saw a carriage approaching.
“Some one to see you, father,” suggested Daniel.
“Yes,” said his father, preparing to leave his work; “it is the Congressman from our district.”
“What is his name?”
“Hon. Abiel Foster, my son. He lives in Canterbury.”
But the Congressman descended from his carriage and entered the field where Daniel and his father were at work. “Don’t let me interrupt you, Judge Webster,” said the visitor. “I merely wished to exchange a few words on public affairs.”
Daniel was old enough to have some notion of the office of a Congressman and his duties, and he regarded the honorable gentleman with attention, and perhaps with reverent respect, though he is said not to have been endowed with more than average ability, notwithstanding he had been educated at college, and had once been a minister.
When the conversation was over the Congressman got into his carriage and rode away. Judge Webster looked thoughtfully after him.
Then he said to Daniel, “My son, that is a worthy man; he is a Member of Congress; he goes to Philadelphia, and gets six dollars a day, while I toil here. It is because he had an education which I never had. If I had had his early education I should have been in Philadelphia in his place. I came near it as it was. But I missed it, and now I must work here.”
“My dear father,” answered Daniel, not without emotion, “you shall not work. Brother and I will work for you, and will wear our hands out, and you shall rest.”
The boy was much moved, and his breast heaved, for he knew well how hard his father had toiled for him and for all the family.
“My child,” said Judge Webster, “it is of no importance to me. I now live but for my children. I could not give your elder brothers the advantages of knowledge, but I can do something for you. Exert yourself, improve your opportunities, learn, learn, and when I am gone you will not need to go through the hardships which I have undergone, and which have made me an old man before my time.”
These words made a profound impression upon the boy. A man’s character and life add weight to the words which he utters, and wise and judicious advice coming from a trifler or a shallow person falls often unheeded, and with reason. But Daniel knew how much his father had accomplished without education—he knew how high his rank was among his neighbors, and no man ever probably received from him a tithe of that reverence which he felt for his plain, unlettered parent.
By this time he knew that his father had been largely instrumental in inducing New Hampshire to ratify that Constitution of which he obtained his first knowledge from the cheap cotton handkerchief which he had purchased at Master Hoyt’s store. The acceptance was by no means a foregone conclusion. Many of the delegates to the convention had been instructed to vote against acceptance, and among them Ebenezer Webster himself. But he obtained permission later to vote according to his own judgment, and the speech which he made in favor of this important action has been preserved. Just before the vote was taken, he rose and said:
“Mr. President, I have listened to the arguments for and against the Constitution. I am convinced such a government as that Constitution will establish, if adopted—a government acting directly on the people of the States—is necessary for the common defence and the public welfare. It is the only government which will enable us to pay off the national debt—the debt which we owe for the Revolution, and which we are bound in honor fully and fairly to discharge. Besides, I have followed the lead of Washington through seven years of war, and I have never been misled. His name is subscribed to this Constitution. He will not mislead us now. I shall vote for its adoption.”
No wonder that Daniel inherited from his father a reverent attachment for that Constitution which Judge Webster by word and deed had helped to secure and establish. His father was a grave and earnest man, but he was not stern nor ascetic. His strength was softened by good humor, and his massive features were often lighted up by a contagious laugh which endeared him to his family, who loved no less than they respected him.
CHAPTER III.
A MEMORABLE BATTLE
Daniel, as well as his father, had a love of fun, and a sportive humor, which he always preserved. It is said that “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” It is certainly a mistake when a boy is shut out from the innocent sports which boys delight in. John Stuart Mill, who was set to learning while little more than an infant, and who actually began to study Greek at four years of age—lamented in after years that he had never known what boyhood was.
It was not so with Daniel. Though his father’s poverty made it necessary for all to work, Daniel, partly because of his early delicacy, had plenty of time allowed him for amusement. The favorite companion of his leisure hours was not a boy, but a veteran soldier and near neighbor, named Robert Wise. He had built a little cottage in the corner of the Webster farm, and there with his wife he lived till extreme old age. He was born in Yorkshire, had fought on both sides in the Revolutionary struggle, had travelled in various parts of Europe, and had a thousand stories to tell, to all of which the boy listened with avidity. Though he had twice deserted from the English king, his heart still thrilled with pride when Daniel read to him from the newspaper accounts of battles in which the English arms were victorious. He had never learned to read, and Daniel became his favorite because he was always ready to read to him as they sat together at nightfall at the cottage door.
“Why don’t you learn to read yourself, Robert?” asked Daniel one day.
“It’s too late, Dan. I’m gettin’ an old man now, and I couldn’t do it.”
“What will you do when I am grown up, and gone away?”
“I don’t know, Dan. It will be dull times for me.”
When that time came the old man picked up a fatherless boy, and gave him a home and a chance to secure an education, in order that he might have some one to read the newspaper to him.
Whenever Daniel had a day or a few hours to himself he ran across the fields to his humble neighbor’s house.
“Come, Robert,” he would say, “I’ve got nothing to do. Let us go fishing.”
So the two would go down to the banks of the Merrimac, and embark in a boat which belonged to the old man, and paddle up and down the river, sometimes for an entire day. Daniel never lost his love of fishing, but in after years, when the cares of statesmanship were upon him, dressed in suitable style he would take his fishing pole and lie in wait for his finny victims, while perhaps he was mentally composing some one of his famous speeches, destined to thrill the hearts of thousands, or direct the policy of the government. These happy days spent in the open air corrected his native delicacy, and gradually imparted physical strength and vigor, and in time knit the vigorous frame which seemed a fitting temple for his massive intellect.
Even the most trivial circumstances in the boyhood of such a man as Daniel Webster are noteworthy, and I am sure my boy-readers will read with interest and sympathy the account of a signal victory which the boy gained, though it was only over a feathered bully.
Belonging to a neighbor was a cock of redoubtable prowess, a champion whose fame was in all the farmyards for miles around. One day Daniel, coming home from school, beheld with mortification the finish of a contest in which a favorite fowl of his own came off decidedly second best. The victorious rooster strutted about in conscious and complacent triumph.
“It’s too bad, Zeke!” said Daniel in genuine vexation, as he saw the crestfallen look of
