prom- ise that he should not be touched, and you must not let me break my word." So the great and terrible Civil War in the United States came to an end. Peace was in the land, and as men looked back and thought it all over, the one man who stood out before all the world as the greatest soldier in the South in all that long and bloody war was Robert E. Lee, the General of its Army, the son of brave "Light-horse " Harry Lee. When peace came and the soldiers had nothing to do in the way of ROBERT E. LEE 177 war, General Lee went home a poor man. He had lost almost all he owned in those four dreadful years of war. But the people of his own State loved and honored him so much that they made him the head of one of the best schools in Virginia — Washington College. And as soon as it was known that General Lee was to be the President of the Col- lege, young men flocked to it so that they might say they had General Lee for a teacher. He was as good a lesson himself as anything they could learn from books. Do you know how? He was so fine a man that they looked up to him and tried to be as good and true and noble as he was. For five years he lived as President of Washington College. Then, on the twelfth day of October, 1870, he died, there among his students and his books, a noble old man of sixty- three. He was a great soldier and a great man. He was such a good man, too. He loved little children dearly and always saluted every boy or girl who bowed or courtesied to him as he rode through the streets on his splendid big horse, " Traveler." Once he came upon some boys he knew who were quarrel- ing. Indeed, they called each other names, and began to fight "Oh, General!" cried a little girl, running up to him, "please don't let them fight." The General took the boys by the shoulder. "Come, boys, boys!" he said, gently. "That isn't nice. There is some better way to settle your quarrels than with your fists.'" And how he did love little girls ! " Where is my little Miss Mildred ?" he would ask when he got home from a ride or a walk, as the night was coming on. "She is my light-bearer. The house is never dark if she is in it." 178 ' ROBERT E. LEE Was not that a sweet and pretty way to speak about his lit- tle daughter ? Do you wonder that the children all loved him ? What made General Lee a great soldier was that he knew how to lead a smaller number of soldiers against a larger number and defeat the enemy by not letting them know what he was doing until he had done it. This is what is called strategy. It was by this that General Washington won many battles in the Revolution, and in the same way General Lee was victorious over and over again in the Civil War. But he won quite as much by his great, gentle heart as by his flashing sword. After the war was over people loved him dearly, and since his death they have loved him even more, because, as they look back and see how good and grand a man he was, they forget that he failed ; they only remember how hard he tried and how well he did. All through the South he loved so well and which loved him so much, statues, to-day, are being built to keep alive the memory of his life. To-day, North as well as South, all America honors him, and as the years go by the boys and girls, who, as they grow up, will hear his name and know his story, will think of him not as Lee the Confederate General, but as Robert E. Lee, the soldier, the gentleman, the American. STORY OF THE BENEVOLENT LIFE OF George Peabody, Our First Great Philanthropist GEORGE PEABODY. ica, and to know how he did so much DO my lit- tle friends under- stand what a philanthropist is? He is a man who so loves his fel- low man that he desires to help better the condi- tion of the poor and give them a chance to live happier and more useful lives. Would you like to know about the first man who became a great philan- thropist in Amer- for the benefit of 179 i8o GEORGE PEABODY mankind ? I will tell you, for his story is a very interesting one, and the reading of it maybe the means of inducing other boys to do likewise. Perhaps you think that this great phil- anthropist, who gave away millions of dollars, was rich when he was born, and that he was raised by kind and indulgent parents, who gave him everything he wanted and sent him to school until he was a grown man, that he might train his mind and heart for the great work which he did in life. This is, no doubt, what George Peabody deserved to have had done for him; but, perhaps, if it had been done, it would have made him selfish and spoiled him for usefulness to his fellow-men. How- ever this may be, we will tell you the story just as it happened, and leave you to draw the lessons from his life. In the year 1795, when George Washington was serving his second term as President of the United States, and Robert Fulton, about whom you have read in a previous chapter, was living in France, thinking about making the first steam- boat, a little baby boy was born in Danvers, Massachusetts, on the eighteenth day of February. They called his name George. His father, Mr. Peabody, was a very poor man. George was sent to school in Danvers, where he learned to read and write, and began to study arithmetic. But when he was eleven years of age his father became so poor that he had to tell George he could not go to school any longer. So he was apprenticed to Mr. Sylvester Proctor, who kept a country store at Danvers, and who agreed to teach George how to be a mer- chant. In this way George earned his board and clothes, and Mr. Proctor paid his father a few dollars a year for his services. George stayed in Mr. Proctor's store for five years, and by the end of that time, though he was only about sixteen years old, he had learned all that Mr. Proctor could teach him about the business. He knew very much about goods, was so GEORGE PEABODY i8i correct in keeping accounts, and so polite to those who came to buy, that he was considered a real good mer- chant, and everybody who came to the store was his friend. They all said, whenever the)- bought any arti- cle from George Peabody, the y were sure it was just exactly what he represented it to be. He was never known to cheat or tell a falsehood about anything that he sold. When George Peabody was sixteen years of age, his older brother, David, invited him to come to New- bur yport to be clerk in his store. David was con- siderably older than George, and, by hard work, saved money enough to start for himself a nice dry goods store in Newburyport; so George went to clerk for his brother. Newburyport was a much larger town than MODERN blul L::. IN LOiTON i82 GEORGE PEABODY Danvers, and the new clerk thought he was quite fortunate in getting the position. Besides, he now knew so much about selling goods that his brother could afford to pay him better wages, and his father permitted him to keep it all for himself All these things made George more attentive to his duties than ever. The other merchants soon noticed how smart he was, and they also noticed that he did not spend his time around the taverns and had none of the ugly habits common to other young men. In a little while he was one of the best-known and best-liked young men in the neighborhood. George was beginning to think this was the place for him to settle down and grow up as a merchant, and he was quite pleased with the prospect before him. But there was a sad experience awaiting him, which came very suddenly, as such things generally do. One morning the people were awakened very early by the ringing of fire-bells. George jumped out of bed and looked out of his window and saw the smoke ris- ing black and dense in the direction of his brother's store. He and his brother quickly hurried down to the place, where a great crowd of people had already gathered before them, and they found, indeed, that it was his brother's store wrapped in flames. It was but a little while until everything was burned up, and his poor brother was almost heartbroken at the loss of his many years' savings, for you know there were very few people in those days, indeed, if there were any in this country, who insured their goods and stores as they do now against loss by fire. Several of the merchants in the town offered George em- ployment in their stores, for they knew him to be one of the best clerks in the town. But, while he was waiting to decide the matter, he received a letter from his uncle, John Peabody, GEORGE PEABODY 183 who lived in Georgetown, District of Columbia, which is now a suburb of our great capital city, Washington. This uncle had a dry goods store, and, when he heard of the fire, he at once wrote George to come down and clerk for him. •'JOHNNY BULL," OR No. i, THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE USED. The thought of a trip to Washington City was quite an attraction to the young man of seventeen years, who had never been in the far South, as they then considered Washington ; 12 i84 GEORGE PEABODY in fact, he had never traveled out of the State of Massachu- setts. So after thanking the merchants for their kind offers to give him employment, and bidding his many friends good- by, he took a ship and sailed down the Atlantic Ocean to the mouth of the Potomac River, and then up the Potomac River to the city of Washington. This was a great trip, lasting several days, and George thought the world was a great deal larger than he had ever imagined it to be ; but you must not suppose he was as ignor- ant at this time as when he left school, a little boy of eleven years, for, besides learning so much about business, he had also been reading good books and improving his mind in every way he could. George was gladly welcomed at his uncle's house, and his uncle was so pleased with him, after a short trial, that he turned over his business entirely to him, and, furthermore, had it run in George's name instead of his own. Of course, the young man felt flattered at this, but he afterward had much cause to regret it; for he learned that his uncle was not only a very poor business man, but that he was far in debt. George remained with him two years, when he saw that he could never do any good in managing his uncle's store. Try as hard as he might, and no matter how well he managed, his uncle was always doing something which would use up all the money they made and kept tnem always in debt. He there- fore determined to resign, that is, give up his employment with his uncle, which he did. Soon after George left his uncle's store, a man by the name of Elisha Riggs sent for him. Mr. Riggs had just opened a wholesale dry goods house in Georgetown. He brought over silks and very fine goods from England, and also bought goods from Philadelphia and New York, which he sold to GEORGE PEABODY 185 merchants in Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Indiana and other States, some of which were very little settled. Mr. Riggs told George that he wanted an active, energetic young man who knew about goods and would be able to buy and sell them, and, furthermore, that he should perhaps want to send him occasionally into the other States to dispose of his goods. George liked this idea very much, for it would give him an opportunity to learn about other sections of the coun- try and other people, so he accepted Mr. Riggs' offer and entered, as he always did before, with all his heart and soul into the work. There were many things about the wholesale business which he had never learned in a retail store; but it was only a little while until he had mastered everything, and Mr. Riggs found him so bright and attentive to his duties that he made him his manager, when he was a little over nineteen years of age. George succeeded so well that Mr. Riggs was not only satis- fied, but, after a few month's trial, invited George to his home one day, and, after they had eaten dinner together, astonished the young man by saying he wanted to make him his partner in business. George told him how much he was pleased at being thought worthy of becoming a partner in the firm, but he said there were two things to prevent his doing so: First, he had no money witli which to buy an interest, and, second, he was not yet twenty years of age, so he could not become legally responsible with Mr. Riggs for the acts of the firm. Mr. Riggs smilingly patted the young man on the shoulder and said in a kind, fatherly way, " I know all that, George, but you see I am taking the risk, so you need have no fears as to the money. Besides," continued Mr. Riggs, "if you manage the business well, your part of the profits will soon pay for i86 GEORG-E PEABODY your interest, and by that time you will be old enough to become a lawful partner." It is no wonder, that after such kind and generous treat- ment, George Peabody worked both night and day to make the business a great success. He said, in after-life, that he wasn't half so anxious to make money for himself as to keep Mr. Riggs from feeling he had made a mistake in placing so much confidence in him and giving him so great an oppor- tunity. Thus, before he was twenty years of age, George Peabody was going to New York and Philadelphia, to buy the goods for the new firm. He also traveled on horseback, going into the wild regions of other States to look after the interests of the firm, which was now called by the name of "Riggs & Peabody," and was spreading its trade that was growing very rapidly in the States where it had never gone before. All of this, Mr. Riggs freely admitted, was due to the wise management and watchful care of his young partner. In 1815 the business was found to be so extensive that it was thought necessary to remove it to Baltimore, where they would have better and quicker means of shipping their goods. By this time George had also noticed that very many of the country merchants were in the habit of letting the firm keep all of the ready money which they had and did not need in their business, and, in this w^ay, they had always on hand a large amount of money belonging to the merchants who bought from them. This was because the merchants felt that it was not safe to keep it in their country stores, and there were no banks con- venient for them to put it in. Hence they let Riggs & Pea- body keep their money. George, whose eyes were always open for opportunities for making money, called Mr. Riggs' GEORGE PEABODY 187 attention to this, and said they might just as well start a bank- ing business in connection with their business as merchants. Mr. Riggs agreed, and that is how George Peabody com- menced as a banker, just before he was twenty-one years of age. He had never had any experience in banking, but, as everybody now knows, he became one of the greatest bankers in the world. It was not long after Mr. Peabody went to Baltimore before he was, as he had been everywhere else, noted for his good judgment, his politeness and his kindness to everybody. His character was so good that the Legislature of Maryland made his bank the financial ^^__ _ _^^ agent of the State ; that is, Riggs & Pea- body had charge of all of the State's money, and when the State wanted to borrow or lend money, it was done through Mr. Pea- body's bank. The firm of Riggs & Pea- the first fri body grew so fast that, in 1822, they had to establish branches in Philadelphia and New York, so that Mr. Peabody divided his time between their headquarters in Baltimore and the branch stores in the two other cities. In a few years their business with England became so great that he had to make trips across the ocean. He went for the first time in 1827, and for the next ten years he crossed back and forth two or three times almost every year In 1829, Mr. Riggs, being rather an old man, concluded to withdraw from the firm and relieve himself from the business MEETING-HOUSE, BURLINGTON, N.J. 188 GEORGE PEABODY cares. He therefore took out a very large sum of money, sev- eral times as great as the sum he put in, and still left a con- siderable sum belonging to him in the business. The name of the firm was then changed from "Riggs & Peabody" to "Peabody, Riggs & Co." In 1836, Mr. Peabody found it necessary for him to have a branch house in London, as he was kept so much of his time on the ocean, going back and forth, and he had to buy almost all the fine goods used in this country in London, because we were not then, you know, a manufacturing people. The Lon- don house was opened in 1836, and the next year, Mr. Pea- body, who was then forty-two years old, removed to London, and remained there most of the time for the balance of his life, though he was in America many times, and always claimed America as his home. It was lucky for the American people that Mr. Peabody did go to London to live, because this same year, 1837, there came a great financial panic. That means the merchants were broken up, the banks were failing, and the people were unable to pay their debts ; and tlie English people who had sold to the merchants in this country became very much alarmed, and got their money out of the country anyway they could, no matter how many people it caused to fail/ Mr. Peabody by this time had made many acquaintances among the leading business men and bankers in London, and they invited him into the great London bank, known as the Bank of England, which is still the largest banking house in the world, and asked him a great many questions about Amer- ica. He explained everything to them in such a manner that they had more confidence in our people, and hundreds of merchants were saved from failure by Mr. Peabody' s influence. In the meantime the business of Peabody, Riggs & Co, grew GEORGE PEABODY 189 larger than ever. They now had many ships carrying their goo'ds from England to America, and bringing back such American goods as sold best in England. George Peabody seemed to know just what and when to buy for both countries, and the firm grew rich very fast. Any merchant can get rich if he knows just what to buy and when to buy it, and when THE BULLOCK-HOE PERFECTING PRESS. and where to sell. Good judgment is worth more than money m business, and this is what Mr. Peabody had. The merchants on both sides of the Atlantic began to leave large sums of money in Mr. Peabody's hands, just as the country merchants had left it in his hands when he was in Baltimore. Finally, so much of this money accumulated, and he had so much banking to do, that his time was almost entirely taken up with this work. I90 GEORGE PEABODY So, in 1843, Mr. Peabody concluded to give his time to this branch of the business, and he withdrew from the old firm and started a new one under the name of ** George Peabody & Co.," which did a banking and brokerage business, and his dealings were almost entirely with Americans and in Ameri- can securities. Mr. Peabody was very proud of his country and never let a chance pass to tell people that he was an American. In his great banking-house, his associates and many of his clerks were Americans. He represented his house as an American banking-house in London, and he had a reading-room in the building, and the tables contained all the best American magazines and newspapers. Every Fourth of July, Mr. Peabody gave a celebration at one of the public houses, to w^hich he invited all the promi- nent Americans in London, as well as many of his English friends, and they enjoyed their Independence Day just as if they had been in their native country. Another thing to show how patriotic Mr. Peabody was hap- pened in 1 85 1. That year England had a great exhibition, something like our Centennial or World's Fair, though not so large, to which all the nations of the earth were invited, to send specimens of their workmanship, inventions, etc. For some reason, the Congress of the United States failed to vote any money to make an exhibition for our country. This grieved Mr. Peabody very much, and he gave fifteen thousand dollars out of his own pocket to prepare and fit up a space in the exhibition for Americans who wanted to show their inven- tions. Was not that patriotic? Among other things that were shown there was the great McCormick reaper, which had never before been seen in Eng- land. Another was the celebrated Colt's revolver. Another GEORGE PEABODY 191 was a lock which burglars could not pick, made by an Ameri- can by the name of Hobbs. Another was Hoe's wonderful printing press, the greatest then in the world, and the greatest even now. He also showed Benjamin West's fine paintings, which, though they were done in London, he claimed belonged to us because Mr. West was an American. Another thing which attracted great attention was a celebrated piece of sculp- ture, known as Powers' Greek Slave, also made by an Amer- ican ; and many other things which beat the English people so far that they had much more respect for America after that. The great newspapers of London praised Mr. Peabody and his country, and said the English people got more benefit from the things shown by the United States than from those from any other country. You say this was noble and patriotic in Mr. Peabody. So it was, but, remember, all great men love their countries. It is only the mean and cowardly man who does not love his native land. Whenever you see a person who will not stand up for his own country, he is like a boy who maltreats his mother, sure to be mean and cowardly. Now, let me tell you some of the habits of this very great and rich man — for he was now worth many millions of dollars. In personal appearance he was very much like many other men. His face was rather pale and thoughtful; but his body was strong, because he had been used to simple living all his life. He was of about medium height and very muscular, but not fat and chubby, like Doctor Franklin. He disliked all kinds of display, so he was simple in his dress, though always neat as a pin. He wore no jewelry except a fine gold watch, and that was fastened with a black silk cord. He thought it was foppish to wear the big dang- ling chains that were common in those days. 192 GEORGE PEABODY Mr. Peabody never married. We do not know why, but some of our greatest and best men have lived all their lives as bachelors. Among them were Washington Irving, the great American novelist, and John Greenleaf Whittier, the noble Quaker poet, whom everybody loved. It was natural for Mr. Peabody to be saving. When a poor boy, he had to count his pennies very carefully before he spent them. This habit clung to him through life, and he never wasted anything. He was not given to the extravagant use of tobacco or intoxi- cating liquors. Very many men in London, who did not own one tenth as much as he, spent ten times as much on them- selves. He was often seen making his dinner on a mutton- chop and a cup of tea or a glass of milk, just because he knew this was better for his health than more expensive diet. I have already told you George Peabody was rigidly honest, and he wanted everybody else to be honest too. On one occa- sion, when he rode on an English railway, the conductor charged him a shilling too much for his fare. He paid the shilling, looked very coldly at the man, and asked him his name and address. The conductor pretended to be offended at this, but that made no difference to Mr. Peabody. When he got off the train, he went straight to the directors of the railroad and told them what the conductor had done, and had him discharged. Mr. Peabody said he did not mind paying the shilling himself, because he could afford to do it; but the man was, no doubt, cheating many travelers just as he had done him, and others could not afford to be robbed of their money. Now, if any of my little readers think Mr. Peabody did wrong in this, they are mistaken. He did exactly right. Perhaps the conductor thought he was mean and spiteful for having him discharged, but I will prove to you that he was, on the con- trary, the most liberal man in the world. GEORGE PEABODY [93 As far back as 1835, Mr. Pcabody gave to the State of Mary- land the sum of two hundred thousand dollars, for which the Legislature sent him a vote of thanks. This was his first large In 1852, w^hen Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, the great Arctic xplorer, of whom you have, no doubt, heard, was sent into the cold regions of the North to hunt for Sir John Franklin, Mr. gift MEMORIAL HALL, HARVARD COLLEGE. Harvard College received the gift of $150,000 from George Peabody. Peabody gave ten thousand dollars to help in this great under- taking. The same year he concluded to build a library and to stock it with books in his old home down in Danvers, Mas- sachusetts. So he gave thirty thousand dollars to build this library, in order that the people and the boys and girls of his old town might have better opportunities than he had when a boy for studying and reading good books. Later on in his 194 GEORGE PEABODY life he gave one hundred and seventy thousand dollars more, making two hundred thousand dollars in all to the Peabody Institute at Danvers. Afterwards he gave fifty thousand dollars to build another such institution in North Danvers. You know the Bible tells us that charity begins at home, so the first gift that Mr. Pea- body made was to the State of Maryland, which had been his home when he began his career as a great merchant, and now he had given two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in all to the little city of Danvers, where he was born. In 1857 Mr. Peabody visited the United States again, and spent a while in his home city, Baltimore, Maryland. This he loved next to Danvers, the town where he was born. So he gave to Baltimore three hundred thousand dollars to build a great library and institution of learning. They named it the Peabody Institute, as had been done in Danvers. After- wards, Mr. Peabody saw that the great city of Baltimore needed to have a larger institution than the one they had already built, and he gave them seven hundred thousand dol- lars more to make it large enough and fit it up in the very best manner. He then gave twenty-five thousand dollars to Phillip's Academy in Massachusetts, and twenty-five thousand dollars to Kenyon College. Then Mr. Peabody went back to England, after having done what he thought he ought to do for his native land at that time ; he turned his attention to the poor people in London. He went around among the tenement-houses and saw how sometimes a large family lived in one miserable little hot room where the air could hardly get in. He noticed what poor food they ate, and how pale and sickly the children looked, and his great heart was moved with pity for them. So he went out into different parts of the city where it was cool and airy and GEORGE PEABODY 195 he built great rows of comfortable houses and gave three mil- lions of dollars. You may understand how much this was if you remember it takes ten hundred thousand dollars to make a million. These houses that Mr. Peabody built for the poor people furnished comfortable homes to over twenty thousand persons ; and the poor people in London bless his name above all other good men who have helped them in their distress. Many of them do not even know but that he was an English- man ; but everyone know^s the name of George Peabody, and they love him as, perhaps, they love no other man. Queen Victoria, the great Queen of England, was so thank- ful to Mr. Peabody for his rich gift that she sent him a beauti- ful letter, and had her portrait painted by the finest artist she could get and sent it to Mr. Peabody as a gift. This portrait was so large and the frame so handsome that it cost the Queen forty thousand dollars. It w^as the most expensive portrait she ever gave to anyone. About this time the great Civil War in the United States was over, and Mr. Peabody made another visit to this country. He was very sorry that the Southern people and the Northern people had been at war with each other, for he was born in the North, but he had lived and done much of his business in the South. He therefore loved the people of both sections of the country; and this great and bloody war, which lasted four long years, had killed off thousands upon thousands of the best men from both the North and the South. The first thing Mr. Peabody did, when he came over, was to see how the colleges were doing, and whether they were able to educate the people. He gave one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Harvard College, and one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Yale College, the two greatest col- leges in the country. Then he gave two hundred thousand 196 GEORGE PEABODY dollars to hospitals and soldiers' homes and other charitable objects. For this generous liberality the United States Con- gress voted that the thanks of the whole nation should be extended to him, and they also had a medal made of pure gold and presented to him from the United States Government. Mr. Peabody now visited the South, and he saw how desti- tute the people were. The rich farms had almost all their fences torn down, and many of the houses had been burned. Churches and schoolhouses were going to rack. This is not strange, for it was in that section of the country that the fierce fighting was carried on, and the South had to feed both the Southern and the Northern armies nearly all the time during these four long years. The w^hole country looked desolate, and the people were downhearted. Besides this, there were three or four millions of black peo- ple who were now made free, but not one in a hundred of them even knew their A B C's. Mr. Peabody said that while they were slaves, it was perhaps very well that they should not be educated; but now they had become free they must be educated, or the Government some day might be destroyed through their ignorance. So he gave the great sum of three million five hundred thousand dollars to help along the cause of education in the Southern States. This was his greatest and grandest gift, and did more good perhaps than any other. Every Southern State received its portion of this money, and the wise and noble Southern man, Doctor J. L. M. Curry, President of a college in Richmond, Virginia, was made agent of this fund. It was invested wisely so it would bring continual interest. After a while, the great college, known as the Peabody Normal College, was estab- lished out of this money in connection with the University of Nashville, Tennessee. GEORGE PEABODY 197 Every Southern State was entitled to send as many of its young men and young women as wanted to become teachers to this college to be educated free. They not only had their tuition given them free, but enough money was allowed every student to pay his board and expen- ses until he could gra- duate as a teacher from this college. They then went back home to their States, where they obligated themselves to teach. Thousands of the best teachers now in the South at the head of its col- leges and its public schools were CHAPEL OF YALE COLLEGE. The sum of $150,000 was given this College by Mr. Peabody. educated by Mr. George Peabody at this great Normal College. Besides this, in all the States the ''Peabody Fund," as it is called, is used to help along the cause of education. There 198 GEORGE PEABODY are Peabody Institutes all over the land, and thousands upon thousands are being educated at the expense of this great- hearted rich man, who was so poor when he was a boy that he had to quit school and go to work when only eleven years old. Mr. Peabody thought at this time of making his home in America, but the hard work he had done all his life had injured his health, and he found he could not live as comfortably in this climate as he could in England, where it does not become so warm in the summer, so he returned to England. The Queen, when she heard of the great things he had dorte for the suffering of his own land, offered to make him a baron, but he declined, saying he was only a simple citizen. She then offered to make him a member of the Order of Bath and bestow upon him the grand cross, which was the highest honor she could think of, but Mr. Peabody again declined. The Queen then asked him what gift he would accept from her, for she wanted to express her regard in some way. Mr. Peabody said he w^ould like to have a simple letter from the Queen, written with her own hand, which he wanted to carry across the ocean to put in a frame and hang up where the people would sometimes come and think of him. He wanted them to see this letter that they might know he had the good- will and friendship of the Queen. It was in answer to this request that the Queen wrote him the letter and sent him the fine portrait of herself, which we have already told you about. If you ever go to the Peabody Institute at Danvers, you will see the Queen's letter and this forty-thousand-dollar portrait of the Queen hanging side by side in the Institute. They were placed there by Mr. Peabody the next time he came to America. In 1868 Mr. Peabody endowed an art school in Rome, Italy, and in 1869 he made his last visit to his beloved America. GEORGE PEABODY 199 On this visit he gave one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to establish a public museum at Salem, Massachusetts, and to several other charitable objects one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars. Then he went back to England, and what do you suppose he found when he went out in London? Why, in one of the finest parts of the city there stood a beau- tiful bronze statue of George Peabody. During his absence in America, it had been made by his English friends; and the Prince of Wales, the son of the Queen, (now King Edward VII.) had unveiled it in the presence of the people, and made a speech, praising the great philanthropist and calling George Peabody the best man that ever lived. A few weeks after this Mr. Peabody died in London, on the twelfth day of November, 1869, when he \\as nearly seventy- five years of age. All the world mourned the loss of this good man. The great people of England turned out to his 13 THE PRINCE OF WALES At the time when he unveiled the statue to George Peabody. 200 GEORGE PEABODY funeral. The Queen had him buried in Westminster Abbey, the place where only the noted people of England lie buried. This was the first time that a private citizen had ever been buried in Westminster Abbey ; and although the Queen and the English people would have been pleased to keep him there, it was not to be so. Mr. Peabody told them before he died that he wanted to be buried by the side of his old mother in America. So after his body had been kept in Westminster Abbey for a while, the Monarch, the finest and fastest warship in the British Navy, brought Mr. Peabody's remains across the Atlantic Ocean. Before coming to land. Admiral Farragut, who com- manded the Union warships in the great war between the North and South, took the American Squadron and went out to meet the MoiiarcJi. The casket containing Mr. Peabody's remains was transferred from the Monaixh to the Flagship of the American Squadron, and they took him back to Dan- vers, which he left nearly fifty-nine years before when a poor boy of sixteen, and laid him in a grave beside his dear old mother. Then the people of the town got up a great petition, which almost everybody signed, requesting the Legislature of Massa- chusetts to change the name of the town from Danvers to Peabody, which was done. Therefore, if you look on your map now, you will find the name Peabody instead of Danvers. Mr. Gladstone, the great and noble statesman of England, said: 'Tt was George Peabody who taught the world how a man might be the master of his fortune, not its slave." We point our young friends to the life of George Peabody as a noble model for all those who expect to be merchants and business men. THE MARVELOUS GENIUS OF Thomas A. Edison, The Greatest Inventor of the World. "I " I uever did anything worth doing by accident, nor ( inventions come by accident." ,— Thomas A . £dison. NEVER did any- thing worth doing by accident, nor did any of my in- ventions come by acci- dent." These are the im- Dressive words of one of J. the most interesting men whose lives have ever been told for boys and girls. He simply tells us that his success was not accidental, as, however great he has become, it has been through hard work and great care, and by doing everything in the best way possible as it came along. After Benjamin Frank- lin showed how to catch 201 202 THOMAS A. EDISON lightning in 1752, and run it down a lightning rod into the ground, another man by the name of Samuel F. B. Morse found out how to make this same electricity carry messages along a wire, and he invented the telegraph in 1835 — nearly one hundred years after Benjamin Franklin discovered that lightning and electricity were the same. Samuel Morse was a great man, but we are to tell you of one much greater than he, who so improved the telegraph that it w^ould do ten times as fast work as Morse's machine. His name is Thomas Alva Edison, and he is called the Wizard of Meiilo Park. Do you know what a wizard is? It is one that can do very wonderful things that people cannot understand. Did you ever hear of Aladdin in the fable, who is said to have pos- sessed a wonderful lamp which he could rub, and whatever he wished for would come? Well, that is only a fable; but Thomas A. Edison has done things that have made people wonder almost as much as at Aladdin and his lamp. It is the true story of his wonderful life that we are going to tell you. Thomas A. Edison, besides his many wonderful discoveries in electricity, has made some of the most useful machines for the benefit of mankind, and he has made more inventions than any other man. He has now more than two hundred and fifty patents. No other man has ever secured half so many. We can, of course, tell you of only a few of his wonderful inventions. But, first, let us give you the story of his inter- esting boyhood. Thomas Alva Edison was born February 1 1, 1847, in Milan, Erie County, Ohio. In olden times his father's people were Hollanders and lived in Holland along the Zuyder Zee, which you know is an arm of the North Sea, running into the land. Many of them were, by trade, millers. His great-grandfather THOMAS A. EDISON 203 was born in Amsterdam, and when he was a young man moved to America, and during the Revolutionary War was a banker in the city of New York. He died at the great age of one hundred and two years. His mother's name was Nancy Elliot, whose parents were Scotch people. In her girlhood she lived in Canada and was THE BIRTHPLACE OF THOMAS A. EDISOK, O. educated there for a teacher, and it was there that Samuel Edison, Thomas' father, met and married her. So you see Thomas Edison is part Dutchman and part Scotchman, and this perhaps, accounts for his wonderful ability to work so long and so well and take so little rest. The Hollanders are very strong people, and are able to do more work than any other nation. It was from them that 204 THOMAS A. EDISON Thomas Edison received his wonderful power of endurance. For, as you will see, he sometimes worked days without sleep. The Scotch people, on the other hand, are very determined. They are close students, and, as a rule, have quick and keen minds, and w^ant to look into and understand things. Thomas Edison showed, when he was a little boy, that he w^as both a Dutchman and a Scotchman in strength of body and his bright and strong mind. His mother had been a teacher, and it was she who gave this promising boy his early instruction. It is said that only two months of his life did Edison attend school. Nevertheless, when ten years old, he was so bright that he could read Gibbon's '' History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," Burton's dry book called the "Anatomy of Melancholy," and David Hume's "History of England." He was also at that age studying the "Dictionary of Sciences" and the "Penny Encyclopedia." When twelve years of age, he even read one of the hardest books in the world, Newton's "Principia," though he says he did not understand it. You will not find one great man in a hundred who has had several years of schooling, who has read the above learned but hard and dry books. This show^s you how anxious young Edison w^as to learn, and whenever a boy wants to learn, he will learn, whether he goes to school or not. Whenever a boy does not want to learn, no matter how much schooling you give him, it is apt to do him very little good. Mr. Samuel Edison, the father of Thomas, had a very com- fortable but plain home, which you will see in the picture, in Milan, w^here Thomas was born, but in 1854, wdien Thomas was only seven years old, his father lost all his little savings and had to move out of this house and begin living anew, in the town of Port Huron, Michigan. Edison's mother taught THOMAS A. EDISON 205 him and the other children at home; but instead of having to urge Tom on as most boys, she had to hold him back and take his books away from him. He was so anxious to learn that he would spend all his time reading if she would let him. Often she read to the children, after they had learned their lessons, much to Tom's delieht. You will laugh when I tell you this funny thing that little Tom did one day when about five years old. His sister tells it for the truth; but it is said to plague Mr. Edison now if anyone speaks of it. There was an old goose sitting on a nest full of eggs. Tom watched her day after day. One morning he found the shells broken, and, toddling about the nest, were several little goslings in a greenish- go 1 d e n down. H e wanted to know how -.1 1 /- 1 , THOMAS A. EDISON, WHEN PUBLISHER OF THE "GRAND It nappenecl, tor he al- trunk herald.- 15 years old. ways wanted an explanation for everything. His father told him that the warmth from the old goose's body hatched the goslings out of the eggs. Next day they missed Tom, and, after hunting a long time, found him curled up in a barn on a nest full of eggs, trying to hatch them out with the warmth of his body. When Thomas was twelve years of age he got a position on the railroad as a newsboy. That means one who 2o6 THOMAS A. EDISON sells books and papers, and candy and pencils, etc., on the trains as they pass back and forth through the country. He liked this position very much, because it gave him a chance to see and read so many new books. As soon as he had car- ried his books and papers through the train and sold what the people wanted, he would settle himself down in a corner and spend every spare moment in reading. Strange to say, instead of reading the trashy books of wild tales, such as spoil boys' minds, he spent his time over maga- zines which described new inventions, and in reading books that taught him something. Among other books he always carried with him a book of chemistry, and poured over it an hour or two almost every day, though he could not pronounce many of the hard names and did not know what a large part of it meant. By saving his money he was soon able to buy a lot of chemicals, and he set up a little experimenting laboratory in the baggage-car, and when he read about the strange things that would happen if you put two different kinds of chemicals together, he would, according to the directions in his book, put them together and see what they would do. This amused the baggageman, and he encouraged Tom to learn. But the boy was not content with doing just what the book told him. He was always putting chemicals together that the book did not say anything about, to see what they would do ; and about this he was always cautioned to be care- ful. One end of Edison's run as newsagent was at the city of Detroit, Michigan. He had to lay over there sometimes for a day, and he spent almost every other night in that city. Very soon he began to go to the great Detroit Free Library. Now he had an idea that all the smart men in the world had read all the books that had been printed, and if he expected THOMAS A. EDISON 207 to be a well-read man he should have to do likewise. He looked at the great shelves of books, rising one above another and running the whole length of the wall, and he thought it was a great undertaking to read all these books, but he deter- mined to do it. He concluded that the way to read that library through was to begin at one end of the shelf and read along to the other end of it; then take another shelf and read to the end of it, and so on until he had read all the rows of books. Every day and every night when he was in Detroit, he spent at the library, and, after several months, they noticed that he was going to the same shelf and taking the books, one after another, just as he came to them, no matter what they were about. One day the librarian questioned him why he was doing that. He said he had started in to read the library through ; and by that time he had actually finished all the books for about fifteen feet along one of the shelves. This seems very funny, but it goes to show how determined the boy was, and when he once set himself to do a task he was very apt to carry it through. Of course, as soon as he was shown his mistake, he gave up this way of reading and took the advice of those who knew how to direct him. In the meantime, Edison had been so faithful in his duties as a newsboy that he had made and saved quite a little sum of money, besides what he gave his parents ; and, when he was fourteen years old, he got the news company to give him the exclusive right to sell papers over a certain division of the railroad between Detroit and Port Huron, and he hired four assistants to help him. Let me now tell you a trick Edison did in 1862, when he was about fifteen years old. By a trick, I mean a shrewd and smart thing which injured nobody, but which brought Edison lots of profit. At that time the war between the North and 2o8 THOMAS A. EDISON South was raging, and the press every day was full of the exciting accounts of the movements of the soldiers. When the great fight took place at Pittsburg Landing, Ten- nessee, and nearly twenty-five thousand men were killed and wounded, Edison made an agreement with the telegraph operators along the line which he ran from Detroit, offering to give them a daily paper and two or three monthly maga- zines, if they would put up notices on their bulletin boards about the fight and say that a full account of it would be found in the Detroit Free Press. By his winning ways, he also got the news telegraphed all along the lines (for by this time he had begun to study tele- graphy himself by watching the operators, and had made friends of most all of them). He then went to the editor of the Detroit Free Press, Mr. William F. Story, and persuaded him to let him have a thousand extra copies of the Free Press, to be paid for when he should return, for he did not have enough money then to pay for them. At the first station Utica, Edison said he had been accus- tomed to sell two papers at five cents each. This time a great crowd was waiting at the station and he sold forty papers. At the next station he found a still larger crowd waiting and clamoring for the news of the battle at Pittsburg Landing, so he raised the price of the paper to ten cents and sold one hun- dred and fifty, where he had before sold only one dozen papers. When he came to Port Huron, the town being a mile from the station, he shouldered a bundle of papers and started for the town. About half-way there he met a great crowd hurry- ing toward the station, and, knowing they were after his papers, he stopped in front of a church where they were holding a prayer-meeting and raised the price of his papers to twenty- five cents. In a few minutes the prayer-meeting was adjourned, THOMAS A. KDISON everybody was reading his paper, and he had his pockets loaded vv.th sdver and not a paper left. Edison now had considerable njoney of his own, and he went back to the city of Detroit and walked ■, - ^ in with a smiling face to pay for his papers , at two and one-half | cents each, Avhich he ' had sold at an average of twenty cents each. ' The editor laughed, patted the boy on the back and complimented ^^^;;Z.:::.:::;:^^:^;;;::;;;^ him on his business tact and shrewdness. In the meantime Edison had often visited the type-setting rooms of the S Press and other papers, and at odd times had learned to 2 type. It now occurred to him that he might, if he had the type, start a little paper of his own. This^■d a he playfl announced to the editor of the De^, Free Press. xSe ed^^ ; tor, to encourage him, took him down into the j type-room and showed r; i him a lot of old type ■ which they had ceased to use, since they had \ boug-ht new ones, and i sold it to him for a '^ -^^-^^^.r::^,,^,^^^^ ,,,r' ; very small price. Edi- EDISON AS A YOUNG TELEGRAPH OPERATOR SOn at OUCC fitted IIH P pnntmg-office in the baggage-car, where he had his £mTcaI laboratory n. one corner, and his friend, the baggate-m" er and bs newsboy helpers with himself set the t>f elide up 2IO THOMAS A. EDISON and printed the first edition of a small paper which they called the Grand Trunk Herald. It gave the news of the railroad men and little items of general news. If a man was discharged, or a new man put to work, or an accident occurred on the road, or the time of the running of the trains was changed, or any- thing interesting to the railroad men happened, it was sure to be in the Grand Trunk Herald, and in a little while the boy had several hundred regular subscribers. But the Grand Trunk Herald came to a sad end, and with it Edison came to grief. As we told you before, Edison was always experimenting with dangerous chemicals. One day he dropped a bottle of acid, which set the car on fire and came near burning up the train. When the fire was at last put out, the baggageman was so angry that he kicked Edison's labora- tory out of the door, and threw out all his type and little printing press. Then he boxed Edison's face so hard that he made him deaf on one side, and he never could hear again on that side. Poor Edison was then put off the train, and the Grand Trunk Herald was published no more. But you can't keep a boy with pluck in him down. Edison was determined to have a newspaper, and he soon arranged with a printer-boy, known as the "devil," in a Port Huron newspaper office to join him, and they started a paper, which was called the Paul Pry. The boy from the printing office knew how to print the paper, and he also knew how to write better than Edison, so the Paid Pry was a very much better paper than the Grand Trunk Herald had been. It ran along nicely and had a good many subscribers, but, unfortunately, Edison and his friend were so full of fun that they began to tell unpleasant jokes about different prominent people, and that is what brought their paper to an end. VOne day a subscriber, who had been made the butt of one of their THOMAS A. EDISON 211 jokes, met Edison down by the river St. Clair, and when Edi- son refused to apologize for what he had printed in the paper, he grew so angry that he picked the young editor up, boxed his ears and threw him into the river. After this the Paul Pry was not printed any more. I omitted to tell you before that after Edison was thrown out of the car by the baggageman, he took his chemical appar- atus to the cellar of his father's house at Port Huron. Before this, Thomas had learned considerably by watching the opera- tors send telegrams, by asking them questions, and by studying as much as he could during his short stay in the office. I must tell you also that during Edison's four years as news- agent, from the time he was twelve until he was sixteen years old, he earned and gave his parents about five hundred dollars every year. So by the time he was sixteen years old he had paid his parents about two thousand dollars in cash, besides almost supporting himself. Now that he had set himself up permanently in his father's cellar, he concluded to add telegraphing to his chemical studies. So he bought a book which proposed to teach him something about it, and he studied diligently night and day until he had gone through it, and thought he understood at least enough about it to make a trial. Not far away there lived a boy near his own age, by the name of James Ward, who was also of an inquiring mind, and the two boys concluded to set up a telegraph line between their homes. At a hardware store they found wire used to hold stovepipes in place. This, they said, would do for the wire. They had observed that the wires of a telegraph were run around glass to keep the electricity from escaping. They had none of these glass pieces, so they took old bottles and wound the wire around them. Next they secured some old 212 THOMAS A. EDISON magnets and got a piece of brass, which they finally fashioned into a key board. Now their line was ready, but they needed the electricity. What should they do to make a current, so they could tele- graph? The way they undertook to do it was very funny. Edison had heard that if you rub a cat's back in the night, you could see sparks of electricity flying from its fur. So Edison secured two cats, attached the wire to their legs, and he and his companion, seizing them by their necks, began vigorously to rub their backs. Of course, the cats objected, and after much rubbing and anxious watching the boys failed to get their line to work. No doubt, if the cats could talk, they would have told the boys they were glad of it. This shows how original Mr. Edi- son is, and, while nothing came from rubbing the cats' backs, many of his other efforts made in just such an original way have turned out for the benefit of the world. About two months after this sad disappointment, there came a happy day for Thomas Edison. His mind had now become given up to the study of electricity, and he wanted to be a telegraph operator. One day he was standing on the platform at the station thinking over many great things that telegraph- ing might do and how much he longed to study it. He looked up the railroad and saw the express locomotive coming round the curve. Right in the middle of the track, between him and the dashing engine, with its flashing head- light, he saw the little three-year-old son of the stationmaster. At the peril of his own life, he dashed in, and, seizing the lit- tle one in his arms, fairly threw himself off the track, with the wheels of the great locomotive almost touching his feet. The stationmaster was overjoyed and offered to teach Edi- son to be a telegraph operator. This kind offer Edison THOMAS A. EDISON 213 accepted, and in five months he was so proficient that he got a position in a Port Huron telegraph office at twenty-five dollars per month. He was now sixteen years of age, and he learned so fast that he was soon the best operator on the line. The newspapers were at that time anxious to get some important news from Congress, correctly and quickly, and they offered the man in charge of the office sixty dollars >/> ^^ S^^ ^^ ^^^ them. The man- f ''^ ager selected the boy Edison SHOP IN WHICH THE FIRST MORSE INSTRUMENT WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR EXHIBITION BEFORE CONGRESS. to do the work, and promised him twenty dollars out of the sixty if he got it. Edison did the work easily and well, and the sixty dollars were paid over to the manager ; but the mean man refused to gWQ Edison the twenty dollars he had promised him. This dishonorable act made the boy so angry that he left that office and went to Canada, where he was soon known as one of the most expert operators in the Dominion. 214 THOMAS A. EDISON While Edison was in Canada, he was required every half- hour to let the superintendent know he was at his post by telegraphing the word *'six." This he thought was unneces- sary, so he invented a little machine that simply by a touch from the watchman would telegraph the little word "six" for him. This gave him an opportunity to spend his time study- ing at his books, but it also got him into very serious trouble ; for once some orders came to stop a train that was coming. Edison was at his books and did not hear the order. When he did see the danger, he undertook to run on ahead and give warning to stop the train, and he fell into a hole and almost killed himself Fortunately, the engineers stopped the two trains before they came together. The manager called Edison to him and told him what a serious thing he had done, and said he would have him sent to the penitentiary for five years. This frightened the poor boy almost out of his wits ; but just at this moment two dandy Englishmen came in, and the super- intendent stopped to talk to them. While he was thus engaged, Edison slipped out and ran to a train which was just ready to start. He knew the conduc- tor, and went aboard and told him he was going to Sarnia, and would like him to let him pass. The conductor consented, and when the superintendent looked around for the boy, Edi- son was gone, he knew not where. Now Sarnia is in Canada, just across the river from Port Huron, Edison's home, and you may believe he was in a hurry when he got there to cross over the line and get into the Uni- ted States, where they could not get him. That winter he stayed at home in Port Huron. One day when they could not telegraph to Sarnia across the river — the ice having broken the wires — it was very important that THOMAS A. EDISON 215 a message should be sent over very quickly. So Edison jumped on a locomotive and tooted the whistle like he would tick the telegraph instrument, making the engine say, in the language of the telegraph, ''Hello, Sarnia! Sarnia, do you get what I say?" After a little while, the telegraph operator on the other side, in Sarnia, understood the language, and. THE TRIUMPHS OF ELECTRIC LIGHTING AS SEEN AT THE PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION AT BUFFALO IN 1901. jumping on an an engine, talked back to Edison with the whistle. This cleverness on Edison's part was much appreciated by the railroad and telegraph people, and they employed him at once and sent him to several places, all of which he lost by experimenting. Finally he went down to Cincinnati, where he got a salary of sixty dollars a month. 14 2i6 THOMAS A. EDISON One day the operators from Cleveland came down to Cin- cinnati. Edison was on the day force and did not have to work at night, but that night all of the Cincinnati office mates went out for what they called a jolly good time with the Cleve- land visitors. Edison never drank nor wasted time, so he stayed at the office all night, and sent in all the reports for the fellows who were off on what they called a "jamboree." Next morning when it was found out that he had done the work of several men in sending in the reports, his employers were so pleased that they increased his salary to one hundred and five dollars a month. From Cincinnati, Edison went to Memphis, Tennessee, where the operators received one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month. Here his ability soon won the respect of some, but it made others very jealous of him. Even the manager himself, who was trying to make some invention known as the "Repeater," was very jealous of Edison. Fin- ally Edison invented a repeater which saved the work of one man to the company. This brought the young man consider- able reputation, but it made the manager so mad, that he made up a false charge against Edison and had him dismissed. Now, though Edison had been earning a large salary, he had been sending most of it home to help his poor parents, and all the balance of it he spent for books and instruments for his experiments, so he had no money left. But he was determined to get to Louisville. So starting from Memphis, Tennessee, he walked one hun- dred miles and then met a conductor he knew and got him to pass him the balance of the way. When he arrived at Louis- ville he was almost frozen. The soles of his shoes were worn off, his feet were sore, he had an old straw hat on, and a poor old linen duster was all he had for an overcoat. In this poor THOMAS A. EDISON 217 plight, he presented himself at the telegraph office, where they received him with smiles of distrust. They thought surely he was a tramp, but, as soon as they saw him at the key- board, they found he was the most expert operator of them EDISON AND HIS GREAT INVENTION. The invention of the phonograph is probably the most marvelous invention of recent years. The discovery of the principle of vibration in metal, due to sound of voice, is said to have been due to chance. Edison saw the possibility and achieved additional fame. all. In a little while they had so much respect for his ability, and he was so pleasant in his ways, that they all learned to like him. About this time there came reports from South America that made Edison think that was the place for him, so with 2i8 THOMAS A. EDISON his little savings he started and got as far as New Orleans, where he found the ship had sailed away; and besides he met an old Spaniard who had traveled much and who told him that the United States was the best country in the world. So Edison decided to stay in America, and without seek- ing another position, he went to Port Huron to visit his par- ents, and from there he went back to Louisville, Kentucky, where he remained for quite a long time, setting up his labora- tory and also collecting around him all sorts of curious ma- chines. When the other operators went on what they called a "jamboree," Edison remained at home and studied. I have told you that he was a great buyer of books. While in Louisville he bought fifty volumes of the North American Review, and carried them home to his room and spent much of the day in reading them. After working all night at the telegraph office, he went home the next morning to find that some of his mean companions had carried off the whole fifty volumes of books, put them in a pawnshop and were lying about in his room drunk on the money. Two of them had actually gotten into his bed with their boots on. He pulled them out of bed and left them lying on the floor to sleep off their drunken stupor, while he went to bed for his regular sleep. Of course, they never paid him for his books, and besides, as long as he stayed there in Louisville, they were continually borrowing money from him, which they never paid back. He was always too generous to refuse anyone when they asked him. After a while they moved out of the old office into a new office, and they made a rule that no on-e should take the instruments from the office, nor should they use any of the chemicals. Edison had been doing this in his experiments, and, as he always returned them in good time, he thought it would make THOMAS A. EDISON 219 no difference, so he concluded to take one of the Instruments away in spite of the rules. Then he concluded he would get some sulphuric acid. This acid accidentally fell from his hands, ate through the floor, dripped through to the manager's room below, ate up his desk and all the carpet. So the next morning Edison was called before the manager and discharged. Does it not look as if the poor young fellow was in what boys call "hard luck?'* He went home aijain to Port Huron, where he re- mained for about a year and a half. By this time he was twenty-one years of age, and he now discovered a means of making one wire do the work of two, thus saving the people who owned the wire five thou- sand dollars, and so pleased the Grand Trunk Company that they presented Edison with a free pass to Boston, and gave him a position in the Franklin Telegraph Office there. But the poor fellow as usual had no money. He had spent ever}^thing for books and experiments, so he had to leave home in his worn- out clothes, and after spending four days on the road and getting veiy little sleep, he appeared before the manager of the office at Boston, where he was to work, and went to work that very same evening. But the operators there were very MR. MARCONI'S APPARATUS FOR WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY. The latest development in use of electricity for sending messages 330 THOMAS A. EDISON finely, dressed men, and they laughed at the young fellow, whom they called "the jay from the wooly West." He started to work the first evening at six o'clock, and the operators thought they would have some fun out of the new man, so they sent him over to the table to take a special report for the Boston Herald. Now, they had gotten the fastest telegraph operator in New York to send the message, and had wired him they had a new man in the office, a regular "jay from the wooly West," they called him, and they wished he would par^iyze him by sending the message so fast he could not take it. Edison wrote a very plain and yet a very rapid hand. The men stood around as he received the message with perfect ease, and looked on with astonishment. After that they had the greatest respect for him, and the "jay from the wooly West" became one of the best-liked men in the office. But he began his old tricks of experimenting again. We will tell you one of them. In the office the roaches were very bad, and the operators used to squirt sulphuric acid on them and stamp them with their feet, but, in spite of everything they did, the roaches would run up over their necks and through everything and gave them great annoyance. Now Edison soon tried an experiment which was very amusing to the men, but I dare say was not enjoyed by the roaches. He put up some tin strips along the wall, and smeared all over the tin strips such things to eat as the roaches were very fond of No sooner was this done than the roaches came from all directions and in a minute the strip was fairly black with them. Edison fastened a wire to the lower end of the strip and another to the top, running both down to his table and attached them to a strong battery. Instantly the roaches came raining down dead ; but the others kept coming. THOMAS A. EDISON 221 Every time one would get on the strip, he would tumble off dead. For a long time the men stood around roaring with laughter as the roaches came raining down. They voted Edison to be the smartest man in the lot and called him the e-lec-tro-cu-tor, and wanted to take him out and treat him ; but as he neither drank liquors nor smoked, they had to be content with giving him their thanks. We would like to tell you other amusing things of Mr. Edi- son, of which there are very many, but we will have to say something now of his great inventions. His hardships were now over, and prosperity smiled on him ever after. In 1864, while in Boston, Edison conceived the idea of send- ing two messages at once over the same wire. He kept experimenting on this until he went to New York in 1871, and there he completed it. He afterwards made this instru- ment so that it would send sixteen rnessages over one wire, eight in each direction, and it has saved millions of dollars to the telegraph companies. He has also improved the telegraph system, so that instead of sending fifty or sixty words a minute, as they had formerly done, he made it possible to send several thousand words a minute. After Edison went to New York, he also made a printing telegraph, which is used in all the large stock quota- tion houses. This brought him hundreds of thousands of dollars profit, and a large factory was built in Newark, New Jersey, of which he was made superintendent, and he began to grow rich very fast. Many of these machines are found in every city of the Union. About this time, a man by the name of Mr. Bell invented the telephone. That is a little machine which you can walk up to and talk to a friend several miles away, but it was not in a very perfect state until Mr. Edison invented what is known 222 THOMAS A. EDISON as his "transmitter," an important attachment which is used with the "Bell telephone" all over the world. Mr. Edison's next invention is known as the "megaphone," by the use of which two persons may whisper to each other a quarter of a mile away. With one of these to the ear you can hear cattle eating grass four or five miles away, or you can speak to or hear the replies from a ship far out at sea. Next Mr. Edison invented the "phonograph," which means a sound writer — the most wonderful thing of all. A person may talk or sing or whistle into this machine, and the sound of his voice will make little marks upon a roll of gelatin inside, and when you start the machine to moving, you can put in your ears little tubes which are attached to the phone, and it will reply back to you just what was said or sung to it. In 1889, at the great exposition in France, Mr. Edison had forty-seven of these phonographs on exhibition. There were at that exhibition people from all parts of the world. Buffalo Bill was there with his company of Indians. They got the big Sioux Chief, Red Shirt, to talk into the phonograph. He did so, never thinking that it would keep what he said. Then they let him put his ear to the phone, and he heard his own voice speaking back to him out of the machine. He thought it was the Great Spirit talking to him, and he ran away, much frightened, and could not be induced to come near it again. Nor would any other of the Indians go closer than twenty or thirty feet, nor would any one of them speak a word in its presence after Red Shirt had told them what it had done. There was another man, De Brazza, who brought fifteen men from fifteen different tribes in Africa, all speaking different languages, and they got each one of them to talk into the phone. All the great men of France and others who vis- isted there, among them Mr. Gladstone and the Prince of THOMAS A. EDISON 223 Wales, from England, talked in this wonderful phonograph, and thus Mr. Edison collected all the languages of the world in his phonograph. Then he set them up and charged the people a price to hear the voices of these strange men and people, and it is said that an aver- age of thirty thousand people a day paid to lis- ten to the pho- nograph. Such a machine as this has been better for Mr. Edison than one of the famous Klondike gold mines, for now they are put all over the world and are bringing him in royalties of immense sums every day. He has collected the voices of all the prominent sing- ers and the music thomas a. edison of the great bands of the world, and the speeches of the great orators, and the voices of such notable people as the Oueen of England, the President of France, and all the other^eat rulers in the world, so that you may hear them in the phono- graph. 224 THOMAS A. EDISON When he once gets a prominent person to talk in his pho- nograph, or has some great player like Paderewski play on a piano into it, he can make this phonograph talk or play to another phonograph, and so he can make thousands upon thousands of reproductions and send the voice of any person anywhere he pleases. It would take more space than we can possibly give to tell you of the wonderful things the phono- graph has done or is doing, but it will, no doubt, do more wonderful things in the future. A great phonograph factory was built in 1878 at Orange, New Jersey. The people who are interested with Mr. Edison in this factory paid him ten thousand dollars cash at the begin- ning and agreed to give him one-fifth of all the money they received from sales. He made also a similar arrangement in London, another in Russia, and another in France, and so on, through all the European countries. His phonograph alone has made him a millionaire. Mr. Edison and Mr. Simms have also invented an electric torpedo, to run in the water and blow up ships in battle. He has also made what he calls a water telephone, and a chemi- cal telephone, and a mercury telephone and several other kinds of the same instrument. Then there is the electric pen and the beautiful electric light — known as the incandescent lamp — which is used all over the world ; the mimeograph, and many other things. In 1873 Mr. Edison was married to Miss Mary Stillwell, a young lady who had been helping him in his experiments. She was sitting at a machine when Mr. Edison asked her to marry him, but she would not promise right at once, and then when the wedding-day came Mr. Edison was so busy he for- got it. But she forgave him and married him the next day. In 1876 Mr. Edison removed his home from Newark, New THOMAS A. EDISON 225 Jersey, to Menlo Park, New Jersey, and since that time has devoted his entire attention to the invention of electrical ma- chines. He has invented many scientific instruments, which we cannot explain to our young friends, but which have been a very great help to the world. Mr. Edison's home at Menlo Park is a beautiful place, and his library contains a great many books on science and a great many of the best books on literature. He also has a library in his workshop for the benefit of his workmen. It is said that every scientific magazine in the world comes to this library, and he encourages his men to read and study as he does. Mrs. Edison, herself, is very much interested in the work, and is very friendly and sociable with her old friends, many of whom still remember when she was with them in the shop. Mr. Edison, while very friendly and kind to his men, is, at the same time, a very hard worker. Sometimes he works for two whole days, when he becomes very much absorbed in anything, without stopping to eat or sleep. On one occasion he locked the door and made his important workmen stay in the shop with him for two days and a half without any sleep, in order that he might carry out some important work that could not be delayed. At the end of that time, he sent all his men home to stay for two days, and he himself slept for thirty-six hours. But I must take time to tell you of one more of Mr, Edi- son's inventions, the kinetoscope — out of which have grown the vitascope and the biograph — which takes and shows pic- tures so you can see everything in motion. If any of my lit- tle readers have not seen any of these pictures, I advise you to do so the first opportunity you have. You would hardly believe but that they were people or animals running around before you — every motion, every expression, is brought to you 226 THOMAS A. EDISON SO plainly. Now, you will see a great express train come rushing by you, with the smoke pouring out of the engine ; horses gallop with their riders on their backs ; little girls and boys play in their yards, and you see them chasing each other, and all the motions that they make are shown to you by this wonderful instrument. One of the funniest things that the writer ever saw in a biograph was a pillow fight between two little girls. I trust that this short account of the life and the many things that Thomas A. Edison, known as the "Wizard of Menlo Park," has done, will induce my little readers to learn more of him and his wonderful inventions. He is himself worth many millions of dollars ; but for every dollar he owns, his inventions have, perhaps, saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for other people. The great lesson which we want to learn from his life is, that industry and perseverance are always rewarded. THE EVENTFUL LIFE OF James A. Garfield, The Boy on the Canal Boat. The Second flartyr President. WOULD you not like to hear the story of another boy who began life almost if not quite as poor as Abra- ham Lincoln, and was a great and good man, and was the second martyr President of the United States? Do you know what a mar- tyr is? Martyrs are those noble men and women who have been put to death by wicked persons because they were good and noble and their righteous ac- tions displeased those who were wicked and PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD. 227 228 JAMES A. GARFIELD selfish. Abraham Lincoln was the first President of the Uni- ted States who was a martyr. You remember reading his in- teresting story. We will now tell you the life-story of another farmer boy, who by hard work became one of the greatest men in the United States, and who was, like Abraham Lincoln, finally elected President of the United States, and like him, became a martyr. His name was James A. Garfield. Look at his picture and see if you don't think he has a strong, manly and noble face. The story of his life will help every noble boy who wants to succeed and do good in the w^orld. About seventy years ago, when the great State of Ohio was little more than a wilderness, a man by the name of Abram Garfield moved from the State of New York out into the wild country of Ohio, and settled in Cuyahoga County. The name Cuyahoga is an Indian word, and at that time there were a great many Indians in the State. Abram Garfield had mar- ried, before going to Ohio, a young woman by the name of Eliza Ballou, whose ancestors had fled from persecution in France about one hundred and fifty years before. When Abram Garfield and his young wife moved to Ohio they settled in what was known as "The Wilderness," where quite a number of other people from Connecticut had recently moved and built for themselves houses. The whole country was covered with big forests, and the first work to be done was to clear away a place in the woods and build them a lit- tle log-cabin, such as you will see in the picture on another page. It had but one room, with a door, three windows, and a chimney at one end. Abram Garfield and his wife had three children when they moved to this wilderness, and about a year after they got there their youngest son was born. They named him James Abram — "Abram" being for his father. There JAMES A. GARFIELD 229 were now mother and father and four children living in this little log-cabin out in the wilderness. All day long the father cut trees in the forest, or worked in his new fields among the stumps which were still left in the ground ; but he was very industrious and raised enough on his farm to support his family, while Mrs. Garfield, with her spinning-wheel and loom, was all day busy in spinning thread and weaving cloth to make them clothes. They had no servant, but waited on them- selves, not only growing the cattle, hogs, and chickens on their little farm, and raising the corn and wheat which they ate, but also spinning and weaving the cloth, which Mrs. Garfield made into clothes for the chil- dren. Don't you think this was a very hard life ? So it would be to most of our young people now. But they owned their little farm and house ; both together, perhaps, worth two or three hundred dollars. Of course, they had to do their cook- ing, eating, sleeping, receive their company, spin and weave and make their clothes, all in their little one-room house. Still they were honest and contented, and every morning THE BOY JAMES GARFIELD BRINGING HIS FIRST DAY'S EARNINGS TO HIS MOTHER. 230 JAMES A. GARFIELD when Mr. Garfield went away, with his axe on his shoulder or following the plow, you might have heard him whistling or singing a merry tune. As soon as breakfast was over, the lit- tle fellows, in the summer, were out of doors, or away in the woods to pick berries, or to bring wood for their mother to cook with, or to carry water from the spring, which was some distance from the house. At night, when they sat alone in their little cabin, their father or mother would read, or they would tell them stories about the old times in Connecticut or New York, or about the long and weary journey from New York to Ohio, and the wonder- ful things that they saw on^their way. So, with all, as I have told you, it was a very happy and contented little household. Mr. Garfield was beginning to be prosperous as he thought, and looked forward to having a big farm one of these days, and build them a house which would, perhaps, have as many as three rooms, or maybe four. But suddenly, one day, Mr. Garfield came home very ill. There were few doctors in that wild wilderness, and those who were there, as a rule, knew very little about the practice of medicine ; so, after a short illness, the good man died when he was only thirty-three years of age. Can you think of anything more sad than this little one- room log-cabin, far out in the forests of Ohio, with very few neighbors near enough to visit them, the husband dead, and the poor woman with her four little children, left alone so far, far away from her friends and relatives in the East? Do you not think the first thing she would do would be to try to sell her little farm, and with her children go back to New York or Connecticut? This, however, was not what Mrs. Garfield did. She deter- mined to remain in her little home, and. with her own hands. JAMES A. GARFIELD 231 try to make a living and raise her children. She was a good v/oman and had a fair education, and she taught her little ones and read to them out of good books. James was now a baby, and for several years it was a life of struggle and privation. She was so poor that, if she had lived in one of the great cities, the people would think they must go to her aid and send her food and clothing to help her GARFIELD'S BIRTHPLACE AND THE HOME OF HIS CHILDHOOD. in her distress, and so they should ; but it was different far out in the wilderness. Almost everybody was poor there, and lived on the plainest of food, and dressed in the plainest clothes, and there were no rich people to be seen. When little James A. Garfield was only three years old, a neighboring school was started in a little log-hut, and James was sent along with the other children. Before he was four 15 232 JAMES A. GARFIELD years of age he had learned to read ; and by the time he was ten, it is said, he had borrowed and read nearly all the books in his neighborhood. From that time till the close of his life, he was a great reader and student You will remember that Abraham Lincoln always carried a book with him to his work, and you also remember Patrick Henry and George Peabody and Thomas A. Edison, and other boys about whom we have told you, educated themselves by reading. Now, we don't mean by this that our young friends do not need an education. Perhaps all of those men would have been better off, if they had had oportunities of getting a good education in school. Garfield believed in an education, as you shall hereafter learn. By the time James w^as ten years of age, he had learned to do almost everything about the farm which could be done by so small a boy. He not only helped the other children and his mother, but, when they had done their own work, he fre- quently went to other farms and worked for the neighbors that he might make a little money to help his mother along. He had very little time to play, so he made play out of his work by doing it always cheerfully. His mother was a great worker herself, and, besides, she was a very religious woman, and, it is said, her good advice and happy hymns and songs always sent the children to their tasks with a feeling that they were doing not only their duty, but that it was a pleasure for them to do it. All the spring and summer the children worked, but every winter their mother sent them to the little neighborhood school. By the time James was fourteen years old he had a fair knowledge of arithmetic and grammar, and he had read his school "History of the United States" so many times that he almost knew it by heart. Of all the books he was JAMES A. GARFIELD 233 familiar with, he, perhaps, knew most about the Bible. It is said there was never a day in Mrs. Garfield's home that she and the children did not read certain parts of the Bible, and as the children grew older, they often got into warm discus- sions, which they called arguments, about what this or that passage meant. In this way Garfield came to manhood know- ing a large portion of the Bible by heart and very familiar with it all. In after years, when he became a great man, James G. Blaine, GARFIELD ON THE TOW-PATH the famous orator and statesman in the United States Senate, said that Mr. Garfield's power lay largely in his earnest style of speaking and his familiarity with the Bible, of which he was a constant student. James Garfield also loved to read tales of the sea and tales of adventure. His imagination was especially kindled by Cooper's famous "Leather-Stocking Tales," and he used to regard "Natty Bumpo," the hero of these five famous book';, 234 JAMES A. GARFIELD as the greatest character in American history ; for he could hardly believe that he was only the hero of a novel and not a real man. Perhaps he loved these tales so much because he himself lived in the wilderness, and Mr. Cooper's descrip- tions of the "Pioneer Indians" in the ''Leather-Stocking Tales " were very much like what Garfield himself knew about. He was also fond of reading Cooper's "Sea Tales;" and the story of "Long Tom" and his wonderful adventures on the ocean filled him with delight, and made him want to go to sea himself so much that in 1848, when he was seventeen years old, he left home and went to Cleveland, Ohio, and offered to go on board of one of the great lake schooners as a sailor. It was a day or two before the ship was to go out, and during that time Garfield found out that the sailors, as a rule, were very rough men, and that life on the sea was not so. jolly and pleasant as he had supposed. So he decided he would not go on the lake, and immediately turned from the shore and started home ; but he had not gone very far before he began to feel ashamed of himself He was without money, and he disliked to go back home that way. Besides, like many other ambitious boys, he thought he ought to do something to tell the people about when he got home. So he went to the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal, on which they ran boats drawn by horses on the bank, and he hired himself to drive the horses to one of these boats. He was to receive twelve dollars a month for his work. Now, James had been used to driving horses at home on the farm, and during his trips on the towpath he pleased his employers so much that at the end of the round trip they pro- moted him from the position of a driver, by putting him on board to steer the boat instead of driving the horses. James thought this was quite an advance ; but it proved to be very JAMES A. GARFIELD 235 much more dangerous than driving the horses, for he had to stand on the edge of the boat and work the rudder. He had lived inland all his life, and had had no experience at such work. Every once in a while the rudder would slip, and overboard he would go into the canal. It is said that on his first trip he actually fell overboard fourteen times, and, as he could not swim, he had to be rescued every time when the water was over his head. One dark, rainy night he came very near be- ing drowned, for no help was at hand when he fell into the water; but by the very best of luck he got hold of a rope and drew himself on deck. Now, we have told you before that James was a very religi- ous boy, so he thought it must be through the power of God that he was saved from drown- ing that dark night. He therefore determined to give up the canal boat, go home, try to get an education and be useful to his fellowman. Garfield, when a boy, also read two other books which had much to do with his career. One was the " Life of General Marion," the dashing hero of the Revolution, who, with his swamp-rangers in South Carolina, had troubled and annoyed the British so much; the other was the ''Life of Napoleon Bonaparte," the noted French General and Emperor. GARFIELD AT THE AGE OF SEVENTEEN, WHEN HE ENTERED THE SEMINARS 3^ JAMAIS A. QARFTSLX) These two books, Garfield said, made him want to be a soldier. He read them over several times, and they led him to read other books of great warriors ; but it was a good while before he had an opportunity to gratify his ambition to be a soldier. In the meantime, let us tell you what he did. After leaving his work on the canals, he returned home in the winter of 1849, ^^^ entered a high school, called a sem- inary, at Chester, Ohio, about ten miles from his home. He had but very little money, so he and three other young men boarded themselves. They rented a room for a very small price, made their own beds, cooked their own food, and ate in their room. Garfield persuaded them that they could do without meat and other expensive things, so they lived pretty largely on bread, rice, milk, and potatoes, and it is said that their board did not cost them more than fifty cents each a week. At this small price of living, you can see it required but very little money to carry them through their winter's term at school. By and by vacation came. What do you suppose Garfield did then ? He was now a young man of eighteen. There were no rich uncles or aunts or other friends for him to visit; and if there had been, we dare say he would not have done it. Instead, he went and hired himself to work for a carpen- ter, and soon learned to be a very good workman. He did carpenter work when he could get it to do, and at other times he worked in the harvest-fields, and did anything and everything to get money for his schooling. After his first term, he was able, in this way, to take care of himself entirely, and did not ask his mother or anyone else for their aid. Garfield was always one of the best students in the school. He also joined heartily in the sports with the other young men to keep up his bodily strength. He was as good at all kinds JAMES A. GARFIELD 237 of sports, and as ready for them, as he was for his hard study. He played ball and practiced boxing and other things that they did, and was always a manly and brave fellow. He was very peaceable too, but would not stand for people to impose on him. One day, it is said, he thrashed the bully of the school in a stand-up fight, because the fellow did some mean or unkind act. Garfield attended this school for three winters, and in August, 185 1, he started to a new school known HIRAM COLLEGE, WHERE GARFIELD WENT TO SCHOOL, AND OF WHICH HE BECAME PRESIDENT. as Hiram College. From this moment his zeal to get a good education grew stronger. He soon had an excellent knowl- edge of Latin, algebra, natural philosophy, and botany. He made all his expenses at this school by teaching in one of the departments and working during his vacation. After three years he was not only prepared to go to one of the finest colleges in the East, but had saved three hundred and fifty dollars toward paying his expenses. Think of a 23« JAMES A. GARFIELD young man going to school, paying his own way, and actually making three hundred and fifty dollars besides! That is the kind of boys that amount to something in this world. In the fall of 1853 he left his native State, Ohio, and jour- neyed east and entered Williams College, Massachusetts. Two years later he graduated from that fine school, and straightway was made the Professor of Languages and Litera- ture in Hiram College, which he had formerly attended ; and the very next year, when he was twenty-six years old, he was made President of Hiram College. One year later, he married Miss Lucretia Rudolph, one of his old schoolmates with whom he had fallen in love while at Chester Seminary. Now, we have told you the interesting boyhood and school- days of James A. Garfield, let us tell you some of the great things that he did in later life ; for if he had stopped here, though he was a college president, the world would never have known much of him, and his life would not have been written in this book. Mr. Garfield continued to be President of Hiram College for five years, and under his wise management the college took on new life. There were very soon twice as many stu- dents as there had been before, and everybody seemed to get some of Mr. Garfield's zeal. He grew so popular that in 1858, when some of his friends were running for an office, they beg- ged him to make some speeches for them, which he did. This made him even more popular, and in 1859 they elected him to the State Senate of Ohio, where he was a very influ- ential member. In 1861, when the war broke out, he per- suaded the Ohio Senate to vote twenty thousand soldiers and three millions of dollars to fight for the Union. This made Mr. GaF^ld so great a fevorite that tkc Gbvcrnbr of Ohio JAMES A. GARFIELD 239 offered him the command of the Forty-second Regiment, which was then being organized for the war. Many of the young men in the regiment were, or had been, students of Hiram College, of which Mr. Garfield had been President; so he consented to command the regiment, and in December, 1861, he took them down into Kentucky and West Virginia, to join in the fighting. There were at this time two Confeder- ate armies march- ing north from the State of Kentucky. Mr. Garfield met one of them, led by General Humphrey Marshall, on a lit- tle creek known as the Big Sandy, in the Cumberland Mountains. General Mar- shall had about five thousand soldiers with him and Col- onel Garfield had only about eleven hundred, but he surprised the Confederate focres in such a way and protected his own men so well, by getting in the best position w^hcre they could be sheltered from the fire of the enemy, that General Marshall and his army were driven from Kentucky. THE CAPITOL, AT WASHINGTON. 240 JAMES A. GARFIELD This brilliant victory of Colonel Garfield's was heralded all over the North, and he was praised by the greatest men in the army for his wise management and brave fighting. After this he was directed to join General Buell's forces and go to the aid of General Grant in Mississippi. They arrived just in time to fight the second day in the great battle of Shi- loh, where the Union army was again victorious. Garfield and his soldiers were next set to work in rebuild- ing the railroads and bridges which had been destroyed by both armies; but not being accustomed to that warm South- ern climate, he took malarial fever and was obliged to return home to get well, after which he was sent to join the staff of General Rosecrans, who made him Commander-in-Chief of his staff, and he kept this position as long as he remained in the army. One of the last brave things that Garfield did as a soldier was at the great battle of Chickamauga, near Chatta- nooga, Tennessee. The fighting had been very hard and for a time it looked as if the Confederates would be victorious. General Rosecrans thought they would surely win the day, so he with Colonel Garfield left the fighting ground and hastened to Chattanooga to make arrangements for his army to retreat so they would not be captured. General Thomas was left to command the Union forces. As soon as they reached Chattanooga, Garfield begged General Rosecrans to let him go back to the battlefield and join Gen- eral Thomas. This he did, and with his help General Thomas made a fresh assault for one-half an hour on the Confederates, and drove them back far enough to permit the Union forces to retreat in perfect safety at night. After this gallant service, Colonel Garfield was made Major-General, and since that time has been called General Garfield. Soon after the great battle of Chickamauga, General Garfield was elected to Congress, JAMES A. GARFIELD 241 and though his salary as Major-General was double that of a Congressman, he felt that he could do more good at Wash- ington, so he gave up his position in the war and went to Con- gress. Here he was as attentive to business and industrious as he had always been as a boy at work, a student in school, and as a president of a college. He had many honors placed upon him in Congress, and in 1877, when Mr. Blaine became ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. a Senator, Mr. Garfield was made leader of his party, and three years later the State of Ohio elected him to the Senate. But the great honor came in June of that same year, when the Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated him for President of the United States over and above all the other great statesmen and warriors whom the nation wanted to honor. 242 JAMES A. GARFIELD General Hancock, who also fought in the war with General Garfield, was nominated by the Democratic Party for the same office; but General Garfield was elected. In a little while he removed with his family from Ohio to the White House at Washington. Was not this a great step-up from his early home? Some of Mr. Garfield's very worst enemies were the great- est men of the nation. By that we do not mean the best men, but they were brilliant and learned, and shrewd men, and great politicians, like Mr. Conkling, of New York. Mr. Conkling did everything he could to make President Garfield unhappy, and to throw all the difficulties possible in his way. But, finally, Mr. Conkling found out that he could not con- trol the Senators as he tried to do, so he and Mr. Piatt, another Senator from New York, resigned their places in the United States Senate and went away. These things made a great commotion among the political men, and perhaps was the cause of the tragedy which followed. Mr. Garfield had been in office only a few months, when on July 2, 1 88 1, he and his family rose early at the White House and went to the railway station to take the train for Massa- chusetts. Mr. Garfield was going back to Williams College to attend the closing exercises of that school, and several mem- bers of his cabinet and their friends were going with him. James G. Blaine, the great Maine statesman and orator, was his Secretary of State, and rode beside President Garfield to the depot. Mrs. Garfield, who had been at Long Branch, New Jersey, where she had gone to cure herself of malarial fever, was to join them at New York. A fine private car was waiting for the President and his party. Presently the carriage drove up to the door, and President Garfield and Secretary Blaine came out smiling to the crowd that stood around, looking very happy. They passed inside JAMES A. GARFIELD 243 the door of the waiting-room. A slender, middle-aged man had for some time been walking nervously up and down the room. As the President and Mr. Blaine came up, he quickly drew a pistol from his pocket and, taking deliberate aim, shot the President in the shoulder. Mr. Garfield turned quickly to see who had shot him, when the assassin fired again, and the President sank to the floor, the blood gushing from his side. Secretary Blaine sprang for the murderer, but others caught him, and Mr. Blaine went back to the President's side. They lowered Mr. Garfield on a mattress and carried him swiftly to the White House, where he quickly gave orders that a message should be sent to Mrs. Garfield and ask her to come home immediately. Mr. Garfield's message was: "Tell her I am seriously hurt, but I am myself, and hope she will come to me soon. I send her my love." That evening Mrs. Garfield was at her husband's side. For almost three months the brave, strong man struggled between life and death through the hot summer days. At last he was removed to Elberon, on the ocean shore near Long Branch, New Jersey, and placed in a cottage where the cooling breezes of the sea brought him much relief, and it was hoped would save his life ; but it was not to be. President Garfield died at night, September 19th, almost without a struggle. The news was flashed all over the world by telegraph wires, and nearly every town and all the cities in the United States were draped in mourning. The President's remains were taken back to Washington, where great crowds of people viewed them, and thousands of faces were wet with tears as they passed his coffin. The sad funeral procession then moved slowly to Cleveland, Ohio, where a splendid tomb was prepared on the shores of Lake Erie, not far from his old home, and it was there they laid him 244 JAMES A. GARFIELD down to rest. All along the way, the moving train passed through lines of sorrowful-faced people, who stood with uncovered heads and with tearful eyes as the train moved by. In the House of Representatives at Washington, a few months later, Secretary Blaine delivered a great speech in praise of the dead President. The vile man, Charles J. Guiteau, who killed the President, was one of the displeased politicians, who pretended to think that Mr. Garfield had done wrong in not giving him and cer- tain other members of his party appointments. He was tried before the court of the land and hanged in January, 1882. If you should go to Washington, D. C, you may see in the waiting-room, at the depot where President Garfield was shot, a stone tablet, a picture of which we show. TABLET IN WAITING-ROOM WHERE GARFIELD WAS SHOT. William McKinley, idler, Statesman, Friend. The Third Martyr President. E '■>/>'- VERYBODY begins as a boy and so we must begin with McKinley in his boyhood days. He was one of the kind of boys we Hke to read about. The stories of his life as a fisher, a skater, a black- berry picker, a playmate, and of the boy who had his boyish battles to fight and win, are such as to make every boy's and man's heart warm with memories of similar experiences. Niles, Ohio, was McKinley's birth- place. He was born there on the The house in which he was born has recently been cut in two, and the section which includes the room of his birth has been moved a mile away, to a pretty I; pot known to the people of Niles as Riverside Park. It was a poor little two-story frame house, but was far better than the log-huts in which some of our Presidents were born. McKinley's parents were not rich, but they had enough to live on, and he had plenty of time for play and for school- life. He was a good student and a good boy. His pious mother read her Bible to him till he knew much of it by heart, McKinley got a good education. He went to the 245 WILLIAM McKINLEY. 29th of January, 1843. 246 WILLIAM Mckinley commoR school at Niles, to the academy at Poland, and to Allegheny College at Meadville, in Pennsylvania. Here he soon got sick and had to go home ; and now he became a school-teacher himself, for his father had lost much of his money, and the boy had to help the family along. He was a careful and painstaking teacher, as he was in all things he undertook, and was liked by the boys and girls. All this was before the great civil war began. When Fort Sumter was fired on, and the people everywhere were getting ready to fight, young McKinley was just past his eighteenth year. He quit teaching, and away he marched to the war with the first company of Poland volunteers. For fourteen months our young recruit carried a musket in the ranks. He was a good soldier, obeyed all orders, and was always pleasant to his comrades. And he had plenty of soldiering among the West Virginia mountains, where he was now soaked with rain, now half-starved from lack of food, and worn out with marching, fighting and going through all sorts of rough work. The Ohio boys were kept chasing the raiders through the rough hills, and they had a hard enough time. Let us get on with the boy soldier's story. He had been made a sergeant for his good work in West Virginia. He was made a lieutenant for his good work at the terrible battle of Antietam. This is how it came about. McKinley was commissary sergeant of his regiment. That is, he had charge of the food supplies. He did not have to fight ; but was two miles back from the fighting line. Most boys would have thought that a good place to stay, but the boy sergeant did not think so. He thought only of the poor fellows in the ranks, fighting all day under the burning sun. How parched and hungry they must be ! What would they not give for a cup of hot coffee 1 WILLIAM Mckinley 247 As soon as he thought of this, he got hold of some of the stragglers in the rear and set them to making coffee. There were plenty ot them, as there are in all battles. Then ■ 1 ■ ■ ^M r ^35 1 ^i^^^^^l H ^2 E 1 m ^ p. '^'^ 1 H Hi ^^KUkL't^Jt^^^ ^B^ m B^^ mm WILLIAM Mckinley he filled two wagons with steam- ing cans of hot coffee and with food, and drove off with his mule teams for the line of battle. One of the wagons broke down, but the other kept on. He was ordered back, but nothing could stop him, and on to the lines he went at full speed. One of the officers says : "It was nearly dark when we heard tremendous cheering from the left of our regiment As we had been having heavy fighting right up to this time, our division com- mander. General Scammon, sent me to find out the cause 16 ' 248 WILLIAM Mckinley which I very soon found to be cheers for McKinley and his hot coffee. You can readily imagine the rousing wel- come he received from both officers and men. When you consider the fact of his leaving his post of security and driving into the middle of a bloody battle with a team of mules, it needs no words of mine to show the character and determination of McKinley, a boy of, at this time, not twenty years of age." When the Governor of Ohio heard the story of McKinley and his hot coffee for the fighting boys, he made him a lieut- enant. Don't you think he well deserved it? There are other stories of McKinley's gallant conduct. One of them comes from the time of the fighting in the Shen- andoah Valley, in July, 1864. Here the confederate General Early attacked General Crook and his men with so strong a force that Crook was driven back. General Hastings tells us how the young lieutenant in the face of death at the command of General Hayes, his commander, rode into the thick of the battle through a rain of shot and bursting shells, and brought out the regiment safely. This deed made a captain of the brave lieutenant. The fighting was over. The country was at peace. Everybody was getting back to work again. What would the young major do ? He had his living to make. He had tried teaching and fighting, and now he thought he would like to be a lawyer, as he was so good a talker. So he entered a law office and began to study as hard as he had fought. In two years he was ready to practice, and hung out his sign in Canton, Ohio. This place was his home for the rest of his life, and here he was buried when he died. Major McKinley was elected to Congress in 1876, nine years after he began to practice law. McKinley was fourteen WILLIAM Mckinley 249 years in Congress, and in every one of those years he made his mark in some way or other. In 1890 he was defeated in the election for Congress, but he was too well known and too much liked to stay defeated long. If the country did not want him the State did, and the next year he was elected Governor of Ohio by a good majority. In 1893 he was re-elected by 80,000 votes. And now came the time when the people of the whole country wanted McKinley. Ohio was not big enough to hold a man like him any longer. In 1896 a new President was to be chosen, and McKinley was the people's favorite, and was elected by a large number of votes. It was not a quiet chair to which President McKinley came, for he had to face war and insurrection and all the difficult questions these brought on. The Cubans, who live south of the United States, were treated so badly by Spain, that they began to fight for liberty. Then the Spaniards treated them worse than ever, causing thousands of them to starve to death. That was more than Americans could stand. McKinley asked Spain to stop her cruelty. When she would not, the people of the United States so sympathized with the poor Cubans, that armies and fleets were sent to fight the Spaniards in Cuba. President McKinley did not want war. He did all he could to keep it off But when he found that Spain would not listen to reason there was nothing left to do but to teach the Spaniards a lesson. Only a few great battles were fought Admiral Dewey won a great naval victory in the Philippines and then there were battles in Cuba. You know how the war ended. Cuba was taken from Spain and made a free nation. Porto Rico, 250 WILLIAM McKINLEY in the West Indies, and the PhiHppine Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, were given over to this country. All this made plenty of work for the President. He did not please everybody with what he did, but no one can do that. He dealt ably and wisely with all the questions that came up, and in 1900, when there was another Presidential election, he was more popular than ever. He was chosen by the whole Republican Convention, and was elected with the great majority of 137 electoral votes. The second inauguration of President McKinley took place on March 4, 1901. All looked promising. The war in the Philippines was nearly at an end, the country was grow- ing greater and grander, business was better than ever, nobody dreamed of a great coming tragedy. The President and his wife took a long journey that spring through the South and West, from Washington to San Francisco. In September he went to Buffalo, in New York State, to see the great Fair that was being held there. Here the peo- ple greeted him like a beloved friend. On the 6th, that he might meet them more closely, a reception was held in the Temple of Music, where they would have an opportunity to shake hands with their President. Perhaps some of my readers may have been in Buffalo that day, visiting the Fair. Some of them may have been in the Temple of Music, and have seen the long line of people taking the President's hand and looking into his kindly, smil- ing face. Some of them may even have heard the fatal sound when a desperate villain fired a pistol at the President, and have seen the good man turn pale and fall back. " Let no one hurt him," he gasped, as the guards rushed furiously at the murderer. After that there was a week of terrible anxiety in the WILLIAM McKINLET agi country. Two bullets had struck the President, but for a time the doctors thought he would get well, and the people were full of hope. Then he suddenly began to sink, and on Friday, just one week from the time he was shot, death was very near. His wife was brought in and wept bitterly as she begged the doctors to save him. "Good bye, all; good bye," whispered the dying man. ** It is God's way. His will be done." These were his last words. A few hours afterward he was dead. So passed away this great and noble-hearted man, the third of our martyred Presidents and one of the kindest and gentlest of them all. He was buried with all the ceremony and all the demonstrations of respect and affection the country could give. At the time his body was lowered into the grave, for five minutes the whole people came to rest, all business ceased, and a solemn silence overspread the land from sea to sea. Then the stir began again, and once more the world roared on. It never stops long even for the greatest of men. THE STORY OF THE YOUNGEST PRESIDENT, Theodore Roosevelt, The Man of a Strenuous Life. T HEODORE ROOSEVELT was a New York boy. He was born in that great city on October 27, 1858. He was taught at home to be active and industrious. He tells us himself: "My father, all my people, held that no one had a right to merely cumber the earth ; that the most contemptible of created beings is the man who does nothing. I imbibed the idea that I must work hard, whether at making money or whatever. The whole family training taught me that I must be doing, must be working — and at decent work. I made my health what it is. I determined to be strong and well, and did everything to make myself so. By the time I entered Harvard College I was able to take my part in what- ever sports I liked. I wrestled and sparred and ran a great deal while in college, and though I never came in first, I got more good out of the exercise than those who did, because I immensely enjoyed it and never injured myself." When a little fellow Theodore was thin, pale and deli- 6at€. No one thought he would make much of a man — if he THEODORE ROOSEVELT. THEODORE ROOSEVELT 253 lived to be one. He was taught at home and in private schools, for his parents were afraid to trust him to the rough play of the public schools. He did not like that. He wanted to be strong and to do what other boys did, and when he was old enough he began to do all he could to make himself strong. "I was deter- mined to make a man of myself," he says. There was not much he did not try. He learned to swim, he learned to row, he learned to ride. He climbed, he jumped, he ran, he tramped over the hills. If any one asked him to ride, he said he would rather walk. If asked to take a sail, he said he would rather row. That is the way the delicate child grew to be a hardy boy and a man with mus- cles like steel. He showed what nearly any . weak boy might do, if he chose to take the trouble. He was always fond of stories of animals and adventure. WTien he was only six years old he used to tell such stones to his little brother and sisters. All his animals talked and acted like boys or men, and his men were as strong as giants. When he got older he did not let anybody impose on THEODORE ROOSEVELT IN HIS HUNTING COSTUME, 254 THEODORE ROOSEVELT him. One day, when he was only a little fellow and went to a private school, he set out with his chum in a fine new sailor suit. Some of the public-school boys got in his way and called him a "dude." But they did not stay long, for Teddy and his chum went at them with their fists and fought their way through. Every day for a week it was the same thing. One day, after a hard battle, Teddy said to his chum: "Let's go round the block and come back and fight them again." He seemed to like fighting as much as he did later on. He was always ready to fight for his rights. One day he came home from school with his clothes covered with mud and his face and hands scratched and bleeding. ''What is the matter, Teddy?" asked his father. "Why, a boy up the street made a face at me and said, 'Your father's a fakir.' He was a good deal bigger than me, but I wouldn't stand that ; so I just pitched in. I had a pretty hard time, but I licked him." "That's right; I'm glad you licked him," said his father. You may sec that old Roosevelt was a good deal like young Roosevelt. When he was old enough the boy was sent to Harvard University. He studied well and graduated in 1880, and then spent a year in Europe. When he came to Switzerland and saw the Alps, the first thought he had was to climb them. He did it, too ; he went to the top of the Matterhorn and the Jungfrau, two of the hard ones to climb. When he came home in 1881 he was twenty-three years old. Nobody would have thought that this young fellow, with his strong frame, stout shoulders, and square jaws, had ever been delicate. He had fought his way to health and strength. He had plenty of money, and he might have spent the rest of his life in having a good, easy, lazy sort of time, but that THEODORE ROOSEVELT 355 was not Teddy Roosevelt's way. He was already at work, writing a book. It is called "The Naval War of 1812," and a good book it is, too It shows that he was then a thinker, and that he had read a great deal about the wars of the world. That was only home work. Out of doors he at once went in for politics. And he did it so well that he was quickly elected to the New York Legislature. He took his seat there in 1882, the youngest member in the House. Many of the old members looked on him with scorn and called him "silk stocking." They thought he was a rich man's son who had come there to play at politics. They did not dream what he meant to do. He went at their little games, " hammer and tongs." In two months' time he had all the reformers on his side, and was going for the political tricksters as he had gone for the school-boys. He stayed six years in the Legislature, and in that time he carried through a number of very useful bills. This is only one side of Theodore Roosevelt's life. I Jiave told you that he was fond of stories of animals and wild life from the time he was six years old. When he grew older he read all the books he could get on the subject of hunting and natural history, and was very fond of Cooper's novels of Indian life. And when he reached manhood he became a hunter himself, going every year to the "Wild West," where he had splendid times in hunting the big game of that region. There were no lions and tigers to hunt, but there were bears and catamounts, and they were bad enough. After he left the Legislature he was several years out of office, and these he spent in the West, hunting, fishing, ranch- ing, and doing all sorts of rough work. He started a cattle ranch of his own, and put up a rough log building on which he worked himself. It was so far in the wilderness that he 256 THEODORE ROOSEVELT shot a deer from his own front door. Here he had herds of cattle, and acted as cowboy as well as hunter. He would dress in a flannel shirt and overalls tucked into alligator boots, and would help his own cov/boys in rounding up the cattle, riding with the best of them. Then he would go home to sleep in bear-skins and buffalo robes, whose old wearers had fallen under his own rifle. Mr. Roosevelt has always been very short-sighted and has had to wear glasses. They called him "Four Eyes" in the West, and looked on him as a " tenderfoot " — that is, a man from the East who knows nothing of Western life. One day, when it was snowing and he had been out look- ing for lost cattle, he stopped at the hotel of a village in North Dakota. Here there was a "bad man" who wanted some one to fight with. He settled on Roosevelt. " Here, you, take a drink," he said roughly. " No, thank you. I don't want to drink," said Roose- velt, smiling. " You've got to drink." " I guess not," said Roosevelt, with another smile. "I say you have." And the "bad man" pulled his pistol. In a second he thought a sky-rocket had struck him, but it was Teddy Roosevelt's fist, which knocked him sprawling. "Where was I shot?" he asked, when he came to. It took a good hour to make him believe that he had been shot by a " tenderfoot's " fist. After that the wild folks had too much respect for " Four Eyes " to meddle with him. But he had a quarrel with one of his neighbors. There was a Frenchman, the Marquis de Mores, who owned a ranch next to his, and a quarrel broke out between the cowboys of the two ranches. Roosevelt heard the story and backed up THEODORE ROOSEVELT 257 his own cowboys, for he thought they were right. This made the Marquis very angry, and he said some ugly things about his neighbor, adding that he would shoot him the next time he met him. As soon as Roosevelt heard of this, he sprang on his horse and rode off at full speed to the Marquis's house. He strode in to where the Frenchman was sitting. •* I understand you said you would shoot me the next time you saw me," said the visitor. "Here I am, you can have the chance now.'* The Marquis didn*t shoot. In fact, after a talk over the quarrel, the two became very good friends. " I am not so fond of * bronco busting ' and riding wild horses as some people think," said Roosevelt, in later days. •' It wasn't because I liked that kind of work that I did it. But I always took just what came, and if it happened to be the wildest animal in the bunch, I got on, and stayed on, too, for when I got on I made up my mind to stay, and I have yet to see the bronco that could make me give in." Now let us go back to his political life. In April, 1897, Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He liked the position, for it began to look very much like war with Spain, and he saw that there was plenty of work to do. That always suited him — plenty of work. He jumped into it The ships wanted fitting up. The gunners needed to be taught how to aim and fire. He made things boom. He asked for $800,000 for ammunition. It was given to him, and a few months later he asked for $500,000 more. *' What have you done with the $800,000 ?" he was asked. " Spent every cent of it for powder and shot and fired it all away." "And what are you going to do with the $500,000?" "Use it the same way, to teach the men how to shoot" 2S« THEODORE ROOSEVELT In less than a year after that the men showed the good of Roosevelt's work, by their splendid aiming and firing in the battles of Manila Bay and off Santiago coast. But when war actually came, in May, 1898, wild horses '^ould not have kept Roosevelt at office work. He offered his resignation at once and asked to be appointed on General Lee*s staff. Then came the idea of the "Rough Riders'" Regiment — to be made up of cowboys, whom no horse could throw, and of daring riders from any quarter. *' Roosevelt's Rough Riders " they were called, and the title hit the popular fancy. The papers were full of it. No doubt, you know something of how he fought in Cuba, at Las Guasimas and in the terrible charge up San Juan Hill, in the face of the Spanish works. He was a fighter, out and out. He did not know what it was to be afraid. "You'd give a lifetime to see that man leading a charge or hear him yell," said one of his soldiers. "Talk about cour- age and grit and all that — he's got it." This is what a reporter says of the charge up San Juan Hill : " Roosevelt was a hundred feet ahead of his troops, yell- ing like a Sioux, while his own men and the colored cavalry cheered him as they charged up the hill. There was no stop- ping as men's neighbors fell, but on they went, faster and faster. Suddenly, Roosevelt's horse stopped, pawed the air for a moment, and fell in a heap. Before the horse was down Roosevelt disengaged himself from the saddle and, landing on his feet, again yelled to his men, and, sword in hand, charged on afoot." Colonel Roosevelt was the popular hero of the war. Everybody was talking of him, his boldness, his free and easy ways, his kindness to his men, his genial manner. When he got back to the United States, he found that men were talking THEODORE ROOSEVELT 259 of making him the next Governor of New York. They did, too. He went on the stump himself and made many speeches. On the night after the election he went to bed, not waiting for the returns, and was roused up about two o'clock in the morn- ing by men knocking hard on the front door. He came to the door with sleepy eyes. "What is the matter?" he asked. •*You*re elected by eighteen thousand." " Am I ? That's bully. Come in and tell mc about it." But after a few minutes he bade them good night, saying that he was so sleepy that he must go to bed again. We need not say that Governor Roosevelt did his work as well in the capitol as he had done in the legislature. *' Jobs" could not get past him. He put his foot down heavy on all sorts of rascality. He did not stay long in Albany, for he was soon wanted at Washington. When the Republican convention to nominate a candidate for President was held in 1900, McKinley was the man wanted. But for Vice-President Roosevelt's was the most popular name. He did not want the office. He was coaxed to accept, and was fairly forced into it. He made a campaign of the country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, speaking for McKin- ley. Of course, McKinley won — he was bound to win — and Roosevelt won with him. This was in November, 1900. In September, 1901, the President was shot, and there came a great change in Roosevelt's career. On Friday morning, Sep- tember 13th, being told that the wounded President was out of danger, he left the hotel in the Adirondacks, where he was staying, for a long tramp in the mountains. Then came news that the President was dying and the Vice-President was wanted. It took hours to find him. It was nearly night when the guides and hunters came up to him, many miles away. 26o THEODORE ROOSEVELT He was filled with surprise and grief when he was told the news. All that night he rode in a stagecoach to the nearest railroad station. When he got there he was startled to learn that McKinley had died three hours before and that he himself was now President of the United States. He had jumped from a do-nothing to a do-everything. No man ever liked better to go where he pleased and do what he pleased. It was felt necessary to keep guards and detectives near him, for fear some wretch might try to kill him as they had done McKinley. He hated this. He was afraid of nothing, and thought he could take care of himself, and the poor guards had a hard time keeping him in sight Sometimes he would give them the slip and ride away without their knowing it. Then he was happy. His first message to Congress, in December, 1901, was a great state paper, which gave everybody satisfaction. After reading it, people all over the country said, ** Roosevelt is a safe man. We can trust the country to him." President Roosevelt's home is near Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York. The house is full of trophies of his many hunting trips. It is situated on Cove Neck, three miles by carriage from the village of Oyster Bay. It is approached by a steep, winding roadway, which takes the visitor through a dense wood before revealing to him the house itself Once on the crest of the little hill which he has selected for his home, the visitor has a beautiful view in every direction, espe- cially to the north and east, where the waters of the Sound and Cold Spring harbor are seen. Around the house on all sides is a closely cropped lawn, studded with shade trees, big and little, and of many kinds. N. B. — Adding nineteen tu the last page number for the full-page haif-tones and color-plates not numbered will give the exact number of pages in the book. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 00114121514