UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES B4 9 7 BREAKFAST WITH THE CHILDREN AT MOUNT VERNON ARRANGED FOR STORY-TELLING AND READING ALOUD AND FOR THE CHILDREN'S OWN READING BY FRANCES JENKINS OLCOTT WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Cijc fttUcrsibc Press CamlirtbQc 69025 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY FRANCES JENKINS OLCOTT ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. b \n9.-3 GRATEFULLY DEDICATED TO FRANCES MARY JENKINS OLCOTT January 25 One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in May, Yet at the thought of others' pain, a shade Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT FOREWORD HERE are over 200 stories celebrating 23 great birthdays of patriot-founders and upbuilders of the Republics of both North and South America. In the stories are more than 75 historical char- acters, men, women, and children. The arrange- ment follows the school-year, beginning in Octo- ber with Columbus. The book-cover is dressed in George Washington's colours, scarlet and white. TREATMENT OF HISTORY FOR CHILDREN 'These tales are not packed full of dry facts and dates, boring to children. Instead, they treat history in a manner appealing to boys and girls. For it is the strong personalities that moved in the big events of the world, it is the forceful lives of the men themselves, their preparation in boy- hood for successful careers, their struggles for right, their heroism, devotion, and high adven- ture, as well as the why and wherefore of things, which make history an intense reality to children and young folk. American history treated after such a fashion, may be used educationally to de- velop a fine, true type of Americanism. So most of the tales presented here are ones of personality, human and alive. They are full of viii FOREWORD action. Many of them relate deeds of courage, kindness, self-sacrifice, and perseverance. They are of just the right length to read aloud or tell without fatiguing the children. They deal scarcely at all with battle, murder, or sudden death. They stress the intimate, human side of our Patriots, the side not often found in text- books. SOME OF OUR HEROES Here are stories of Washington, Hamilton, John Adams, and John Marshall showing them not cold and wooden, but warm and vital; also tales of great-hearted Lincoln, and of America's very human hero, Roosevelt. And exceedingly human, too, are Light Horse Harry, the Sage of Monticello, Old Hickory, Brother Jonathan, Old Put, and the Great Com- moner, who, with words as powerful as sword- strokes, fought America's battles. Among the women, the mothers and wives helping to win the Wars for Independence in both North and South America, are Mary and Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Andrew Jackson's mother, the mother of John Marshall, and the wife of San Martin. And the children of our foreign born, with how much greater pride may they say, "We are Americans!" when they read about Lafayette, FOREWORD ix Kosciuszko, Steuben, Haym Salomon, Pulaski, De Kalb, and Irish Moll Pitcher. Then, of course, Columbus the Italian is here, sailing under the gold and crimson banner of Spain. Our school children, too, may be surprised to learn, that there are 20 robust American Repub- lics to the south of us, with aspirations like our own, and having devoted Patriots. Among their national heroes, are Miranda "the Flaming Son of Liberty," San Martin the great and good, Bolivar the brilliant and victorious, O'Higgins the soldier-citizen, and Brazil's patriot Emperor, Dom Pedro the magnanimous. All Spanish accents have been omitted as is sometimes done in English books so that the names of South American Patriots may not seem strange and foreign to our school children.. NO HISTORICAL FICTION There is no historical fiction here. The larger number of the stories are original, written pur- posely for this volume. Every detail is historical, and every conversation is based on an authority. A partial list of the histories and biographies consulted while writing the stories, may be found on page xiv. When historians have not agreed as to dates and facts, the most reliable sources have been followed. Of the stories attributed to authors, some have x FOREWORD been recast to meet the requirements of story- telling; others are given verbatim. This provides a selection of tales varied both in style and in treatment. Some of the tales are for children, and some for young people. The book may be useful in all Grades. No living Americans are celebrated. Those whose birthdays are kept, have passed into his- tory. And since one small volume cannot hold stories about all of our Patriots, a careful selec- tion has been made of tales about Americans whose contributions to the founding of free Gov- ernment are of vital importance. It is deeply regretted that lack of space precludes the use of other birthdays. Because of copyright restric- tions, the Roosevelt section is somewhat limited. A number of well-known tales which are omit- ted, may be found in Good Stories for Great Holi- days. TEACHING AMERICAN SOLIDARITY In as far as possible, all tales of sectional dif- ferences, of political animosities, and of civil strife, have been avoided. The emphasis in this book is upon American Solidarity. Pioneers of progress inevitably arouse bitter antagonists. It would require a large volume in- deed, to treat of the derogatory statements and written attacks which have been levelled at most FOREWORD xi of the men whose birthdays we are celebrating. We know that Columbus suffered severely from attacks by enemies, that Washington was one of the "most vilified of men," and that Lincoln's detractors were merciless. To-day we may per- ceive the process of vilification still going on around us. Happily, time has shown that much of the detraction of the past was public slander and clamour, and has consigned it to the rubbish heap of history. In a book of this kind, detrac- tions have little or no place; and it is against the good sense of the best educational principles, to impress the children's plastic minds with such matters. When the children are older, they will be better able to judge of them intelligently. HELPFUL TO TEACHERS May it be said right here, with emphasis, that this book is not intended to take the place of suitable biographies of the men whose birthdays we are celebrating. Entertaining, lively tales should, on the contrary, lead boys and girls to want to know more about their favourite he- roes. And the teacher may use these short sto- ries not merely to illustrate American history textbooks, but to strengthen the children's love of Country, to teach them the meaning of Ameri- can Unity, and to give them a more intelligent reverence for the Constitution. xii FOREWORD To aid the teacher and story-teller there is ap- pended on pages 465-483 a Subject Index, by means of which any story on a given topic may be quickly found. The Study Programmes, on pages 451-462, are chronologically arranged to illustrate the day's lesson. FOR MOTHERS, ALSO But above all else, may this book, day by day, help mothers and educators to bring to the chil- dren's remembrance on these great birthdays, something of the devotion, the patience, the suf- ferings, and the personal sacrifice of the noble men, who, under the good hand of God, laid the foundations of American Liberty and Self-Gov- ernment. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS GRATEFUL acknowledgments are due the follow- ing Publishers and Authors, for material from their books : To Houghton Mifflin Company for material from books by Edward Arber, Albert J. Beve- ridge, John Fiske, Henry Cabot Lodge, John T. Morse, James Parton, James B. Thayer, William Roscoe Thayer, and John Greenleaf Whittier. To the New York Evening Post for stories written for its columns by the author of this book. To the New York Times for "A Lock of Wash- ington's Hair," by T. R. Ybarra. To D. Appleton and Company for extracts from the Poems of William Cullen Bryant, and material from William Spence Robertson's Rise of the Spanish-American Republics. To Charles Scribner's Sons for material from Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography. To Harr Wagner Publishing Company, San Francisco, California, publishers of the complete works of Joaquin Miller, for permission to use his Columbus. To J. B. Lippincott Company for material from Charles Morris's Heroes of Progress. To Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard Company for "Nellie and Little Washington," from Harriet xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Taylor Upton's Our Early Presidents, their Wives and Children. To the Missionary Education Movement for "Dom Pedro," from Margarette Daniels's Makers of South America. To the Macmillan Company for material from James Morgan's Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and the Man. To Dr. Sherman Williams for "The Boy of the Hurricane," from his New York's Part in History, published by D. Appleton and Company. To Mr. Wayne Whipple for "The Little Girl and the Red Coats," from his Story-Life of Wash- ington, published by John C. Winston Company. To the Brooklyn Public Library, Montague Branch, for the use of its remarkably fine collec- tion of volumes on early American history, many of which are rare and out of print. To the Staff of the Brooklyn Public Library, Montague Branch, for most helpful co-operation. As this book of Great Birthdays was several years in the making, it is not possible to cite the many authorities, histories, and biographies which have been consulted. The following titles may give some idea of the kind of research work done, in order to make Great Birtlidays of value in teaching American History: Fiske, American Revolution; Garden, Anecdotes ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv of the Revolutionary War; Green, Short History of the English People; Journals of the Continental Congress; Lossing, Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution; Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution; Select Letters of Christopher Colum- bus, with other Original Documents (Hakluyt Society); Memorials of Columbus. . . translated from the Spanish and Italian; Lives of Columbus by Irving, Lamartine, and Winsor; Story of the Pilgrim Fathers (Arber Reprint) ; Mourt's Relation; Old South Leaflets; George Washington, Journal of my Journey over the Mountains, also his Writ- ings; Ford, Washington and the Theatre; George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Pri- vate Memoirs of Washington, by his Adopted Son; Headley, Illustrated Life of George Washington; Irving, Life of Washington; Lossing, Mary and Martha, the Mother and the Wife of George Wash- ington; Lodge, George Washington, (American Statesmen Series) ; John Paul Jones's Letters, also lives of him by De Koven, Headley, and Macken- zie; Lives of William Penn, by Dixon, Hodges, Janney, Stoughton; Lives of John Marshall, and addresses in his memory, by Beveridge, Binney, Flanders, Rawle, Sallie E. Marshal Hardy (in The Green Bag), Justice Story, and Chief Justice Waite; Peters, Haym Salomon; Franklin's Auto- biography; Humphreys, Life of the Honourable Major General Israel Putnam (material obtained xvi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS largely from Putnam himself); Jonathan Trum- bull, Governor of Connecticut, by his descendant Jonathan Trumbull; correspondence, diaries, and speeches of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Abigail Adams, Patrick Henry, Jefferson, Lafay- ette, Pitt, Lincoln, and Webster. In writing the South American stories, the following have been most useful : Biggs, History of Don Francisco de Miranda's Attempt to Effect a Revolution in South America; Palacio Fajardo, Outline of the Revolution in Spanish America; Encyclopedia of Latin America; Koebel, British Exploits in South America, also his South America; Captain Basil Hall, Extracts from a Journal; Larrazabal, Simdn Bolivar; Mahoney, Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela and New Grenada; Mehe- gan, O'Higgins of Chile; General Miller, Memoirs in the Service of the Republic of Peru; Bartolome Mitre, Emancipation of South America; Pan- American Union, Bulletin; Petre, Simon Bolivar; Robertson, Rise of the Spanish-American Republics, also his Francisco de Miranda (American Histori- cal Association) ; Smith, History of the Adventures and Sufferings of Moses Smith; also a number of volumes of travel including Lord Bryce, South America; and Winter, Argentina, and Chile. CONTENTS OCTOBER 12 COLUMBUS AND DISCOVERER'S DAY COLUMBUS, Joaquin Miller 2 THE SEA OF DARKNESS 3 THE FORTUNATE ISLES 5 THE ABSURD TRUTH 7 CATHAY THE GOLDEN 10 THE EMERALD ISLANDS 12 THE MAGNIFICENT RETURN 13 THE FATAL PEARLS 15 Tierra Firme The Pearls The Curse of the Pearls QUEEN ISABELLA'S PAGE . . . . . .21 THE TWIN CITIES 24 THE PEARLS AGAIN 26 OCTOBER 14 WILLIAM PENN, THE FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA WITHIN THE LAND OF PENN, John Greenleaf Whit- tier . , . 30 THE BOY OF GREAT TOWER HILL .... 31 HE WORE IT AS LONG AS HE COULD, Samuel M. Janney 32 THE PEACEMAKER 33 WESTWARD Ho, AND AWAY! John Stoughton . . 34 THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE 36 THE PLACE OF KINGS, Samuel M. Janney . . 38 ONAS, W. Hepworth Dixon ... . * , . 41 xviii CONTENTS OCTOBER 27 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, AMERICA'S HERO THE SQUARE DEAL, Theodore Roosevelt ... 44 THE BOY WHO GREW STRONG, James Morgan . 45 Not in a Log Cabin In the Wide Out-of-Doors Busting Broncos SAGAMORE HILL, Theodore Roosevelt ... 50 THE CHILDREN OF SAGAMORE HILL, William Ros- coe Thayer 52 OFF WITH JOHN BURROUGHS, Theodore Roosevelt . 53 THE BIG STICK, William Roscoe Thayer . . .54 A-HUNTING TREES WITH JOHN Mum, Theodore Roosevelt 55 THE BEAR HUNTERS' DINNER, Theodore Roosevelt 56 HUNTING IN AFRICA, Theodore Roosevelt . . 57 THE EVER FAITHFUL ISLAND 59 THE COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS, William Roscoe Thayer 61 THE RIVER OF DOUBT, William Roscoe Thayer . 65 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, William Roscoe Thayer . 69 OCTOBER 30 JOHN ADAMS, THE SON OF LIBERTY INDEPENDENCE DAY, John Adams .... 74 A SON OF LIBERTY, Benson J. Lossing ... 75 THE ADAMS FAMILY . 76 AID TO THE SISTER COLONY, James Parton . . 77 A FAMOUS DATE 80 WHAT A GLORIOUS MORNING! 81 JOHN TO SAMUEL . 82 A GENTLEMAN FROM VIRGINIA 83 THE BOY WHO BECAME PRESIDENT .... 85 How SHALL THE STARS BE PLACED? 88 CONTENTS xk THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 89 His LAST TOAST 91 NOVEMBER 15 WILLIAM PITT, DEFENDER OF AMERICA HE AT ONCE BREATHED HIS OWN LOFTY SPIRIT^ John Richard Green ....... 94 THIS TERRIBLE CORNET OF HORSE * . . 95 THE CHARTER OF LIBERTY 98 AMERICA'S DEFENDER 101 THE SONS OF LIBERTY 103 A LAST SCENE, John Fiske 105 DECEMBER 2 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND, THE MAGNANI- MOUS, THE BEST REPUBLICAN IN BRAZIL FREEDOM IN BRAZIL, John Greenleaf Whittier . 110 THE BRAZILS MAGNIFICENT Ill THE EMPIRE OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS . . .112 MAKING THE LITTLE EMPEROR, W. H. Koebel . 113 THE PATRIOT EMPEROR 115 I. Viva Dom Pedro the Second! II. My People III. Emancipating the Slaves, 1888 IV. The Empire of the Southern Cross No More! Margarette Daniels THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL 120 DECEMBER 20 WILLIAM BRADFORD, AND THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS So THEY LEFT THAT GOODLY AND PLEASANT CITY, William Bradford 124 THE FATHER OF THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES . 125 xx CONTENTS THE SAVAGE NEW WORLD 128 WELCOME, ENGLISHMEN! 131 LOST! LOST! A BOY! 132 THE RATTLESNAKE CHALLENGE .... 136 THE GREAT DROUGHT, Governor Edward Winslow 138 JANUARY 7 GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM, "OLD PUT" THERE WAS A GENEROSITY AND BUOYANCY ABOUT THE BRAVE OLD MAN, Washington Irving . .142 SEEING BOSTON 143 THE FIGHT WITH THE WOLF 144 FROM PLOUGH TO CAMP 146 HE MADE WASHINGTON LAUGH . . . .148 A GENEROUS FOE 149 PUTNAM NOT FORGOTTEN! 150 JANUARY 11 ALEXANDER HAMILTON, DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION HE GAVE THE WHOLE POWERS OF HIS MIND, Dan- iel Webster 154 THE BOY OF THE HURRICANE, Sherman Williams 155 CALL COLONEL HAMILTON . . . . . . 157 A STRUGGLE 158 "HE KNOWS EVERYTHING" 159 JANUARY 17 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, THE AMERICAN SOCRATES OUR COUNTRY, Benjamin Franklin . . . .164 THE WHISTLE, Benjamin Franklin . . . .165 THE CANDLE-MAKER'S BOY ... .166 CONTENTS xxi THE BOY OF THE PRINTING PRESS . . . . 167 THE THREE ROLLS . . * ,< , : V . 168 STANDING BEFORE KINGS . ''.' ; t &' .' . 169 THE WONDERFUL KITE EXPERIMENT . ' . .170 THE RISING SUN 171 To MY FRIEND, Benjamin Franklin ' . . . 172 FEBRUARY 12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR OH, SLOW TO SMITE AND SWIFT TO SPARE, Wil- liam Cullen Bryant 174 THE CABIN IN THE CLEARING 175 How HE LEARNED TO BE JUST 176 OFF TO NEW ORLEANS 177 THE KINDNESS OF LINCOLN 178 The Little Birds Rescuing the Pig Opening Their Eyes LINCOLN AND THE CHILDREN 181 Hurrah for Lincoln! Only Eight of Us, Sir He's Beautiful! Please Let Your Beard Grow Three Little Girls THE PRESIDENT AND THE BIBLE . . . .183 WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN SPEAK . . . .185 GETTYSBURG ADDRESS, Abraham Lincoln . .186 FEBRUARY 22 GEORGE WASHINGTON, THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY LINCOLN ON WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY . . .190 THE BOY IN THE VALLEY 191 xxii CONTENTS WASHINGTON'S MOTHER, George Washington Parke Custis 194 WASHINGTON'S WEDDING DAY, Henry Cabot Lodge 197 WASHINGTON AND THE CHILDREN, Grace Green- wood 197 THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE RED COATS, Wayne Whipple 200 NELLIE AND LITTLE WASHINGTON, Harriet Taylor Upton 200 SEEING THE PRESIDENT, George Washington Parke Custis 203 NELSON THE HERO, George Washington Parke Custis 204 CARING FOR THE GUEST, Elkanah Watson . . 205 THOUGHTFUL OF OTHERS 206 THE ClNCINNATUS OF THE WEST .... 206 BROTHER JONATHAN 208 THE BLOODY FOOTPRINTS, George Washington Parke Custis 210 AN APPEAL TO GOD, Benson J. Lossing . . .211 FRIEND GREENE 213 LIGHT HORSE HARRY, Washington Irving . .216 CAPTAIN MOLLY, George Washington Parke Custis 218 THE SOLDIER BARON 220 FATHER THADDEUS 223 THE LITTLE FRIEND IN FRONT STREET . . . 228 FAREWELL! MY GENERAL! FAREWELL! J. T. Headley . . 230 FROM " WASHINGTON'S LEGACY " .... 232 A KING OF MEN, John Fiske 233 WHEN WASHINGTON DIED . 234 CONTENTS xxiii FEBRUARY 25 JOSE DE SAN MARTIN OF ARGENTINA, THE PROTECTOR SAN MARTIN, THE GREAT LIBERATOR, Joseph Con- rad . . . . .... . . . . 236 THE BOY SOLDIER . . . . ,, . . . 237 THE PATRIOT WHO KEPT FAITH . . . , . 238 WHEN SAN MARTIN CAME . . .v . . . 240 ARGENTINA'S INDEPENDENCE DAY . . 9 . 243 A GREAT IDEA 243 THE MIGHTY ANDES, Bartolome Mitre . . . 245 THE REAL SAN MARTIN 247 THE FIGHTING ENGINEER OF THE ANDES, Barto- lome Mitre 248 THE HANNIBAL OF THE ANDES, General Miller and Bartolome Mitre . .,' ...... 249 NOT FOR HIMSELF 254 COCHRANE, EL DIABLO 255 OUR BROTHERS, YE SHALL BE FREE . . .256 THE FALL OF THE CITY OF THE KINGS, Captain Basil Hall 257 SAN MARTIN THE CONQUEROR, Captain Basil Hall 261 A Retreat The Mother and Her Three Sons The Little Girl Who Was Bashful Another Little Girl The Best Cigar Duty Before the General LIMA'S GREATEST DAY 265 HAIL, NEIGHBOUR REPUBLICS! 266 AMERICA FOR THE AMERICANS 268 WHAT ONE AMERICAN DID 271 THE AMAZING MEETING ... . 272 xriv CONTENTS WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWABD ..... 274 THE MYSTERY SOLVED 276 MAKCH 15 ANDREW JACKSON, OLD HICKORY I WANT TO SAY THAT ANDREW JACKSON, Theodore Roosevelt 280 MISCHIEVOUS ANDY, James Parian .... 281 READING THE DECLARATION 282 Our AGAINST TARLETON, James Parton . . . 283 AN ORPHAN OF THE REVOLUTION, James Parton . 285 THE HOOTING IN THE WILDERNESS, James Parton 286 FORT MJMS 289 DAVY CROCKETT 290 CHIEF WEATHERFORD, James Parton . . . 291 SAM HOUSTON 295 WHY JACKSON WAS NAMED OLD HICKORY, James Parton 297 THE COTTON-BALES 299 AFTER THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS, James Parton ' ./ 30 APBIL 13 THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE FRAMER OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE THE FOURTH OF JULY, Hezekiah Butterworth . . 304 THE BOY OWNER OF SHADWELL FARM, James Parton .... - tf '* . . . . .305 A CHRISTMAS GUEST, James Parton .... 306 THE AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION .... 308 PROCLAIM LIBERTY 4 . * ; . . . 309 ONLY A REPRIEVE . . 4^ .*> . . . 310 ON THE FOURTH OF JULY . 313 CONTENTS xxv MAT 29 PATRICK HENRY, THE ORATOR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE To THE READER, Patrick Henry .... ; . 316 THE ORATOR OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE, Charles Morris 317 A Surprise to All A Failure That Was a Success Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death ! FACING DANGER 322 JUXE 9 FRANCISCO DE MIRANDA OF VENEZUELA, THE FLAMING SON OF LIBERTY THE PRINCE OF FILIBUSTERS, William Spence Robertson 326 THE SPANISH GALLEONS 327 THE ROMANCE OF MIRANDA 331 THE MYSTERY SHIP, James Biggs and Moses Smith 335 THE END OF THE MYSTERY SHIP .... 339 THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS FIFTH .... 341 A TERRIBLE THING 343 END OF THE ROMANCE 344 JUXE 23-24 ROGER WLLLL\MS AND THE FOUNDING OF PROVIDENCE GOD MAKES A PATH, Roger Williams . . . 348 ROGER, THE BOY . . . . . . . . 349 SOUL LIBERTY . . . . v ' . . . . 350 WHAT CHEER! Z. A. Mudge . . . * . 352 RISKING His LIFE, Charles Morris s . . 354 xxvi CONTENTS JULY 6 JOHN PAUL JONES, AMERICA'S IMMORTAL SEA-FIGHTER PAUL JONES, Ballad 358 THE BOY OF THE SOLWAY, J. T. Headley . . 359 DON'T TREAD ON ME! J. T. Headley . . .360 THE FIRST SALUTE, Alexander S. Mackenzie . 361 THE POOR RICHARD 364 MICKLE'S THE MISCHIEF HE HAS DUNE, J. T. Headley 365 PAUL JONES HIMSELF, J. T. Headley . . . 367 SOME OF His SAYINGS 369 JULY 24 SIMON BOLIVAR OF VENEZUELA, THE LIBERATOR BOLIVAR, Barry Cornwall 372 THE PRECIOUS JEWEL 373 THE FIERY YOUNG PATRIOT 376 SEEING BOLIVAR, By a Young Englishman . . 378 UNCLE PAEZ THE LION OF THE APURE . . 382 ANGOSTURA 384 THE CROSSING, By One who Accompanied Bolivar 385 PERU NEXT 388 THE BREAK 389 BOLIVAR THE MAN, William Spence Robertson . 390 AUGUST 20 BERNARDO O'HIGGINS, FIRST SOLDIER, FIRST CITIZEN OF CHILE THE NAME OF O'HIGGINS, W. H. Koebel . . 394 THE SON OF THE BAREFOOT BOY . . . 395 CONTENTS xxvii THE SINGLE STAR FLAG ...... 397 THB HERO OF RANCAGUA ...... 398 COMPANIONS-IN-ARMS ....... 400 THE PATRIOT RULER ....... 400 FIRST SOLDIER, FIRST CITIZEN ..... 402 CHILE AS SHE Is ........ 403 ONE OF TWENTY ........ 405 THE BETTER WAY . . . ..... 406 SEPTEMBER 6 THE MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE, THE FRIEND OF AMERICA AFTER THE SACRIFICES I HAVE MADE, Lafayette . 412 I WILL JOIN THE AMERICANS! Edith Sichel . . 413 IN AMERICA ......... 414 ON THE FIELD NEAR CAMDEN ..... 414 THE BANNER OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS . . .416 LOYAL TO THE CHIEF, John Fiske .... 418 WE ARE GRATEFUL, LAFAYETTE! .... 420 SOME OF WASHINGTON'S HAIR, T. R. Ybarra . 421 WELCOME! FRIEND OF AMERICA! .... 422 SEPTEMBER 24 JOHN MARSHALL, THE EXPOUNDER OF THE CONSTITUTION HE HAD A DEEP SENSE OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION, Justice Joseph Story .... 426 THE BOY OF THE FRONTIER, Albert J. Beveridge . 427 In a Log Cabin Off to the Blue Ridge Making an American Give Me Liberty! THE YOUNG LIEUTENANT, Horace Binney . . 433 xxviii CONTENTS SERVING THE CAUSE, Henry Flanders . . . 434 AT VALLEY FORGE, William Henry Rawle . . 435 SILVER HEELS, J. B. Thayer 436 WITHOUT BREAD, John Marshall's Sister . . 437 His MOTHER, Sallie E. Marshall Hardy . . . 438 His FATHER, Justice Joseph Story .... 438 THREE STORIES, James B, Thayer .... 439 What Was in the Saddlebags Eating Cherries Learned in the Law of Nations THE CONSTITUTION 442 EXPOUNDING THE CONSTITUTION, Chief Justice Waite 444 THE GREAT CHIEF JUSTICE, Horace Binney . . 446 Respected by All The True Man WHAT OF THE CONSTITUTION? Washington, Bolivar, Webster, Lincoln 448 ENVOY 450 APPENDIX I. Programme of Stories from the History of the United States 453 II. Story Programme of South America's Strug- gle for Independence 460 SUBJECT INDEX . . 465 ILLUSTRATIONS BREAKFAST WITH THE CHILDREN AT MOUNT VERNON Frontispiece COLUMBUS EXAMINES THE PEARLS 18 ROOSEVELT BREAKING "DEVIL" 50 JOHN BlLLINGTON BROUGHT ON THE SHOULDERS OF AN INDIAN 136 FRANKLIN AND THE KITE EXPERIMENT 170 "HE'S BEAUTIFUL" 182 "'TREASON! TREASON!' CRIED SOME OF THE EX- CITED MEMBERS" 318 PAUL JONES HOISTING THE STARS AND STRIPES Drawn by Frank T. Merrill OCTOBER 12 COLUMBUS AND DISCOVERER'S DAY The Very Magnificent Lord Don Cristobal Colon, High Ad- miral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of the Islands and Tierra Firma. COLUMBUS " My men grow mutinous day by day; My men grow ghastly wan and weak" The stout Mate thought of home; a spray Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. " What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" " Why you shall say at break of day, Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!" Then pale and worn, he kept his deck, And peered through darkness. Ah, that night Qf all dark nights! And then a speck A light! A light! A light! A light! It grew, a starlit Flag unfurled! It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. He gained a World, he gave that World Its grandest lesson "On! Sail on!" From JOAQUIN MILLEB'S Columbus CHBISTOPHER COLUMBUS was born in Italy, about 1451 First landed on an island of America, October 12, 1492 Sighted South America, 1498 Was sent in chains to Spain, 1500 Returned from his Fourth Voyage, 1504 He died, May 20, 1506 His name in Spanish is Cristobal Colon. THE SEA OF DARKNESS BEFORE America was ever heard of, over four hundred years ago, a boy lived in Genoa the Proud City. He was just one of hundreds of boys in that beautiful Italian town, whose palaces, marble villas, and churches climbed her picturesque hillsides. The boy's name was Christopher Columbus. Whenever he could leave his father's workshop, where he was learning to comb wool, for his father was a weaver, how eagerly the boy must have run down to the wharfs and sat there watching the ships come and go. ., They came from all those parts of the world which people knew about then, from Iceland and England, from European and Asiatic ports, and from North Africa. Caravels, galleys, and galleons, and sailing craft of all kinds, came laden with the wealth that made Genoa one of the richest cities of her time. The sailors, who lounged on the wharfs, spun wonderful yarns. They told how beyond the Pillars of Hercules which guarded the straits of Gibraltar, there rolled a vast, unknown sea, 4 COLUMBUS called the Atlantic Ocean or the Sea of Darkness. No one, they said, had ever crossed it. No one knew what lay beyond it. All was mystery. And any mariners, the sailors said, who had ventured far out on its black waters had never returned. Fearful things had happened to such mar- iners, the sailors added, for the Sea of Darkness swarmed with spectres, devils, and mips. And when night fell, slimy monsters crawled and swam in its boiling waves. Among these monsters, was an enormous nautilus large enough to crush a whole ship in its squirming arms, and a serpent fifty leagues long with flaming eyes and horse's mane. Sea-elephants, sea-lions, and sea-tigers, fed in beds of weeds. Harpies and winged terrors flew over the surface of the water. And horrible, they said, was the fate which overtook the ship of any foolhardy mariners who ventured too far out on that gloomy ocean. A gigantic hand was thrust up through the waves, and grasped the ship. A polypus, spouting two water-spouts as high as the sky, made such a whirlpool that the vessel, spinning round and round like a top, was sucked down into the roaring abyss. These frightful sea-yarns and many like them, the sailors told about the Atlantic Ocean, and people believed them. But the eyes of the boy Columbus, as he sat listening, must have sparkled THE FORTUNATE ISLES 5 as he longed to explore those mysterious waters of the Sea of Darkness, and follow them to the very edge of the world. For all that lay to the west of the Azores, was a great and fascinating mystery, when Columbus was a boy, before America was discovered. THE FORTUNATE ISLES LISTEN now to some of the stories that the Irish sailors who visited Genoa, told when Colum- bus was a boy. And people in those days, believed them to be true. They told how far, far in the West, where the sun set in crimson splendour, lay the Terrestrial Paradise from which Adam and Eve were driven. And other wonder tales the sailors told. One was the enchanting tale of Maeldune, the Celtic Knight, who seeking his father's mur- derer, sailed over the wide Atlantic in a coracle of skins lapped threefold, one over the other. Many were the wonder-islands that Maeldune and his comrades visited the Island of the Silvern Column; the Island of the Flaming Ram- part; the Islands of the Monstrous Ants, and the Giant Birds; the Islands of the Fierce Beasts, the Fiery Swine, and the Little Cat; the Islands of the Black Mourners, the Glass Bridge, and the Spouting Water; the Islands of the Red Berries, 6 COLUMBUS and the Magic Apples; and the islands of many other wonders. Many were the strange adventures that Mael- dune had in enchanted castles with beautiful Queens and lovely damsels, with monstrous birds, sleep-giving potions, and magic food. And the Irish sailors told, also, of good St. Brandan who set sail in a coracle, and discovered the Fortunate Isles. There he dwelt in blessed happiness, they said: "And his voice was low as from other worlds, and his eyes were sweet; And his white hair sank to his heels, and his white beard fell to his feet." And still another tale the Irish sailors told, a tale of Fairy Land, called the Land of Youth. Thither once went Usheen the Irish Bard. It happened on a sweet, misty morning that Usheen saw a slender snow-white steed come pacing along the shore of Erin. Silver were his shoes, and a nodding crest of gold was on his head. Upon his back was seated a Fairy Maiden crowned with gold, and wrapped in a trailing mantle adorned with stars of red gold. Weirdly but sweetly she smiled, and sang an Elfin song; while over sea and shore there fell a dreamy silence. Through the fine mist she urged on her steed, singing sweeter and ever sweeter as she came nearer and nearer to Usheen. THE ABSURD TRUTH 7 She drew rein before him. His friends saw him spring upon the steed, and fold the Fairy Maiden in his arms. She shook the bridle which rang forth like a chime of bells, and swiftly they sped over the water and across the sea, the snow-white steed running lightly over the waves. They plunged into a golden haze that shrouded them from mortal eyes. Ghostly towers, castles, and palace-gates loomed dimly before Usheen, then melted away. A hornless doe bounded near him, chased by a white hound. They vanished into the haze. Then a Fairy Damsel rode swiftly past Usheen, holding up a golden apple to him. Fast behind her, galloped a horseman, his purple cloak stream- ing in the still air, a sharp sword glittering in his hand. They, too, melted mysteriously away. And soon Usheen himself vanished into the Land of Youth, into Fairy Land. These are some of the wonder tales that folk used to tell about the mysterious Atlantic Ocean, when Columbus was a boy. THE ABSURD TRUTH WHEN Columbus was a boy, there was a story told that the Earth was round. Nearly every one who heard it thought it foolish absurd. "The Earth round!" they said; "do we not 8 COLUMBUS know that the Earth is flat? And does not the sun set each night at the edge of the World? " But young Columbus had a powerful, practical imagination. He believed there were good reasons to think that the Earth was not flat. He attended the University of Pavia. He studied astronomy and other sciences. He learned map-making. He read how the ancient philosophers thought the Earth to be a sphere and how they had tried to prove their theory by observing the sun, moon, and stars. Then, too, there were scholars in Europe, when Columbus was young, who agreed with the philosophers. But no scholar or philosopher had ever risked his life in a frail ship and ventured across the terrible Sea of Darkness to battle with its horrors, and prove his theory to be fact. The surging billows of the Atlantic with angry leaping crests of foam, still guarded their mystery. Young Columbus became a sailor, cruising with his uncle on the Mediterranean, sometimes chasing pirate ships. When older, he made long voyages. He learned to navigate a vessel. He visited, so some historians say, England and Thule. They say, too, that Thule was Iceland. Then if he visited Iceland, Columbus must have heard the strange tale of how Leif, son of Erik the Red, the bold Northman, sailed in a single ship over THE ABSURD TRUTH 9 the Sea of Darkness, and discovered Vinland the Good on the other side of the Atlantic. Columbus talked with sailors about then* voyages. He heard how the waves of the Sea of Darkness sometimes cast upon the Islands of the Azores, gigantic bamboos, queer trees, strange nuts, seeds, carved logs, and bodies of hideous men with flat faces, the flotsam and jetsam from unknown lands far to the west. Columbus's imagination and spirit of adventure were fired. He became more eager than ever to explore that vast expanse of water, and learn what really lay in the mysterious region, where the sun set each night and from which the sun returned each morning. "The Earth is not flat," thought he, "much goes to prove it. India, from which gold and spices come, is assuredly on the other side. If I can but cross the Sea of Darkness, I shall reach Tartary and Cathay the Golden Country of Kublai Khan. I shall have found a Western Passage to Asia. I will bring back treasure; but more than all else I shall be able to carry the Gospel of Christ to the heathen." For Columbus, you must know, was one of the most devout Christian men of his time. And he signed his name to letters, "Christ Bearing." Christopher in the Greek language, means Christ-Bearer. Perhaps, he was thinking 10 COLUMBUS of the beautiful legend of St. Christopher, who on his mighty shoulders bore the Christ Child across the swelling river, even as he, Christopher Colum- bus, humbly wished to bear Christ's Gospel across the raging waters of the Sea of Darkness. CATHAY THE GOLDEN WHERE was Cathay the Golden? / Who was Kublai Khan? One of Columbus's favourite books was written by Marco Polo, the great Venetian traveller, who served Kublai, Grand Khan of Tartary in Asia. Cathay was the name which Marco Polo gave to China. In his book, Marco Polo told of many marvels. In the chief city of Cathay the Golden, ruled over by Kublai Khan, stood the Grand Khan's palace. Its walls were covered with gold and silver, and adorned with figures of dragons, beasts, and birds. Its lofty roof was coloured outside with vermilion, yellow, green, blue, and every other hue, all shining like crystal. To this city of Cathay, were brought the most costly articles in the world, gold, silver, precious jewels, spices, and rare silks. The Grand Khan had so many plates, cups, and ewers of gold and silver, that no one would believe it without seeing them. He had five thousand elephants in CATHAY THE GOLDEN 11 magnificent trappings, bearing chests on their backs filled with priceless treasure. He had also, a vast number of camels with rich housings. At the New Year Feast, the people made presents to Kublai Khan of gold, silver, pearls, precious stones, and rich stuffs. They presented him, also, with many beautiful snow-white horses handsomely caparisoned. 1 These and other wonderful things, did Marco Polo write about hi his book, and Columbus read them all. At last the time came, when Columbus was fully determined to discover a Western Passage, and thus open a path through the Ocean from Europe to Asia. The Spanish courtiers laughed at Columbus; they called him a fool and madman to believe that the Sea of Darkness might be crossed. But as the years of waiting went by, Columbus grew stronger in his determination. The story of his many years of patient but determined waiting in Spain, of his pleadings with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, for money, men, and ships with which to cross the Ocean Sea, is told in "Good Stories for Great Holidays." And in "Good Stories for Great Holidays," it is told how at last Columbus was befriended by 12 COLUMBUS the Friar Juan Perez. There also may be found the stories of Columbus and the Egg, of his little son Diego at La Rabida, of Queen Isabella pledging her jewels, of Columbus's sailing across the Sea of Darkness, of the mutiny, of his faith, perseverance, and wisdom, and how at last he sighted a cluster of beautiful green islands, lying like emeralds in the blue waters of the Atlantic all these stories may be read in "Good Stories for Great Holidays." THE EMERALD ISLANDS Columbus's Day, October 12, 1492 IT was with songs of praise, that Columbus first landed on one of those emerald islands of the New World. And what delightful islands they were, spar- kling with streams, and filled with trees of great height. There were fruits, flowers, and honey in abundance. Among the large leaves and bright blossoms, flocks of birds sang and called. There were cultivated fields of Indian corn. And there were savages, naked dark-skinned folk, who peeped from behind trees, or ran frightened away. Later they grew bolder, and traded with Columbus and his men. Some of the savages smoked rolls of dried leaves. This was the first tobacco that white men had ever seen. THE MAGNIFICENT RETURN 13 Thus Columbus and his men discovered Indian corn, and tobacco. As Columbus sailed along the shores of the islands, he watched anxiously for the crystal- shining domes of Kublai Khan's Palace to rise among the trees. But no Cathay the Golden gleamed among the green, no elephants in trap- pings of cloth-of-gold, paced the sands. Instead, all was wild though so beautiful. The only people were the dark-skinned ones, whom Columbus named Indians; for he was sure that he had come across the Sea of Darkness by the Western Passage to India. THE MAGNIFICENT RETURN IT was a day of great rejoicing when Columbus returned to Spain. The whole country rose up to do him honour. Bells were rung, mass was said, and vast crowds cheered him as he passed along streets and highways. No one called him a fool and madman then. Had he not crossed the Sea of Darkness and returned alive? Neither nautilus, gigantic hand, nor polypus had dared to harm him. The Sea of Darkness was a mysterious gloomy sea no longer, instead it was the wide Atlantic Ocean, a safe pathway for brave mariners and good ships, a pathway leading to new lands of gold and spices 14 COLUMBUS far toward the setting sun. And so all Spain did honour to Columbus. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella eagerly awaited him at Barcelona. He entered that city with pomp and in procession. Balconies, win- dows, roofs were thronged. Crowds surged through the streets to gaze in wonder on that strange procession, so spectacular, so magnificent. First came the dark-skinned savage men, in paint and gold ornaments; after them walked men bearing live parrots of every colour; then others came carrying rich glittering coronets and bracelets, together with beautiful fruits and strange vegetables and plants, such as the people of Europe had never dreamed could exist. Then passed the great discoverer himself, Christopher Columbus, a-horseback, and sur- rounded by a cavalcade of the most brilliant courtiers of Spain. He dismounted, and entered the saloon where the King and Queen sat beneath a canopy of brocade. He modestly greeted them on bended knee. They raised him most graciously, and bade him be seated in their presence. After they had heard his tale with wonder, and had examined the treasures that he had brought with him from beyond the Sea of Darkness, the King and Queen together with their whole Court knelt in thanksgiving to God. THE FATAL PEARLS 15 To reward Columbus, his Sovereigns bestowed upon him the titles of Don Christopher Columbus, Our Admiral 6TTKe^Oc^a1cTSearand Viceroy and Governor of the Islands discovered in the Indies^ They also promised to make him ruler over any other islands and mainland he might discover. Columbus immediately began to prepare for another voyage. With a fleet of seventeen ships, bearing supplies and colonists, he sailed across the Sea of Darkness once more to the islands of the New World. He planted a colony there. He discovered other islands. And he still kept on searching diligently for Cathay the Golden. Turbulent adventurers, rapacious gold-hunters, and vicious men, were among the colonists. And Columbus, in the name of his Sovereigns, with great difficulty ruled over them all. THE FATAL PEARLS Tierra Firme IT was in May, 1498. The fleet of Admiral Don Christopher Columbus, in the name of the Holy Trinity, set sail from Spain for a third voyage across the Atlantic. It was no longer a Sea of Darkness to Columbus, but a sure pathway to golden lands. There he still hoped to find the Earthly Paradise from which Adam and Eve had been driven. And there 16 COLUMBUS too, he still expected to discover Cathay the Golden in Tartary, and Cipango, the great island of the western sea, which we call Japan. His ships sailed on, now plunging through the lifting billows, now lying becalmed on glassy waters under the fierce rays of the tropic sun, and now moving through a region of balmy airs and light refreshing breezes. July arrived, yet he had not sighted land. The fierce heat of the sun had sprung the seams of the ships. The provisions were rancid. There was scarcely any sweet water left in the casks. The anxious, watchful Admiral scanned the horizon. On the last day of the month, came a shout from the masthead: "Land!" And Columbus beheld the peaks of three mountains rising from the sea, outlined sharply against the sky. Then he and his men, lifting up their voices, sang anthems of praise and repeated prayers of thanksgiving. As the ships drew nearer to the three peaks, Columbus perceived that they rose from an island and were united at their base. "Three in one," he said, and named the island after the Holy Trinity in whose name he had set sail. For he had vowed before leaving Spain, to name the first new land he saw after the Trinity. That is why that island, to-day, is called Trinidad. They filled their casks there. Then onward THE FATAL PEARLS 17 they sailed, skirting the coast of Trinidad, hoping to find a harbour to put into while repairing the ships. Soon, they saw a misty headland opposite the island. "It is another island," said Columbus. It was no island. Wonderful to relate, Colum- bus had just discovered a new Country. It was the coastline of a vast southern conti- nent. It was Tierra Firme . It was South America! The Pearls YOUNG Indian braves, graceful and handsome, their black hair straight and long, their heads wrapped in brilliant scarfs, other bright scarfs wound round their middles, came in a canoe to visit Columbus's ships. Soon after this visit, Columbus set sail again, not knowing that he had just sighted one of the richest and greatest continents on earth. Sailing past the mouths of the mighty Orinoco River, pouring out their torrents with angry roar into the Caribbean Sea, Columbus skirted what is now called Venezuela. Other friendly Indians came to his ships. It was then that Columbus saw for the first time the pearls which were to help ruin him, and which were to work wretchedness and death for so many poor Indian folk. Among the friendly Indians were some who 18 COLUMBUS wore bracelets of lustrous pearls. The gold and spices got by Columbus on his former voyages were of slight beauty compared with those strings of magnificent pearls. Columbus examined them eagerly. He longed for some to send back to Queen Isabella, hi order to prove to her what a rich land he had just discovered. He questioned the Indians. Where had they got the pearls? They came from their own land, and from a country to the north and west, they answered. Columbus was eager to go thither. But first he sent men ashore to barter for some of the brace- lets. With bright bits of earthenware, with but- tons, scissors, and needles, they bought quantities of the pearls from the delighted Indians, to whom such articles were worth more than gold and jewels of which they had plenty. Then Columbus, hoisting sail, ran farther along the coast purchasing pearls until he had hah* a bushel or so of the lustrous sea-jewels, some of them of very large size. He named a great gulf, the Gulf of Pearls. He discovered other islands, among them the island of Margarita, which means a pearl. After which he turned his ships toward Santo Domingo, not knowing how tragic a thing was to befall him there, partly on account of the pearls. COLUMBUS EXAMINES THE PEARLS THE FATAL PEARLS 19 The Curse of the Pearls THOSE fatal sea-jewels had already begun their evil work. While Columbus was tarrying to collect them, a rebellion fomented by bad men who had taken advantage of his absence, had broken out in the Island of Santo Domingo. When Columbus reached there, he suppressed it. But his enemies hastened to send lying reports about him to the Spanish Court. And the courtiers, who were jealous of his high position, wealth, and power, urged King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to have him deposed. One of their accusations against him was, that he had held back from his Sovereigns their right- ful portion of the rich find of pearls. So at last, the royal edict went forth that the very magnificent Don Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of the Indies, should be tried and, if found guilty, deposed and returned to Spain. The man sent to do all this, and govern in Columbus's stead, was named Bobadilla. Bobadilla arrived at Santo Domingo with royal commands for Columbus to surrender all power [to him, and to obey him in everything. He caused him to be arrested and thrown into prison. He tried and condemned him. Reordered him put into chains. But no one could be 20 COLUMBUS found to rivet the chains until one of Columbus's own servants, "a shameless and graceless cook," did so with glee. Then Bobadilla reigned in Columbus's place over the Indies. Meanwhile, the grand old Admiral broken in spirit, carped at by his foes, was placed in man- acles aboard a caravel. Bobadilla had given orders that the chains should not be removed, but the humane master of the ship offered to break them. "Nay," said Columbus with dignity, "my Sovereigns have commanded me to submit, and Bobadilla has chained me. I will wear these irons until by royal order they are removed. And I shall keep them as relics and memorials of the reward of my services." But when Queen Isabella learned how he had been brought back to Spain in shackles, she was greatly angered. Both Sovereigns commanded that he should be immediately released. And when the venerable Columbus grown old in her service, entered her presence, Queen Isabella wept bitterly. Columbus fell at her feet, unable to utter a word, so great was his sorrow. Both Sovereigns promised to restore all his titles and the wealth which had been taken from him by force. But though Bobadilla was finally deposed from power because of his treatment of QUEEN ISABELLA'S PAGE 21 Columbus and because of his evil rule, yet the royal promise was not fulfilled. His titles and property were never restored to Columbus. Instead, he was again sent overseas, on a fourth voyage of discovery. With four miserable caravels manned by only a hundred and fifty men, the gray -headed, weary Columbus set forth once more still hoping to discover the country of Kublai Khan, and find the Earthly Paradise. And this time Columbus took with him his younger son, Ferdinand, who was thirteen years old. QUEEN ISABELLA'S PAGE OFF to find Kublai Khan, to drink from his golden cups, to eat from his silvern plates, to ride his elephants, to visit in his great palace, and, perhaps, to discover the Earthly Paradise what more thrilling adventure could a boy want? So Ferdinand Columbus, Queen Isabella's page, eager for adventure, set sail with his father Columbus, to cross the Sea of Darkness and explore beyond the emerald islands. For, while his father, on his former voyage, had been gathering pearls among the Pearl Islands of the New World, the boy Ferdinand, amid the splendour of the Spanish Court, had been waiting upon Queen Isabella. 22 COLUMBUS But now, what a change! Ferdinand was off across the heaving, foaming Sea of Darkness in a small caravel tossed about like a cockleshell on the billows. A tempest with ram, thunder, and light- ning arose. It struck Columbus's wretched cara- vels. They were buffeted by the wind, their sails were torn, their rigging, cables, and boats were lost. Food was washed overboard. The sailors were terrified, they ran about making religious vows and confessing their sins to each other. Even the boldest was pale with fear. "But the distress of my son who was with me, grieved me to the soul . . ." wrote Columbus afterward, "for he was but thirteen years old, and he enduring so much toil for so long a time. Our Lord, however, gave him strength to enable him to encourage the rest. He worked as if he had been eighty years at sea." But there was more to trouble plucky Ferdi- nand than the storm at sea. Columbus, his father, fell sick near to death. There was no one who could direct the ships' course, but Columbus himself. So he had a little cabin rigged up on deck. Lying there, he gave his orders. Presently, to Ferdinand's joy, he grew better. Meanwhile, what was happening to the wicked Bobadilla? That same tempest was doing great things. It was buffeting, lashing, and wrecking a caravel which was taking Bobadilla to Spain. QUEEN ISABELLA'S PAGE 23 The ship, plunging under the howling, raging, black waters, sank to the bottom of the ocean, taking Bobadilla with it, and the treasure he had stolen from Columbus. But Columbus's own caravels won safely through the storm and across the Caribbean Sea. ' They drew near to an unknown shore the coast of Central America. There is not space here in which to tell of the many adventures of Columbus and his men, nor of all the things that Ferdinand saw. There were other storms. At one time, the seas ran high and terrific, foaming like a caldron. The sky burned like a furnace, the lightning played with such fury that the waves were red like blood. I The coast of Central America was thickly peopled with savages. Some of them were richly clothed, and wore ornaments of gold and coral, and carried golden mirrors fastened round their necks. Ferdinand saw other savages in trees living like wild birds, their huts built on sticks placed across from bough to bough. He saw strange beasts, beautiful birds, delicious fruits, brilliant flowers, great apes, and alligators bask- ing in the rivers. There were fights with natives, a massacre of some of his father's men, there was starvation and misery. Then Columbus, after having sailed down the coast and back again, turned the ships homeward. 24 COLUMBUS Then came the most terrible adventure of all. The ships were riddled by worms, their sides were rotten, and the water was pouring through them like a sieve. Columbus reached the lonely island of Jamaica, just in time to drive his two remaining ships on the beach, and save them from sinking. There for many months Ferdinand was ma- 'rooned with his father and the men. There was more starvation, a mutiny, and adventures with savages. Then came the exciting rescue by two caravels. Such were the adventures of Queen Isabella's page. But he went back to Spain without seeing Cathay the Golden and Kublai Khan's palace. THE TWIN CITIES WHILE Columbus was exploring the coast of Central America, he fell sick of a fever. He had a dream. He tells us of this dream in his own letters. He dreamed that a compassionate Voice spoke to him, bidding him believe in God, and serve Him who had had him from infancy in His constant and watchful care, and who had chosen him to unlock the barriers of the Ocean Sea. This Voice said many things to Columbus, adding these words, "Even now He partially THE TWIN CITIES 25 shows thee the reward of so many toils and dan- gers incurred by thee in the service of others. Fear not but trust." And even then, Columbus, though he did not know it, was actually seeing the land where his hopes were to come true. For to-day, we Ameri- cans know that while Columbus was exploring inlets and river-mouths on the coast of Central America searching for the Western Passage to Asia, he entered Limon Bay of Panama. He even sailed part way up the Chagres River. And if his melancholy eager eyes might have been opened, what a vision he would have had of the future! He would have beheld the Caribbean Sea beating on civilized shores. He would have seen Twin Cities rising, their pleasant white, palm-shaded houses smiling in the sun, the Twin Cities of Cristobal and Colon Christopher and Columbus proud to bear his famous name. He would have seen those Twin Cities guarding a Western Passage to Asia. He would have perceived in his vision ships, greater than any Spanish caravels, sliding through a Canal the wonder of the world, on then* way to and from Asia the Golden. But as it was, in a miserable little caravel, tempest-racked, with masts sprung and sides worm-eaten, the weary disappointed Columbus 26 COLUMBUS with the boy Ferdinand, returned at last to Spain. And about two years later, in the City of Valladolid, "the Grand Old Admiral," who had given a New World to the Old, died almost in poverty. As he passed away, he murmured, "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." THE PEARLS AGAIN THE curse of the pearls still held strong after Columbus's death. News of the discovery of the Pearl Islands in the New World, spread rapidly through Europe. Many cruel and greedy pearl- hunters hastened to set out for the islands. They pillaged the native villages. They hunted the Indians like wild beasts. They forced them to work in the mines. But, worst of all, they made them dive into the deep sea for pearls, under the most horrible conditions. Then it was that the compassionate friend of the Indians, the humane priest Bartolome de Las Casas, took up their cause and pleaded for them with the Spanish Crown. But Spain was too far away for the Crown to control Spanish officials in America, and do much to lessen the sufferings of the natives. Thus sorrow and desolation followed the find- ing of the sea-jewels. In time, they became a rich part of the cargoes of the Treasure Galleons. THE PEARLS AGAIN 27 And they forged one of the first links in the chain of oppression which bound all Spanish America for over three hundred years. For how this chain was broken by the great Liberators, read : Miranda, the Flaming Son of Liberty, page 325; San Martin, the Protector, page 235; O'Higgins, First Soldier, First Citizen, page 393; Bolivar, the Liberator, page 371. OCTOBER 14 WILLIAM PENN THE FOUNDER OF PENNSYLVANIA A3 Justice is a preserver, so it is a better procurer of Peace, than War ' WILLIAM PENN Within the Land of Penn, The sectary yielded to the citizen, And peace/id dwelt the many-creeded men. Peace brooded over all. No trumpet stung The air to madness, and no steeple flung Alarums down from bells at midnight rung. The Land slept well. The Indian from his face Washed all his war-paint off, and in the place Of battle-marches, sped the peaceful chase. The desert blossomed round him; wheatfields rolled Jieneath the warm wind, waves of green and gold, The planted ear returned its hundredfold. JOHN GKEENLEAP WHITTIEB WILLIAM PENN was born in London, October 14, 1644 Received the Charter, granting him Pennsylvania, 1681 Composed the Plan for the Peace of Europe, 1693 He died in England, May 30, 1718. THE BOY OF GREAT TOWER HILL IN a house on Great Tower Hill near London Wall, was born William Perm, who was to be- come the Founder of Pennsylvania. He was christened William after his ancestor, Perm of Penn's Lodge. He was a charming baby, with round face, soft blue eyes, and curling hair. His father, Captain Penn, who had been called home to see the new baby on that first birthday of little William Penn, went back to his ship rejoicing that he had such a handsome son and heir. When William Penn was ten years old, a strange thing befell him. He was not like other boys. He was quiet and serious. At that tune he was a schoolboy in an English village. One day, he was alone in his room. Suddenly he felt a wonderful peace and an "inner com- fort," while a glory filled the room. He felt that he was drawn near to God, so that his soul might speak with him. A strange experience for a boy to have. But it was an experience which helped to shape William Penn's life. From that time on, he believed that he had been called to live a holy life. 32 WILLIAM PENN When he grew older, his family tried to make him forget this religious experience, but he never forgot. In time he became a Friend or Quaker. In those days, Friends were bitterly persecuted in England. William Penn suffered imprison- ments and persecutions, but always with patient sweetness and endurance. At last, the persecutions of the Friends made William Penn turn his thoughts toward the New World of America. HE WORE IT AS LONG AS HE COULD WHEN William Penn became a Friend, he did not immediately leave off his gay apparel, as other Friends did. He even wore a sword, as was customary among men of rank and fashion. One day, being with George Fox the great leader of the Friends, he asked his advice about wearing the sword, saying that it had once been the means of saving his life without injuring his antagonist, and that moreover Christ has said, "He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one." "I advise thee," answered George Fox quietly, "to wear it as long as thou canst.' 9 Shortly after this, they met again. William Penn had no sword. "William," said George Fox, "where is thy sword?" THE PEACEMAKER 33 "Oh!" replied William Penn, "I have taken thy advice. I wore it as long as I could! " Samuel M. Janney (Retold) THE PEACEMAKER "HE must not be a man but a statue of brass or stone, whose bowels do not melt when he beholds the bloody tragedies of this war in Hungary, Germany, Flanders, Ireland, and at sea; the mortality of sickly and languishing camps and navies; and the mighty prey the devouring winds and waves have made upon ships and men," wrote William Penn over two hundred years ago. It was then that William Penn became the peacemaker. j The world was in the midst of a terrible war. William Penn did not believe in war. He had cast aside his own sword for principle's sake, and had bravely suffered persecutions and imprisonments in the Tower of London and in Newgate. Fear- lessly now he came forward with a plan for world peace, which he hoped would stop bloody wars, and persuade rulers to arbitrate their quarrels. He published a "Plan for the Peace of Europe," urging the formation of a league of European countries. So earnest is this plan and so profoundly thought out, that it has had much influence on 34 WILLIAM PENN rulers and statesmen, who from time to time have held peace congresses in Europe. But rivalry of Nations, has prevented the peace plan from ever being carried out. "Christians," argued William Perm, "have embrewed their hands in one another's blood, invoking and interesting all they could the good and merciful God to prosper their arms to their brethren's destruction. Yet their Saviour has told them that He came to save and not to destroy the lives of men, to give and plant peace among men. And, if in any sense, He may be said to send war, it is the Holy War indeed, for it is against the Devil, and not the persons of men. Of all His titles, this seems the most glorious as well as comfortable for us, that He is the Prince of Peace." WESTWARD HO, AND AWAY! ' THE tune arrived when William Penn's peaceful thoughts went sailing over the Atlantic, west- ward ho, and away! For he was appointed a trustee of Jersey in America. There came to him while he was still in England, news of immense tracts of land lying beyond Jersey, so fertile that under cultivation they would yield harvests un- paralleled in his island home. He heard of rich minerals, of noble forests, of river-banks offering WESTWARD HO, AND AWAY 35 splendid sites for towns and cities, of bays where proud navies might ride at anchor. Moreover, many Friends, who had fled from persecution in England, were settled in Jersey. Their industry had already turned the wilderness into a garden. They were holding their meetings and worshipping God, without fear of constables and fines, of imprisonments and attacks by mobs. In Jersey, they had full liberty of conscience. And William Penn, as his thoughts sailed west- ward ho, and away! saw, rising from the sea, bright and fair, a land of refuge not only for persecuted Friends, but for all oppressed people. He determined to found a new State in America, where nobody should be persecuted for religion's sake, where everybody should be free, and where the people should govern themselves. "A holy experiment," he called it. He presented a petition to Charles the Second, asking for a royal grant of land near Jersey. "After many waitings, watchings, solicitings," the title to a vast tract was confirmed to him under the Great Seal of England. He was to be its ruler and "Lord Proprietor," "with large powers and privileges." He was to make laws, grant pardons, and appoint officials as he saw fit, but subject to the approval of the English Government. Penn named his land, "Sylvania"; but the 36 WILLIAM PENN King called it Penn-sylvania, in honour of old Admiral Penn, William Penn's father. Almost the first thing that Penn did was to write to the people already settled in Penn- sylvania, "a loving address." "My Friends," he began, "I wish you all happiness, here and hereafter. These are to let you know that it hath pleased God, in his provi- dence, to cast you within my lot and care. . . . "You shall be governed by laws of your own making, and live a free, and, if you will, a sober and industrious people." Thus William Penn promised the People of Pennsylvania, Liberty^and the right to govern themselves. _ And he kept his promises. John Stoughton (Retold) 'THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE WITH what delight did William Penn first set foot on the shore of the Delaware River. It was Autumn. The sweet clear air, the serene skies, the trees, fruits, and flowers, filled him with a wellnigh unspeakable joy. And later, while being rowed up the river in a barge, he saw the ancient forest trees on either bank, their leaves flaming with red, gold, and amber. He saw flocks of wild fowl rise up from the water, and fly screaming overhead. The THE CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE 37 solitude and grandeur of the wilderness brooded over all. Meanwhile, farther up the river, a welcome was awaiting him. In a little town, shaded by pine- trees and built on the high shore, there were white men and Indians hurrying to and fro. They were preparing an entertainment for William Penn, their Governor. The town was Penn's capital city. He had named it Philadelphia, which means Brotherly Love. And as his barge drew near the City of Brotherly Love, the white settlers, Swedish, Dutch, and English Friends, greeted him heartily, for they already knew how just, gentle, and wise he was. As for the Indians, so stately in their robes of fur and nodding plumes, William Penn walked with them, and sat down on the ground to eat with them. They gave him hominy and roasted acorns. And after the feast, they entertained him with their sports, jumping and hopping. And William Penn sprang up gayly like a boy, and joining in their games, beat them all, young Braves and old. And so the Red Men learned to love and trust their great White Father Onas they called him. For Onas is Indian for a pen, or a quill. Such was William Penn's happy welcome to the City of Brotherly Love. fi U 88 WILLIAM PENN THE PLACE OF KINGS IT was the last of November. The lofty forest trees on the shore of the Delaware had shed their summer attire. The ground was strewn with leaves. A Council-fire was burning brightly beneath a huge Elm, not far from the City of Brotherly Love. It was an ancient Elm, which for over a hundred years had guarded Shackamaxon, the Place of Kings. For long before the Pale-faces had landed on the shore of the Delaware, Indian Sachems, Kings of the Red Skins, had held their friendly councils hi its shade, and smoked many a Pipe of Peace. On that November day, the tribes of the Lenni Lenape under the wide-spreading branches of the Elm, were gathered around the Council- fire. They were seated in a half circle, like a half moon. They were all unarmed. Among the Chiefs, was the Great Sachem Taminend, revered for his wisdom and beloved for his goodness. He sat in the middle of the half moon, with his council, the aged and wise, on either hand. They waited. Then, lo! a barge approached. At its masthead flew the broad pennant of Governor William Penn. The oars were plied with measured strokes, THE PLACE OF KINGS 39 guiding the barge to land. And near the helm sat William Penn attended by his council. He landed with his people, and advanced toward the Council-fire. A handsome man he was, only thirty-eight years old, athletic, and graceful. His manners were courteous, his blue eyes were friendly. He was plainly dressed, with a scarf of sky-blue network bound about his waist. Some of his people preceded him. They carried presents for the Indians, which they laid on the ground before them. Then William Penn approached the Council- fire. Thereupon the Great Sachem, Taminend, put on a chaplet surmounted by a horn, the emblem of his power, and through an interpreter an- nounced that the Nations were ready to hear William Penn. Thus being called upon, William Penn began his speech : "The Great Spirit," he said, "who made me and you, who rules the heavens and the earth, and who knows the innermost thoughts of men, knows that I and my friends have a hearty desire to live in peace and friendship with you, and to serve you to the utmost of our power. "It is not our custom to use hostile weapons against our fellow-creatures, for which reason we have come unarmed. Our object is not to do 40 WILLIAM PENN injury, and thus provoke the Great Spirit, but to do good. "We are met on the broad pathway of good faith and good will, so that no advantage is to be taken on either side, but all to be openness, brotherhood, and love." Here William Penn unrolled a parchment on which was inscribed an agreement for trading, and promises of friendship. He explained the agreement article by article. Then laying the parchment on the ground, he said that that spot should ever more be common to both Peoples, Pale-face and Red Skin. The Indians listened to his speech in perfect silence, and with deep gravity. And when he was finished speaking, they deliberated together, for some time. Then the Great Sachem ordered one of his Chiefs to address William Penn. ! The Chief advanced, and in the Sachem's name saluted him, and taking William Penn by the hand, made a speech pledging kindness and neigh- bourliness, saying that the English and the Lenni Lenap6 should live together in love, so long as the sun and the moon should endure. Samuel M. Jarvney (Retold) ONAS 41 ONAS AFTER the Treaty was made at the Place of Kings, the Lenni Lenape, for many years enjoyed the mild and just rule of their "elder brother Onas." He met them often around the Council- fire, hearing and rectifying their wrongs, adjust- ing trade matters, and smoking with them the Pipe of Peace. And William Penn made treaties with the Indians who dwelt on the Potomac, and with the Five Nations. Thus Pennsylvania had quiet; and the Red Men were friends of the settlers. Some- times they brought the white men venison, beans, and maize, and refused to take pay. Whereas, in the other Colonies, the Indians were dangerous neighbours, cruel and delighting in blood. They had been made suspicious and revengeful by the injustice and wickedness of white men. So the Red Men of Pennsylvania, trusted William Penn, although he was a Pale-face. What Pale-face had they ever seen like him? A Pale- face was to them a trapper, a soldier, a pirate, a man who cheated them in barter, who gave them fire-water to drink, who hustled them off their hunting-ground. But here was one Pale-face, who would not cheat and lie; who would not fire into their lodge; who would not rob them of their beaver skins; 42 WILLIAM PENN who would not take a rood of land from them, till they had fixed and he had paid their price. Where were they to look for such another lord? So when they heard that Onas was about to sail for England, Indians from all parts of Penn- sylvania gathered to take sorrowful leave of him. After he was gone, they preserved with care the memory of their treaties with him, by means of strings or belts of wampum. Often they gathered together in the woods, on some shady spot, and laid their wampum belts on a blanket or a clean piece of bark, and with great satis- faction went over the whole. So great was their reverence and affection for William Penn, in- spired by his virtues, that they handed on the memory of his name to their children. When William Penn died in England, the Indians sent his wife a message, mourning the loss of their "honoured brother Onas." And with the message went a present of beautiful skins for a cloak "to protect her while passing through the thorny wilderness without her guide." W. Hepworth Dixon and Other Sources OCTOBER 27 THEODORE ROOSEVEtT AMERICA'S HERO On behalf of all our people, on behalf no less of the honest man of means, than of the honest man who earns each day's livelihood by that day's sweat of his brow, it is necessary to insist upon honesty in business and politics alike, in all walks of life, in big things and in little things; upon just and fair dealing as between man and man. THEODORE ROOSEVELT THE SQUARE DEAL We of the great modern democracies, must strive unceasingly to make our several Countries, lands in which a poor man who works hard can live comfortably and honestly, and in which a rich man cannot live dishonestly nor in slothful avoidance of duty. And yet, we must judge rich man and poor man alike by a standard which rests on conduct and not on caste. And we must frown with the same stem severity on the mean and vicious envy which hates and would plunder a man because he is well off, and on the brutal and selfish arrogance, which looks down on and exploits the man with whom life has gone hard. THEODORE ROOSEVELT COLONEL THEODORE ROOSEVELT was born in New York City, October 27, 1858 Was appointed Police Commissioner of New York City, 1895 Aided in establishing the Independence of Cuba, 1898 Was elected Governor of the State of New York, 1898 Served as President of the United States, 1901-1909 He died, January 6, 1919. THE BOY WHO GREW STRONG Not in a Log Cabin THEODORE ROOSEVELT, unlike Abraham Lincoln, was not born in a log cabin. On the contrary, he was born to wealth and position in the City of New York. He was reared in an elegant h *ne and educated in one of the famous universities of the Country. He read law, but he had no need to practise a profession. His father had retired from business, and there was no occasion for the son to take up a business career. : But Theodore Roosevelt preferred for himself a life of toil the strenuous life. Ill-health was the first and greatest of all his disadvantages. "When a boy," said he, "I was pig-chested and asthmatic." From earliest infancy he was called to battle with asthma. It lowered his vitality and threatened his growth. His body was frail, but within was the conquering spirit. He determined to be strong like other boys. In this, he had the loving help of gentle parents. On the wide back porch of their home in the City of New York, they fitted up a gymnasium, where 46 THEODORE ROOSEVELT he strove for bodily vigour with all his might. Although at the start, his pole climbing was very poor, he kept trying until he got to the top. He would carry his gymnastic exercises to the perilous verge of the window ledge, more to the alarm of the neighbours than of his own family. In the Wide Out-qf-Doors SUMMER was the season of Roosevelt's delight. Then he ceased to be a city boy. At his father's country place on Long Island, he learned to run and ride, row, and swim. And when the long sleepless nights came, the father would take his invalid boy in his arms, wrap him up warmly, and drive with him in the free open air through fifteen or twenty miles of darkness. The boy had his father's love of the woods and the fields. He studied and classified the birds of the neighbourhood, until he knew their songs and plumage and nests. He and his young friends could be relied on to find the spot where the violets bloomed the earliest, and the trees on which the walnuts were most plentiful, as well as the pools where the minnows swarmed, and the favourite refuge of the coon. He was taken to Europe, in the hope that it would benefit his health, "a tall thin lad with bright eyes and legs like pipestems." THE BOY WHO GREW STRONG 47 When at last, he was ready to go to college, he had vanquished his enemy, ill-health, and was ready to play a man's part in life. "I made my health what it is," he said later, "I determined to be strong and well, and did everything to make myself so. By the time I entered Harvard, I was able to take part in whatever sports I liked. I wrestled and sparred, and I ran a great deal, and, although I never came in first, I got more out of the exercise than those who did, because I immensely enjoyed it and never injured myself. Busting Broncos AFTER leaving college, young Roosevelt entered politics. Finally, between legislative sessions, he surrendered to his impulses and started for the Wild West. He left the train in North Dakota at the little town of Medora. The young visitor from the East, sought out two hunters and told them that he wished to go buffalo hunting with them. And he did so, though hunting the buffalo then was no fancy pastime. It was, in truth, a rare chance to see the Wild West in the last glow of its golden age. Soon it was all to vanish and pass into the most romantic chapter of American history. Before his first visit was at an end, he had become a ranchman. 48 THEODORE ROOSEVELT The young master of Elkhorn Ranch, brave, outspoken, and always ready to bear his full share of toil, and hardship, was not long in win- ning the respect and hearty good- will of the bluff, honest men of the Bad Lands. After only a little experience in ranching, he learned to sit in his saddle and ride his horse like a life-long plainsman. But he never pretended to any special fondness for a bucking bronco; and a story is told of a trick played on him by some friendly persons in Medora. He was in town, waiting for a train that was to bring a guest from the East. While he was in a store, the jokers placed his saddle on a notoriously vicious beast, which they substituted for his mount. When he came out, in haste to ride around to the railway station, he did not detect the deception. Once, he was on the horse's back, the bronco bucked and whirled to the amusement of the grinning villagers. But to their amazement, the young ranchman succeeded in staying on him and spurring him into a run. Away they flew to the prairies, and soon back they raced in a cloud of dust and through the town. The friend from the East arrived, and joined the spectators, who waited to see if THE BOY WHO GREW STRONG 49 the young squire of Elkhorn ever would return. In a little while, he was seen coming along the road at a gentle gait. And when he reached his starting point, he dismounted, with a smile of quiet mastery, from as meek a creature as ever stood on four legs. He had no use, however, for a horse whose spirit ran altogether to ugliness. When he first went West, he doubted the theory of the natives that any horse was hopelessly bad. For instance, there was one in the sod-roofed log stable of Elkhorn, who had been labelled The Devil. Roosevelt believed that gentleness would overcome Devil. The boys thought it might, if he should live to be seventy-five.. After much patient wooing, Devil actually let Roosevelt lay his hand on him and pat him. The boys began to think that possibly there was something in this new plan of bronco busting. One day, however, when his gentle trainer made bold to saddle and mount him, Devil quickly drew his four hoofs together, leaped into the air, and came down with a jerk and a thud. Then he finished with a few fancy curves, that landed his disillusioned rider a good many yards in front of him. Roosevelt sprang to his feet and on to the back of the animal. Four times he was thrown. Finally, the determined rider manoeuvred Devil 50 THEODORE ROOSEVELT out on to a quicksand where bucking is impossi- ble. And, when at last, he was driven back to solid earth, he was like a lamb. In this rough life of the range, the young ranch- man conquered for ever the physical weaknesses of his youth, and put on that rude strength which enabled him to stand before the world, a model of vigorous manhood. James Morgan (Arranged} SAGAMORE HILL His Home at Oyster Bay From Roosevelt's Autobiography SAGAMORE HILL takes its name from the old Sagamore Mohannis, who, as Chief of his little tribe, signed away his rights to the land, two centuries and a half ago. The house stands right on the top of the hill, separated by fields and belts of woodland from all other houses, and looks out over the Bay and the Sound. We see the sun go down beyond long reaches of land and of water. Many birds dwell in the trees round the house or in the pastures and the woods near by. And, of course, in Winter gulls, loons, and wild fowl frequent the waters of the Bay and the Sound. We love all the seasons; the snows and bare '' " ' '- , _ ROOSEVELT BREAKING DEVIL SAGAMORE HILL 51 woods of Winter; the rush of growing things and the blossom-spray of Spring; the yellow grain, the ripening fruits, and tasseled corn, and the deep, leafy shades that are heralded by "the green dance of Summer"; and the sharp fall winds that tear the brilliant banners with which the trees greet the dying year. The Sound is always lovely. In the summer nights, we watch it from the piazza, and see the lights of the tall Fall River boats as they steam steadily by. Now and then we spend a day on it, the two of us together in the light rowing skiff, or perhaps with one of the boys to pull an extra pair of oars. We land for lunch at noon under wind-beaten oaks on the edge of a Jow bluff, or among the wild plum bushes on a spit of white sand; while the sails of the coasting schooners gleam in the sunlight, and the tolling of the bell-buoy comes landward across the waters. . . . Early in April, there is one hillside near us which glows like a tender flame with the white of the bloodroot. About the same time, we find the shy mayflower, the trailing arbutus. And although we rarely pick wild flowers, one mem- ber of the household always plucks a little bunch of mayflowers to send to a friend working in Panama, whose soul hungers for the northern Spring. Then there are shadblow and delicate anemones 52 THEODORE ROOSEVELT about the time of the cherry blossoms. The brief glory of the apple orchards follows. And then the thronging dogwoods fill the forests with their radiance. And so flowers follow flowers, until the spring- time splendour closes with the laurel and the evanescent honey-sweet locust bloom. The late summer flowers follow, the flaunting lilies, and cardinal flowers, and marshmallows, and pale beach rosemary; and the goldenrod and the asters, when the afternoons shorten and we again begin to think of fires in the wide fireplaces. Theodore Roosevelt THE CHILDREN OF SAGAMORE HILL MRS. ROOSEVELT looked after the place itself. She supervised the farming, and the .. flower gardens were her especial care. The children were now growing up, and from the time when they could toddle, they took their place a very large place in the life of the home. Roosevelt described the intense satis- faction he had in teaching the boys what his father had taught him. As soon as they were large enough, they rode their horses, they sailed on the Cove and out into the Sound. They played boys' games, and through him, they learned very young to observe nature. OFF WITH JOHN BURROUGHS 53 In his college days, he had intended to be a naturalist, and natural history remained his strongest avocation. And so he taught his children to know the birds and animals, the trees, plants, and flowers of Oyster Bay and its neighbourhood. They had their pets Kermit, one of the boys, carried a pet rat in his pocket. Three things Roosevelt required of them all: obedience, manliness, and truthfulness. William Roscoe Thayer OFF WITH JOHN BURROUGHS' From Roosevelt's Autobiography ONE April, I went to Yellowstone Park, when the snow was still very deep, and I took John Burroughs with me. I wished to show him the big game of the Park, the wild creatures that have become so astonishingly tame and tolerant of human presence. In the Yellowstone, the animals seem always to behave as one wishes them to! It is always possible to see the sheep, and deer, and antelope, and also the great herds of elk, which are shyer than the smaller beasts. In April, we found the elk weak after the short commons and hard living of Winter. Once, with- out much difficulty, I regularly rounded up a big band of them so that John Burroughs could look 54 THEODORE ROOSEVELT at them. I do not think, however, that he cared to see them as much as I did. The birds interested him more, especially a tiny owl, the size of a robin, which we saw perched on the top of a tree, in mid-afternoon, entirely uninfluenced by the sun, and making a queer noise like a cork being pulled from a bottle. I was rather ashamed to find how much better his eyes were than mine, in seeing the birds and grasping their differences. Theodore Roosevelt THE BIG STICK I SAW in Roosevelt a strong man, who had taken early to heart Hamlet's maxim, and had stead- fastly practised it: " Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument, But greatly to find quarrel in a straw When Honour 'a at the stake" He himself summed up this part of his philosophy in a phrase which has become a proverb : "Speak softly; but carry a big stick" More than once in his later years, he quoted this to me, adding, that it was precisely because this or that Power knew that he carried a big A-HUNTING TREES 55 stick, that he was enabled to speak softly with effect. William Roscoe Thayer (Condensed) A-HUNTING TREES WITH JOHN MUIR From Roosevelt's Autobiography WHEN I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the "big trees," the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite with John Muir. Of course, of all people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite . . . John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules to carry our tent, bedding, and food for a three days' trip. The first night was clear, and we lay down in the darkening aisles of the great Sequoia grove. The majestic trunks, beautiful in colour and in symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervour of the Middle Ages. Hermit thrushes sang beautifully in the eve- ning, and again with a burst of wonderful music at dawn. I was interested and a little surprised to find that, unlike John Burroughs, John Muir cared little for birds or bird songs, and knew little about them. The hermit thrushes meant nothing to him, the trees and the flowers and 56 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the cliffs, everything. The only birds he noticed or cared for, were some that were very con- spicuous, such as the water-ousels always particular favourites of mine too. The second night, we camped in a snow-storm on the edge of the canon walls, under the spread- ing limbs of a grove of mighty silver fir. And next day, we went down into the wonderland of the Valley itself. I shall always be glad that I was in the Yosemite with John Muir, and in the Yellow- stone with John Burroughs. Theodore Roosevelt (Condensed) THE BEAR HUNTERS' DINNER From Roosevelt's Autobiography WHEN wolf-hunting in Texas, and when bear- hunting in Louisiana and Mississippi, I was not only enthralled by the sport but also by the strange new birds and other creatures, and the trees and flowers I had not known before. By the way, there was one feast at the White House, which stands above all others in my memory, this was "The Bear Hunters' Dinner." T had been treated so kindly by my friends on these hunts, and they were such fine fellows, men whom I was so proud to think of as Ameri- cans, that I set my heart on having them at a hunters' dinner at the White House. HUNTING IN AFRICA 57 One December, I succeeded. There were twenty or thirty of them, all told, as good hunters, as daring riders, as first class citizens as could be found anywhere. No finer set of guests ever sat at meat in the White House. And among other game on the table, was a black bear, itself contributed by one of these same guests. Theodore Roosevelt (Condensed) HUNTING IN AFRICA From Roosevelt's Autobiography THE African buffalo is undoubtedly a dangerous beast, but it happened that the few that I shot did not charge. A bull elephant, a vicious "rogue" which had been killing people in the native villages, did charge before being shot at. My son Kermit and I stopped it at forty yards. Another bull elephant, also unwounded, which charged, nearly got me, as I had just fired both cartridges from my heavy double-barreled rifle, in killing the bull I was after the first wild elephant I had ever seen. The second bull came through the thick brush to my left, like a steam plow through a light snowdrift, everything snap- ping before his rush, and was so near that he could have hit me with his trunk. I slipped past him behind a tree. 58 THEODORE ROOSEVELT People have asked me how I felt on this occasion. My answer has always been that I suppose I felt as most men of like experience feel on such occasions. At such a moment, a hunter is so very busy that he has no time to get frightened. He wants to get in his cartridges and try another shot. Rhinoceros are truculent, blustering beasts, much the most stupid of all the dangerous game I know. Generally their attitude is one of mere stupidity and bluff. But on occasions they do charge wickedly, both when wounded and when entirely unprovoked. The first I ever shot, I mortally wounded at a few rods' distance, and it charged with the utmost determination. Whereat I and my companion both fired, and, more by good luck than anything else, brought it to the ground just thirteen paces from where we stood. Another rhinoceros may or may not have been meaning to charge me; I have never been certain which. It heard us, and came at us through rather thick brush, snorting and tossing its head. I am by no means sure that it had fixedly hostile intentions. And indeed, with my present experi- ence, I think it likely that if I had not fired, it would have flinched at the last moment, and either retreated or gone by me. But I am not a rhinoceros mind-reader, and its actions were THE EVER FAITHFUL ISLAND 59 such as to warrant my regarding it as a sus- picious character. I stopped it with a couple of bullets, and then followed it up and killed it. The skins of all these animals which I thus killed are in the National Museum at Washington. Theodore Roosevelt (Condensed) THE EVER FAITHFUL ISLAND Now, let us see what Theodore Roosevelt did to help establish Liberty in this Hemisphere. It is a far cry from the Very Magnificent Don Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the Ocean Sea, and discoverer of the West Indies and South America, to plain Theodore Roosevelt of Oyster Bay and citizen of the United States of North America. Yet it was a very direct cry, a ringing call down through four centuries, a never ceasing plea for Liberty and safety. And it was plain Colonel Theodore Roosevelt who, with his Rough Riders, helped to break the last link of the chain of Spanish domination in America. Its first link was unwittingly forged by Columbus, when he discovered the gold and pearls of the New World. Through the many years, Cuba, the "Ever Faithful Island," remained loyal to Spain, while her other American possessions declared their 60 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Independence, slipped from her grasp, and set up Republics. But instead of taking warning from her American losses, Spain continued her policy of repression in Cuba. Then there arose Cuban Patriots, among them, Gomez, Maceo, and Garcia, who struggled for Cuba's Freedom. There were rebellions, insur- rections, and war. Great and terrible were the sufferings of the People. It is not possible here to give an account of the Cuban War for Independence. But after a terrific struggle, it was finally won in 1898, with the help of our United States. Thus Spain lost her last foothold hi America, and withdrew from this hemisphere. To-day, the Island of Cuba the "Ever-Faithful Island," the "Pearl of the Antilles," is a flourish- ing Republic with a world commerce. And during the World War, the red, white, and blue, single- bestarred Flag of Cuba, waved over a brave Cuban Army, the ally of the United States. But as to Theodore Roosevelt's part in liberat- ing the Island, while he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley, we will let one of his biographers tell about it: COLONEL OF ROUGH RIDERS 61 THE COLONEL OF THE ROUGH RIDERS In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of en- dangered American interests, which give us the right and the duty to speak and act, the war in Cuba must stop. President McKiNLEY ROOSEVELT had always felt the danger to the United States of maintaining a despicable or an inadequate Navy, and from the moment he entered the Navy Department, he set about pushing the construction of the unfinished vessels and of improving the quality of the personnel. He was impelled to do this, not merely by his instinct to bring whatever he undertook up to the highest standard, but also because he had a premonition that a crisis was at hand, which might call the Country, at an instant's notice, to protect itself with all the power it had. Roosevelt was impressed by the insurrection in Cuba, which kept that Island in perpetual disorder. The cruel means, especially recon- centration and starvation, by which the Span- iards tried to put down the Cubans, stirred the sympathy of the Americans, and the number of those who believed that the United States ought to interfere in behalf of humanity, grew from month to month. During his first year in office, Assistant Sec- retary Roosevelt busied himself with all the 62 THEODORE ROOSEVELT details of preparation. And all the while he watched the horizon towards Cuba, where the signs grew angrier and angrier. But the young Secretary had to act with circumspection. President McKinley, desiring to keep the peace up to the very end, would not countenance any move which might seem to the Spaniards either a threat or an insult. Early in the evening of February 15, 1898, the U. S. battleship Maine, peaceably riding at her moorings in Havana Harbour, was blown up. Two officers and 264 enlisted men were killed by the explosion and in the sinking of the ship. The next morning, the newspapers carried the report to all parts of the United States, and, indeed, to the whole world. A tidal wave of anger surged over this Country. "That means war!" was the common utter- ance. I doubt whether Roosevelt ever worked with greater relish than during the weeks succeeding the blowing-up of the Maine. The Navy Depart- ment arranged hi hot haste to victual the ships; to provide them with stores of coal and ammu- nition; to bring the crews up to their full quota by enlisting; to lay out a plan of campaign; to see to the naval bases and the lines of communi- cation; and to cooperate with the War Depart- ment in making ready the land fortifications along the shore. COLONEL OF ROUGH RIDERS 63 Having accomplished his duty as Assistant Secretary, Roosevelt resigned. He thought that he had a right to retire from that post, and to gratify his long cherished desire to take part in the actual warfare. General Alger, the Secretary of War, had a great liking for Roosevelt, offered him a com- mission in the Army, and even the command of a regiment. This he prudently declined, having no technical military knowledge. He proposed instead that Dr. Leonard Wood should be made Colonel, and that he should serve under Wood, as Lieutenant Colonel. While Roosevelt finished his business at the Navy Department, Colonel Wood hurried to San Antonio, Texas, the rendezvous of the First Regiment of Volunteer Cavalry the Rough Riders! A call for volunteers, issued by Roosevelt and endorsed by Secretary Alger, spread through the West and Southwest, and it met with a quick response. Not even in Garibaldi's famous Thousand, was such a strange crowd gathered. It com- prised cow-punchers, ranchmen, hunters, pro- fessional gamblers, and rascals of the Border, sportsmen, mingled with the society sports, former football players and oarsmen, polo 64 THEODORE ROOSEVELT players, and lovers of adventure from the great eastern cities. They all had one quality in common courage and they were all bound together by one common bond devotion to Theodore Roosevelt. Nearly every one of them knew him personally. Some of the western men had hunted or ranched with him. Some of the eastern had been with him in college, or had had contact with him in one of the many vicissitudes of his career. I shaH not attempt to follow in detail the story of the Rough Riders, but shall touch only on those matters which refer to Roosevelt himself. Wood having been promoted to Brigadier General, in command of a larger unit, Theodore Roosevelt became Colonel of the regiment of Rough Riders. On July 1 and 2, he commanded the Rough Riders in their attack on and capture of San Juan Hill, in connection with some coloured troops. In this engagement, their nearest approach to a battle, the Rough Riders, who had less than five hundred men in action, lost eighty-nine in killed and wounded. Then followed a dreary life in the trenches, until Santiago surrendered, and then a still THE RIVER OF DOUBT 65 more terrible experience, while they waited for Spain to give up the war. Under a killing tropical sun, receiving irregular and often damaged food, without tent or other protection from the heat or from the rain, the Rough Riders endured for weeks the ravages of fever, climate, and privation. Finally, because of Roosevelt's insistence, the Government at Washington, without loss of time, ordered the Army home. The sick were transported by thousands to Montauk Point, at the eastern end of Long Island, where in spite of the best medical care which could be improvised, large numbers of them died. But the Army knew, and the American Public knew, that Roosevelt had saved multitudes of lives. At Montauk Point, he was the most popular man in America. This concluded Roosevelt's career as a soldier. The experience introduced to the Public those virile qualities of his, with which his friends were familiar. William Roscoe Thayer (Arranged) THE RIVER OF DOUBT ROOSEVELT decided to make one more trip for hunting and exploration. As he could not go to 66 THEODORE ROOSEVELT the North Pole, he said, because that would be poaching on Peary's field, he selected South America. He had long wished to visit the Southern Continent, and invitations to speak at Rio Janeiro and at Buenos Aires, gave him an excuse for setting out. He started with the distinct purpose of collect- ing animal and botanical specimens, this tune for the American Museum of Natural History hi New York, which provided two trained natu-~ ralists to accompany him. His son Kermit, toughened by the previous adventure, went also. Having paid his visits and seen the civilized parts of Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina, he ascended the Paraguay River, and then struck across the plateau which divides its watershed from that of the tributaries of the Amazon. For he proposed to make his way through an unexplored region in Central Brazil, and reach the outposts of civilization on the Great River. The Brazilian Government had informed him that by the route he had chosen, he would meet a large river the River of Doubt by which he could descend to the Amazon. There were some twenty persons, including a dozen or fifteen native rowers and pack-bearers, in his party. They had canoes and dugouts, supplies of food for about forty days, and a carefully chosen outfit. THE RIVER OF DOUBT 67 With high hopes, they put their craft into the water and moved down stream. But on the fourth day, they found rapids ahead. And from that time on, they were constantly obliged to land and carry their dugouts and stores round a cataract. The peril of being swept over the falls, was always imminent, and as the trail, which consti- tuted their portages, had to be cut through the matted forest, their labours were increased. In the first eleven days, they progressed only sixty miles. No one knew the distance they would have to traverse, nor how long the river would be broken by falls and cataracts, before it came down into the plain of the Amazon. Some of their canoes were smashed on the rocks. Two of the natives were drowned. They watched their provisions shrink. Contrary to their expectations, the forest had almost no animals. If they could shoot a monkey or a monster lizard, they rejoiced at having a little fresh meat. Tropical insects bit them day and night and caused inflammation and even infection. Man- eating fish lived in the river, making it dangerous for the men when they tried to cool their inflamed bodies by a swim. Most of the party had malaria, and could be kept going only by large doses of quinine. 68 THEODORE ROOSEVELT Roosevelt, while in the water, wounded his leg on a rock; inflammation set in, and prevented him from walking, so that he had to be carried across the portages. The physical strength of the party, sapped by sickness and fatigue, was visibly waning. Still the cataracts continued to impede their progress and to add terribly to their toil. The supply of food had shrunk so much, that the rations were restricted, and amounted to little more than enough to keep the men able to go forward slowly. Then fever attacked Roosevelt, and they had to wait for a few days, because he was too weak to be moved. He besought them to leave him and hurry along to safety, because every day they delayed consumed their diminishing store of food, and they might all die of starvation. They refused to leave him, however. A change for the better in his condition came soon. They moved forward. At last they left the rapids behind them, and could drift and paddle on the unobstructed river. Roosevelt lay in the bottom of a dugout, shaded by a bit of canvas put up over his head, and too weak from sickness even to splash water on his face; for he was almost fainting from the muggy heat and the tropical sunshine. Forty-eight days, after they began their voyage on the River of Doubt, they saw a peasant, a rubber-gatherer, the first human being they had met. Thenceforward they jour- neyed without incident. The River of Doubt flowed into the larger river, Madeira; where they found a steamer which took them to Manaos on the Amazon. During the homeward voyage, Roosevelt slowly recovered his strength, but he had never again the iron physique with which he had em- barked the year before. The Brazilian Wilder- ness stole away ten years of his life. He found on his return home that some geog- raphers and South American explorers laughed at his story of the River of Doubt. He laughed, too, at their incredulity ; and presently the Bra- zilian Government, having established the truth of his exploration and named the river after him, Rio Teodoro, his laughter prevailed. He took real satisfaction in having placed on the map of Central Brazil, a river six hundred miles long. William Roscoe Thayer (Arranged) THEODORE ROOSEVELT THE evil men do lives after them; so does the good. With the passing of years, a man's name and fame either drift into oblivion or they are seen in their lasting proportions. 70 THEODORE ROOSEVELT You must sail fifty miles over the Ionian Sea and look back, before you can fully measure the magnitude and majesty of Mount JEtna,. Not otherwise, I believe, will it be with Theodore Roosevelt, when the people of the future look back upon him. The blemishes due to misunder- standing will have faded away. The transient clouds will have vanished. The world will see him as he was. . . . Those of us who knew him, knew him as the most astonishing human expression of the Crea- tive Spirit we had ever seen. His manifold talents, his protean interests, his tireless energy, his thunderbolts which he did not let loose, as well as those he did, his masterful will sheathed in self-control like a sword in its scabbard, would have rendered him superhuman, had he not possessed other qualities which made him the best of playmates for mortals. He had humour, which raises every one to the same level. He had loyalty, which bound his friends to him for life. He had sympathy and capacity for strong, deep love. How tender he was with little children! How courteous with women ! No matter whether you brought to him important things or trifles, he understood. I can think of no vicissitude in life in which Roosevelt's participation would not have been welcome. If it were danger, there could be no THEODORE ROOSEVELT 71 more valiant comrade than he. If it were sport, he was a sportsman. If it were mirth, he was a fountain of mirth, crystal pure and sparkling. . . . But yesterday, he seemed one who embodied Life to the utmost. With the assured step of one whom nothing can frighten or surprise, he walked our earth as on granite. Suddenly, the granite grew more unsubstantial than a bubble, and he dropped beyond sight into the Eternal Silence. Happy we who had such a friend! Happy the American Republic which bore such a son! William Roscoe Thayer (Condensed) OCTOBER 30 JOHN ADAMS THE SON OF LIBERTY SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES I have passed 'the Rubic.on: swim or sink, live or die, survive or perish with my Country, is my unalterable determination. JOHN ADAMS INDEPENDENCE DAY I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding gen- erations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp, and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, for ever more. JOHN ADAMS JOHN ADAMS was born in Braintree, or Quincy, Massachusetts, October 30, 1735 Was a member of the Committee that framed the Declaration of Independence; and he signed the Declaration Was Commissioner to France, 1778 Was Ambassador to England, 1785 Became Second President of the United States, 1796 He died on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Fourth of July, 1826 A SON OF LIBERTY THERE was no loftier genius nor purer Patriot during the struggle for Independence, than John Adams. He was born at Braintree now a part of Quincy Massachusetts. He was descended from Henry Adams who came to America dur- ing the reign of Charles the First. On his mother's side, he was descended from John Alden, the Pilgrim Father who came over in the Mayflower. Thus, from both sides of his house, John Adams inherited staunch, fearless, English blood and love of Independence. He went to school in Braintree, and later graduated from Harvard University. After which he studied law, and was admitted to the bar. He married Abigail Smith of Weymouth, Massachusetts. They made their home in Boston. It is not possible here to tell ah* that John Adams did for America. He was an ardent Patriot, a Son of Liberty, serving the country at the risk of his life. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress. He was a member of the Committee appointed to frame the Declaration of Independence. He signed the Declaration. 76 JOHN ADAMS He was sent abroad on foreign missions. He was elected Vice-President, and afterward called to be second President of the United States. He lived to see his son, John Quincy Adams, made sixth President of the United States. He died on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence, at the great age of ninety-one. Benson J. Lossing and Other Sources THE ADAMS FAMILY JOHN ADAMS was not the only great American Patriot in his Family. His cousin, Samuel Adams, was a popular and fearless leader in the move- ment for Independence. His activities were so feared by England, that the Government issued orders for his arrest and trial for high treason. Abigail Adams, John Adams's wife, was one of the noble American women who helped to win the War for Independence. She kept her husband informed of the movements of the British around Boston, while he was attending the Continental Congress. She wrote him many patriotic letters, which are inspiring reading to-day. She signed some of them "Portia," so that if they fell into the hands of the enemy, no one could tell who wrote them. She sent many of the letters to her husband by secret messengers. AID TO THE SISTER COLONY 77 Their son, John Quincy Adams, became sixth President of the United States. His son, Charles Francis Adams, and the latter's two sons, Charles Francis and Henry Adams, served the Country in important offices, at home and abroad. They were historians and statesmen. John and Abigail Adams, their son and his two sons, kept diaries or wrote letters, memoirs, and biographies, which form a vivid and intimate story of many historical events dating from the War for Independence down nearly to our own time. Thus America has to thank the Adams Family for historical records of great importance. AID TO THE SISTER COLONY IT was a clear and frosty night that night, when the moonbeams fell on the tea thrown overboard by the Boston Tea Party. Paul Revere, all booted and spurred, was ready for a famous ride not the one to Lexington, but to Philadelphia this time. Soon he was off and away, galloping southward, spreading, as he rode along, the astonishing news that Boston Town had at last defied King George. There were public re- joicings everywhere, as the news was passed along. 78 JOHN ADAMS "This," said John Adams exultingly, "is the most magnificent movement of all! ... This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible ! . . . What measures will the Ministry take in consequence of this? Will they resent it? Will they dare to resent it? Will they punish us? How? " John Adams did not have to wait long to find out how. For King George decided to punish the people of brave Boston Town, by starving them into submission. The Boston Port Bill was passed in England. A British Fleet blockaded Boston Harbour. No ship could go in or out; all supplies of food and fuel were cut off. The Boston folk suffered starvation, disease, and death; but they would not submit. Their misery became almost unendurable. Then it was that Massachusetts' sister Colonies roused themselves. Samuel Adams of Boston sent a circular letter to each of the Colonies asking for help. Food, fuel, and money came pouring in. All that Summer, Boston, suffering, impov- erished Boston, lay upon every loyal American heart. Each province, county, city, town, neigh- bourhood, sent its contribution. Windham, Connecticut, began the work of re- lief, and sent in, with a cordial letter of applause AID TO THE SISTER COLONY (79 and sympathy, "a small flock of sheep." Two hundred and fifty-eight sheep was Windham's notion of a small flock! New Jersey soon wrote that she would be glad to know which would be more acceptable to a suffering sister, cash or produce. "Cash," replied Boston, "if perfectly convenient." Massachusetts farmers supplied grain by the barrel and bushel. The Marblehead fishermen forwarded "two hundred and twenty-four quin- tels of good eating-fish, one barrel and three- quarters of good olive oil" with money to boot. North Carolina promptly sent two sloop- loads of provisions. South Carolina's first gift was one hundred casks of rice. And Baltimore Town contributed three thou- sand bushels of corn, twenty barrels of rye-flour, two barrels of pork, and twenty barrels of bread. Virginia! there seemed to be no end to Virginia's gifts! And as the cool season approached, the farmers could be more liberal. Flocks of fat sheep and droves of oxen, together with hundreds of cords of wood, grain, and money in plenty, helped to relieve the suffering town. From New York they came, and from Maryland, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, from the three counties on the Delaware, and from every little mountain-town in New Hampshire and Vermont. 80 JOHN ADAMS As for Canada, from cold and remote Quebec came some wheat, and from Montreal a hundred pounds sterling. The letters that accompanied the gifts, and the grateful answers from the Boston Committee, would fill a large volume. . "Boston is suffering in the common cause," said her sister Colonies. "If need be," said George Washington of Virginia, "I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head, for the relief of Boston." James Parton and Other Sources (Retold) A FAMOUS DATE SEPTEMBER 5, 1774! What a famous date in American history! And in the history of the whole World! | On that day, met for the first time, the Con- tinental Congress of America. From Colony after Colony, the delegates came riding into Philadelphia. George Washington of Virginia came with fiery Patrick Henry, and Edmund Pendleton, "one of Virginia's noblest sons." There came Caesar Rodney, "burley and big, bold and bluff," with Thomas McKean and George Read, all from the three counties on the Delaware, and Roger Sherman with Silas Deane WHAT A GLORIOUS MORNING! 81 of Connecticut, and John Jay and Livingston of New York. From Rhode Island, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and South Carolina, the eager delegates came riding into the City of Brotherly Love. And, of course, John Adams and Samuel Adams, representing the suffering Colony of Massachusetts Bay, were on hand when Congress opened. Among its first acts, the First Continental Congress sent a letter to General Gage; an ad- dress to the People of Great Britain; one to the People of Quebec; and a Petition to King George, setting forth the grievances of the American Colonists, the violations of their rights as free Englishmen, and asking for justice, but strongly urging a renewal of harmony and union between the Colonies and the Mother Country, England. American histories tell how King George dis- regarded that Petition. American histories, also, tell how William Pitt and other great English statesmen, nobly defended America, as you may see if you read the story of William Pitt, on page 93. WHAT A GLORIOUS MORNING! WHEN Paul Revere came galloping into Lexing- ton, after warning the countryside that the British were coming to seize the powder and shot, 82 JOHN ADAMS he roused Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were staying with friends. Paul Revere was come to warn them also; for the British General Gage had given orders for their arrest, and intended to send them to England to be tried for high treason. ' The British Government was specially afraid of John Hancock, one of the most daring and active of the Boston Patriots. "The terrible desperado," he was called by that Government. While he and Samuel Adams were escaping from Lexington and hurrying across some fields Samuel Adams exclaimed : "Oh, what a glorious morning is this!" It was the morning of the Battle of Lexington, when the shot was fired that was heard round the world. After the Second Continental Congress opened, John Hancock was chosen to preside, while the Congress discussed how to defend the Country. : JOHN TO SAMUEL NEW ENGLAND was in arms. Lexington and Concord had been fought, and Boston was being besieged by the New England Army. The Congress was discussing the defense of the whole Country. There were some members who wished the Congress to take over the New Eng- A GENTLEMAN FROM VIRGINIA 83 land Army and appoint a Commander-in-Chief . It was then that John Adams met his cousin Samuel Adams, in the State House yard. This is the way John Adams tells it: '"What shall we do to get Congress to adopt our Army? ' said Samuel Adams to John Adams. '"I will tell you what I am determined to do,' said John to Samuel. 'I have taken pains enough to bring you to agree upon something; but you will not agree upon anything. And now I am determined to take my own way, let come what will come!' "'Well,' said Samuel, 'what is your scheme?' "Said John to Samuel,' I will go to Congress this morning, and move that a day be appointed to take into consideration the adoption of the Army before Boston, the appointment of a General and officers; and I will nominate Wash- ington for Commander-in-Chief!" A GENTLEMAN FROM VIRGINIA So it happened, that John Adams rose in his seat, and moved that the Congress should adopt the Army of New England men, and appoint a Commander-in-Chief, adding, that he had in mind some one for that high command, "a gentleman from Virginia, who is among us, and very well known to all of us; a gentleman 84 JOHN ADAMS whose skill and experience as an officer, whose independent fortune, great talents and excellent universal character, would command the appro- bation of all America, and unite the cordial exer- tions of all the Colonies better than any other person in the Union." Every one knew whom John Adams meant. And George Washington, who was sitting near the door, was so overcome by modesty, that he sprang up and darted into the library close by. But his modesty did not prevent his election. He was unanimously chosen Commander-in- Chief ; while the army of New England men was adopted by Congress and named "the Conti- nental Army." Later, when Washington's appointment was announced in the Congress, he rose in his place, and said most earnestly: "Since the Congress desire, I will enter upon the momentous duty and exert every power I possess hi then- service and for the support of the glorious cause. "But I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare, with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honoured with." But far-sighted John Adams was delighted. He was enthusiastic. "There is something charming to me in the conduct of Washington," BOY WHO BECAME PRESIDENT 85 he wrote to a friend, "a gentleman of one of the first fortunes upon the continent, leaving his delicious retirement, his family and friends, sacrificing his ease, and hazarding all in the cause of his Country. "His views are noble and disinterested. He declared, when he accepted the mighty trust, that he would lay before us an exact account of his expenses, and not accept a shilling pay/* And to Abigail Adams, his wife, far off in Braintree, guarding her children from battle, and murder, and from sudden death, John Adams wrote: "I can now inform you, that the Congress have made choice of the modest and virtuous, the amiable, generous, and brave George Washing- ton, Esquire, to be General of the American Army." He wrote thus joyously on the 17th day of June, while on that very day, Abigail Adams and little John Quincy Adams were standing on a hilltop watching Charlestown burn and fall into ashes. THE BOY WHO BECAME PRESIDENT "Mr head is much too fickle, my thoughts are running after birds' eggs, play, and trifles, till I get vexed with myself," wrote little John Quincy 86 JOHN ADAMS Adams, nine years old, to his father John Adams. Those were terrible times. Little John Quincy's thoughts were running after other things besides birds' eggs. He could hear the thunder of British cannon and the answering roar of American guns. There was fighting very near him. From a hill- top, he could see the battle raging. He knew that some of the American boys who were fight- ing, were from Braintree. Sometime before, little John Quincy and his mother, Abigail Adams, had escaped from their home in Boston, and had taken refuge in Brain- tree, which was not far away. Now they were living in constant terror for fear the British should attack Braintree. His father, John Adams, was not there to protect him. He was attending the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. On the 17th of June, 1775, the British can- nonading began in the direction of Charlestown. John Quincy and his mother climbed the hill, and watched the battle. With terror-stricken eyes, the boy saw Charlestown go up in flames and fall in ashes. And as for Abigail Adams, she trembled with fear lest the British should attack Braintree next; and then what would become of John Quincy and the other children? So John Quincy and his mother watched the famous battle of Bunker Hill. And while they were listening to the cannon and the guns, their 1 BOY WHO BECAME PRESIDENT 87 beloved friend, Dr. Joseph Warren, the noble Patriot who had joined the American forces as volunteer, fell mortally wounded. And when the news of his death reached Braintree, John Quincy burst into tears, for Dr. Warren had been the family physician, and had once saved the boy from having a broken finger amputated. And through those exciting times, John Quincy was a staunch boy-patriot. When he was only nine years old, he became his mother's post-boy, riding to Boston and back, eleven or more miles each way, to get news for her. And every morning before he climbed out of bed, he did as his mother had taught him. After he had said the Lord's Prayer, he recited: How sleep the Brave, who sink to rest, By all their Country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallowed mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod, Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By Fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung, There Honour comes, a Pilgrim grey, To watch the turf that wraps their clay, And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell a weeping Hermit there. 1 Thus the boy-patriot did what he could. And when he grew up, he served his Country so well 1 Ode by William Collins. 88 JOHN ADAMS in many important matters, that he was called to her highest office, and became the sixth Presi- dent of the United States. HOW SHALL THE STARS BE PLACED? ON that great day, when the Congress of the United States adopted the Stars and Stripes as our National Flag, it resolved that the union should be Thirteen Stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation. And a new Constellation it was, Thirteen Stars of the Thirteen States united as one, a Constella- tion destined to shine on all the World Liberty enlightening the World! But how should the Stars be grouped upon the Flag? that was the question. John Adams suggested that they should be arranged in the form of the Constellation Lyra, the beautiful cluster of stars shining in our northern night. But the new Constellation of American Stars could not be arranged thus to look well. So it was decided to place them in a circle, for a circle has no end. And it was hoped that as the Coun- try grew larger, adding more States and a new Star for each State, that the circle would widen. And it has widened and widened, until there is no longer any room for a circle on our Flag; THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER 89 but spangled like the sky at night, it has become the Star-Spangled Banner. THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER A MYSTERIOUS foreign stranger suddenly ap- peared in New York City, after John Adams had retired from the presidency. He was handsome, with beaming hazel eyes and flashing white teeth. He was graceful, with courtly manners. He called himself George Martin. But what his real name was, or what his mysterious purpose was, only a few people knew. He was dined and toasted by New York officials. He went to the City of Washington on his secret mission. He was granted private in- terviews by the President and Secretary of State. He talked much about his friends Catherine the Great of Russia and William Pitt of England. He seemed to know the secret plots and political intrigues of Europe. Then he vanished as mysteriously as he had come. A few weeks later, John Adams heard the as- tounding news. The stranger was no other than the celebrated South American Patriot, Don Francisco de Miranda. He had sailed away secretly from New York in a little ship laden 90 JOHN ADAMS with arms and ammunition. And, what was worse, he had taken with him a band of young American men, some of them mere boys; and he was sailing toward the Spanish main with the intention of freeing South America from Spanish rule. He had taken with him young William Steuben Smith, John Adams's grandson. Young Smith was a college boy, very bright and courageous, and thirsty for adventure. "What do you think were my sensations and reflections?" wrote John Adams to a friend. "I shudder to this moment, at the recollection of them! I saw the ruin of my only daughter and her good-hearted, enthusiastic husband, and had no other hope or wish or prayer than that the ship, with my grandson in it, might be sunk in a storm hi the Gulf Stream!" For young William Steuben Smith's father was surveyor of the port of New York, and had allowed Miranda's ship to clear with arms and ammunition in its hold, to be used against Spain with whom we were at peace. Then came to John Adams the terrible news, that Spanish armed vessels had captured some of the American boys. His grandson had been captured, and thrown into a dungeon in a dark, filthy fortress in Venezuela. He was to be tried as a pirate taken on the high seas, and without doubt he would be hanged. HIS LAST TOAST 91 The Spanish Ambassador, who had known John Adams in Europe, hastened to offer his services. He would intercede with Spain for the grandson, he said. "No," said John Adams to a friend; "he should share the fate of his colleagues, comrades, and fellow-prisoners." But happily it was all a great mistake. Young Smith was not hanged as a pirate. He had not been captured at all. Instead, he was sailing gayly on in Miranda's Mystery Ship. He had been made aid-de-camp and lieutenant-colonel, and had donned Miranda's brilliant uniform. For the story of what happened further to the Mystery Ship, see page 335. HIS LAST TOAST IT was the last day of June, 1826. In five days, it would be the Fourth of July the Fiftieth Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams had been one of the committee to frame the Declaration. A neighbour was sitting with John Adams in his home in Quincy that used to be Braintree. Ninety and one years old was John Adams! The neighbour was to be orator at the annual banquet on the Fourth of July. He had called to ask John Adams to compose the toast. 92 JOHN ADAMS "Independence for ever!" said John Adams. But would he not wish to add something fur- ther to the toast, asked the neighbour. "Not a word," replied John Adams. The Fourth of July dawned. The great Patriot lay dying. At the setting of the sun, those who stood beside him heard him whisper: "Thomas Jefferson still lives!" As the sun sank out of sight, a loud cheering came from the village. It was the shouts of the people at the words of his toast: "Independ- ence for ever!" The. cheering echoed through the room where John Adams was. But before its last sounds could die away, the great Patriot had passed into history and eternity on the Fourth of July, on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Declaration of Independence! NOVEMBER 15 WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM DEFENDER OF AMERICA The Colonists are . . . equally entitled wtih yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind, and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen. WILLIAM PITT He at once breathed his own lofty spirit into the Country he served, as he communicated something of his own grandeur to the men who served him. "No man," said a soldier of the time, "ever entered Mr. Pitt's closet, who did not feel himself braver when he came out, than when he went in." JOHN RICHARD GBEEN He stands in the annals of Europe, " an illustrious and vener- able name," admired by countrymen and strangers, by all to whom loftiness of moral principle and greatness of talent are objects of regard. THOMAS CABLYLB William Pitt was born in England, November 15, 1708 Created Earl of Chatham, 1766 He died May 11, 1778 He was known "as the Great Commoner," while in the House of Commons; as "Chatham," after he entered the House of Lords; and as "the Elder Pitt," to distinguish him from his son William Pitt, called "the Younger," who like- wise was a great statesman. There are American towns and cities named in honour of William Pitt, our Defender; among them, Pittsburgh, Penn.; Chatham, N. Y.; and Pittsfield, Mass. THIS TERRIBLE CORNET OF HORSE IN the hilt of Napoleon's ceremonial sword, was set a huge diamond, one of the largest in the world. It had been brought from India by "Dia- mond Pitt" of England, who had sold it to the Regent of France. "Diamond Pitt," was Thomas Pitt. An ad- venturous young sailor, he had gone to India, and had started in business for himself as a trader. The British East India Company claimed the monopoly of trade in India. When the bold young Englishman, without so much as "by your leave," started an opposition business, the Company determined to crush him. It set its powerful legal machinery to work. But it was one thing to try to crush Thomas Pitt, and quite another thing to do it. He fought desperately for his rights. Though he was ar- rested and fined he still kept on trading, in de- fiance of the Company. He battled so success- fully and for so many years, that at last for its own protection, the Company was forced to take him into its service. He rose to be Governor of Madras. He be- 96 WILLIAM PITT came known as "Diamond Pitt/* because he was always in search of large diamonds. Thus he procured the famous "Pitt Diamond," which found its way into Napoleon's sword. With a part of the fortune which "Diamond Pitt" got from its sale, he bought an estate in England. Later he became a member of Par- liament. "Diamond Pitt's" grandson, William Pitt, was not a strong boy. He spent much time with his books. He liked to read Shakespeare aloud to the family. He enjoyed reading the Faery Queen, in which the Red Cross Knight, fearless of harm or evil thing, rides about rescuing the innocent and helpless. Though he was not strong in body, William Pitt had an iron will. He had "Diamond Pitt's" indomitable courage and the fighting qualities with which the sailor had matched his strength against that of the powerful East India Company. William Pitt attended Oxford University. When he was twenty -three, he was commissioned Cornet of Horse in the King's Blues. The fearless Cornet of Horse was soon elected to the House of Commons. He started his political career in the House with a fiery, sar- castic speech supporting the Prince of Wales, who was at enmity with the King his father. William Pitt was a born orator. He was tall, TERRIBLE CORNET OF HORSE 97 elegant, and graceful. His eyes were bright and piercing. He spoke with dignified gesture. And he delivered this speech with such strength, mag- netism, and irony, that the Prime Minister ex- claimed, "We must muzzle this terrible Cornet of Horse!" To muzzle him, he tried, at first with promises of reward. But William Pitt was incorruptible. He would not sell his honour. Then influence was brought to bear, and the young Cornet of Horse was dismissed from the army. \ But this very act, by which his enemies planned to muzzle William Pitt, brought him before the public eye. His fearlessness and re- markable oratory advanced him daily with both Parliament and People. In time, William Pitt became a leading power, at first in the House of Commons, and after- ward, when he was created Earl of Chatham, in the House of Lords. He served twice as Prime Minister of England; and he laid the solid foun- dations of the British Colonial Empire. But more than all else, he was an Englishman defending the unalienable rights of all English- men. He steadfastly combated those political evils in the British Government, which, at that time, were threatening to undermine English Liberty as set down in the Magna Carta and safeguarded by the English Constitution. 98 WILLIAM PITT THE CHARTER OF LIBERTY The Signing of the Magna Carta, 115 Thou, that sendest out the man To rule by land and sea, Strong mother of a Lion-line, Be proud of those strong sons of thine, Who wrenched their rights from iheel What wonder if in noble heat, Those men thine arms withstood, Retaught the lesson thou hadst taught. And in thy spirit with thee fought Who sprang from English blood! ALFRED TENNYSON (Condensed) MAGNA CARTA! The Great Charter of the lib- erties of Englishmen ! At Runnimede, the freemen of England' through the action of their Barons, forced King John to sign and seal the Magna Carta. His tyrannous power was torn from him. He was forced to pledge himself to violate no longer the rights and privileges of English freemen. For, from times remote, human rights and liberties, protecting them from oppression by rulers, had been theirs by laws and by common consent. About a hundred years after the signing of the Magna Carta, the great principle, that English freemen should not be taxed without representation, was established. THE CHARTER OF LIBERTY 99 When King Charles the First broke his prom- ises to respect the rights of his subjects, he was tried and executed. When King James the Second governed in despotic manner, exercising what he believed to be the "divine right of Kings," he lost his throne. What has this to do with America and William Pitt? Everything! During the reigns of the Stuart Kings, large sections of America were explored and settled by English freemen, who came to America to escape persecution, and to enjoy English Liberty which at that time they could not possibly have had in England. The Stuart Kings believed in "divine right," which means that the King is the Lord's an- nointed, and that neither Parliament nor People may question any of his acts; and that no matter how cruel or tyrannous a King may be, the People must submissively obey him. The Magna Carta and the English Consti- tution protect the English People against this doctrine of "divine right." So, when during the reign of these Kings, men and women fled from England to find Liberty and refuge in America, they brought with them their ancient institutions, the rights and privileges guaranteed them under the Magna Carta. There were other Englishmen equally coura- 100 WILLIAM PITT geous, equally liberty-loving, who came to seek their fortunes and build homes in the New World. They, too, brought with them their rights and privileges. These English pioneers hewed their way through the savage wilderness. Many of them were massacred by Red Men, while their homes were burned; some of them were carried into captivity and tortured. Yet the great body of undaunted English settlers, resolutely kept on pushing their frontiers westward. They laid out farms and plantations, they built villages and towns, they founded churches and schools. They obtained charters from far away England, confirming their rights. And through God's blessing they prospered, and became strong and rich. Other liberty-loving folk, the Dutch, settled in great numbers in what is now New York and New Jersey; while many settlers from different parts of Europe, came to the New World to build homes for themselves and their children. The very air of America breathed freedom. The magnitude of the country and the diffi- culties of pioneer-life helped to invigorate, ex- pand, and make indomitable those ideals of English Liberty which the first settlers and frontiersmen had brought with them. When King George the Third inherited the AMERICA'S DEFENDER 101 British Crown, he was unable to understand the free spirit of Englishmen. And he was far from realizing its tremendous growth in the New World. He taxed the Americans without representa- tion. He placed a standing army in the Colonies, without their consent. He blockaded the Port of Boston to force her to submit to his unjust laws. In some cases, trial by jury was abolished. These are some of his tyrannous violations of the rights and privileges of English freemen. The People of America, in indignation, peti- tioned the King for redress. There was no redress. So the People of America rose in arms; and, in the true spirit of Magna Carta, they issued the Declaration of Independence. Now, we shall see what William Pitt had to do with all this. AMERICA'S DEFENDER "For the defence of Liberty, upon a general principle, upon a consti- tutional principle, it is a ground on which I stand firm, on which I dare meet any man." " This Country had no right under Heaven to tax America! It is contrary to all the princi.ples of justice and civil policy. "If I were an American," he exclaimed, "as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my Country, I never would lay down my arms never never never I" WILLIAM PITT, Earl of Chatham IT was natural that an English statesman who 102 WILLIAM PITT sincerely and firmly believed in the rights of all Englishmen, should become the defender of America. And her loyal friend and champion was William Pitt. By the weight of his eloquent speeches, he fought her battles in Parliament. When the Stamp Act was passed, he was absent from his place in Parliament, because of illness. But later, he was present. Leaning on his crutch, for he was still very sick, he indig- nantly arraigned the British Ministry which had brought about the passage of the Act. "When the resolution was taken in this House to tax America," he said, "I was ill in bed. If I could have endured to have been carried in my bed, so great was the agitation of my mind for the consequences, I would have solicited some kind hand to have laid me down on this floor, to have borne my testimony against it! "The Colonists are the subjects of this Kingdom, equally entitled with yourselves to all the natural rights of mankind and the peculiar privileges of Englishmen; equally bound by its laws, and equally participating in the Constitution of this free Country. The Americans are the sons ... of England!" And when one of the members made a speech abusing the Americans, defending the Stamp Act, and accusing Pitt of sowing sedition among the American Colonists, he rose and answered : "The gentleman tells us," he said, "America is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. I re- THE SONS OF LIBERTY 103 joice that America has resisted. Three millions of people so dead to all the feelings of Liberty, as vol- untarily to let themselves be made slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest. " In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force of this Country can crush America to atoms. I know the valour of your troops, I know the skill of your officers. . . . But on this ground, on the Stamp Act when so many here will think it a crying injustice, I am one who will lift up my hands against it! " In such a cause, even your success would be haz- ardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the strong man. She would embrace the pillars of the State, and pull down the Constitution along with her. " Is this your boasted peace? To sheathe the sword, not in its scabbard, but in the bowels of your Country- men? "Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the House what is really my opinion. It is that the Stamp Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immediately." * . And whether the Stamp Act was repealed "absolutely, totally, and immediately," John Fiske tells in his thrilling history, "The American Revolution." THE SONS OF LIBERTY WILLIAM PITT was not the only English states- man who championed America. There was Lord Rockingham, at one time Prime Minister of 1 These are merely extracts from Pitt's speeches. 104 WILLIAM PITT England, also the Earl of Camden, and the celebrated Charles James Fox. And there was Edmund Burke, "one of the earliest friends of America," with his scratch wig, round spectacles, and pockets stuffed with papers. He pleaded our cause so brilliantly that his hearers were dazzled by his oratory "with its passionate ardour, its poetic fancy, its amaz- ing prodigality of resources, the dazzling succes- sion hi which irony, pathos, invective, tenderness, the most brilliant word-pictures, the coolest argu- ments, followed each other." And among America's British friends, was Colonel Barre, a member of the House of Com- mons. In an indignant speech against the Stamp Act, he referred to the American Patriots as "Sons of Liberty." When his speech reached America, the nams "Sons of Liberty" was adopted by secret so- cieties pledged to resist the Stamp Act. In Boston, the Sons of Liberty held meetings under the Liberty Tree, a huge elm; they met also in Faneuil Hall, since called "the Cradle of American Liberty." In New York City, the Sons of Liberty erected a tall Liberty Pole, and de- fended it against the Red Coats. All over the Country, the Sons of Liberty were active, sometimes too violently so, in the cause of American Independence. A LAST SCENE 105 A LAST SCENE IN 1778, a dramatic event took place In the House of Lords. William Pitt, old now and wasted by disease, but the fire of whose genius still burned bright and clear, was about to speak. France had acknowledged the Independence of the United States. Germany was planning to do so; while Spain stood ready to enter into an alliance with the Americans. England was at war with France. The situation of England seemed desperate. And on that dramatic day in the House of Lords, the Duke of Richmond was about to move that the royal fleets and armies should be instantly withdrawn from America, and peace be made on whatever terms Congress might see fit to accept. But William Pitt would not willingly consent to a step that seemed certain to wreck the Empire his genius had won for England. He had got up from his sick bed, and had come into the House of Lords to argue against the motion. Wrapped in flannel bandages, and leaning upon crutches, his dark eyes in their brilliancy en- hancing the pallor of his careworn face, as he entered the House, supported on the one side by 106 WILLIAM PITT his son-in-law, and on the other by that younger son who was so soon to add fresh glory to the name of William Pitt, the peers all started to their feet, and remained standing until he had taken his place. In broken sentences, with strange flashes- of the eloquence which had once held captive ear and heart, he protested against the hasty adop- tion of a measure which simply prostrated the dignity of England before its ancient enemy, the House of Bourbon. The Duke of Richmond's answer, reverently and delicately worded, urged that while the magic of Chatham's name could work anything short of miracles, yet only a miracle could now relieve them from the dire necessity of abandon- ing America. Chatham rose to reply, but his overwrought frame gave way, and he sank in a swoon upon the floor. All business was at once adjourned. The peers, with eager sympathy, came crowding up to offer assistance, and the unconscious statesman was carried in the arms of his friends to a house near by, whence in a few days he was removed to his home. There, after lingering between life and death for several weeks, on the llth of May, and in the seventieth year of his age, Lord Chatham breathed his last. A LAST SCENE 107 The man thus struck down like a soldier at his post, was one whom Americans, no less than Englishmen, have delighted to honour. John Fiske (Retold) DECEMBER 2 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND THE MAGNANIMOUS THE BEST REPUBLICAN IN BRAZIL TO H. M. DOM PEDRO H EMPEROR OF BRAZIL SCHOLAR AND SCIENTIST, PATRON OP ARTS AND LETTERS STERLING STATESMAN AND MODEL MONARCH, WHOSE REIGN OF HALF A CENTURY HAS BEEN ZEALOUSLY AND SUCCESSFULLY DEVOTED TO PUBLIC INSTRUCTION, INDUSTRIAL ENTERPRISE, AND THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY THROUGHOUT THE VAST AND OPULENT "EMPIRE OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS" Dedication by FRANK VINCENT FREEDOM IN BRAZIL With clearer light, Cross of the South shine forth In blue Brazilian skies: And thou, River, cleaving half the earth, From sunset to sunrise, From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves, Thy joy's long anthem pour, Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves Shall shame thy pride no more. No fettered feet thy shaded margins press, But all men shall walk free. Where, thou the high-priest of the wilderness, Hast wedded sea to sea. And thou, great-hearted Ruler, through whose mouth The word of God is said Once more: "Let there be light!" Son of the South, Lift up thy honoured head, Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert More than by birth thy own, Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt By grateful hearts alone. The moated wall and battleship may fail, But safe shall Justice prove; Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail, The panoply of Love. JOHN GBEENLEAF WHITTIEB (Condensed) DOM PEDRO was born December 2, 1825 Was made Emperor at five years of age, April 7, 1831 Visited the United States, 1876 His daughter, Princess Isabel, emancipated the slaves, 1888 He abdicated, and Brazil was proclaimed a Republic, 1889 Dom Pedro died, December 5, 1891. THE BRAZILS MAGNIFICENT ROBINSON CRUSOE, after escaping from Moorish slavery with the boy Xury, was rescued by a Portuguese ship bound for South America. He was carried by the ship's captain to the Brazils. There he settled, bought a plantation and made a fortune. Then, away from those same Brazils, he sailed and was wrecked and cast upon his Desert Island. Magnificent and rich were Robinson Crusoe's Brazils, or the Country of Brazil, stretching vast and unknown far westward into the interior of the continent. Near the sea-coast, in the parts inhabited by civilized men, were plantations of coffee, tobacco, and fruits. Primeval forests covered the shores of the rivers whose mighty waters rushed far out into the ocean. Fierce savages roved the forests. There were gold, spices, and diamonds in Robinson Crusoe's Brazils, and rare woods, brilliant birds, butter- flies, and flowers. And so is the country of Brazil to-day a magnificent land ! Only there are cities there now, and towns and villages. And to-day, Brazil is a Republic with a Constitution like that of our own United States. 112 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND In Robinson Crusoe's time, Brazil was owned and ruled by the Kingdom of Portugal, just as other parts of South America were owned and ruled by the Crown of Spam. How Brazil won Independence and became a Republic, is a fascinating story. THE EMPIRE OF THE SOUTHERN CROSS BRAZIL, on which the Southern Cross of four bright stars, looks down, first became a Kingdom, then an Empire and after that a Republic. When Napoleon's Army threatened to invade Portugal, the Royal Family of Portugal fled in terror of their lives. They escaped from Lisbon, crossed the Atlantic, and found refuge in the royal Colony of Brazil. In 1815, Brazil was declared a Kingdom, though still to remain a part of Portugal. The first and only European Kingdom in America! When the time arrived, that the Royal Family might safely return to Portugal, the King left his son, Dom Pedro, to be Regent or Governor of Brazil. But the Brazilians had grown used to having then* King live among them. More just laws and greater privileges were theirs, when their ruler lived in the land. He could understand their needs better than if he ruled them from Europe. MAKING THE LITTLE EMPEROR 113 So the Brazilians became dissatisfied, when their country was reduced once more to the state of a Colony. Dom Pedro was a patriotic Brazilian, and ruled the Country without much regard to Portugal's wishes. Trouble soon arose between the Mother Country and Brazil. Dom Pedro proclaimed the Independence of Brazil, September 7, 1822. An Empire was established, and Dom Pedro was made Emperor under a Constitution. But as time went on, the Emperor did not uphold the People's rights; so he was forced to abdicate in favour of his little son, Dom Pedro, who was only five years old. After which, Dom Pedro the First, sailed away to Europe, leaving little Dom Pedro the Second, to rule in his stead. MAKING THE LITTLE EMPEROR "THE King is afloat! God save the King!" were the shouts which rang through the streets of Rio Janeiro, for now that their Emperor Pedro the First had abdicated and escaped on an Eng- lish man-o-war, the people were giving themselves up to rejoicing. "The King is afloat! God save the King!" was the cry of the townspeople and the streets, festooned with coffee branches, were made to 114 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND glow with coloured silks, while the balconies were thronged with senoritas hi all their finery of brilliant dresses, garlands, fluttering fans, and feather flowers. They were witnessing the triumphal entry into his capital of the new Emperor, Dom Pedro the Second, the little lad of five and a half years old. First in the procession of the Child-Emperor, were justices of the peace bearing green flags. Then came the little Emperor. And what a figure was this! A tiny infant in a huge state-coach, dragged by four strings of excited mulattoes! He cried, and at the same time waved a white handkerchief. The tender-hearted Brazilians, every man and woman of their number a child-adorer, were altogether overcome by the sight, and even the choir that accompanied the procession, was touched. Its triumphant chant died away in an emotional quiver. With great pomp, little Pedro was installed as Emperor, the eyes of the enthusiastic spectators swimming with tears, as he was carried out of the chapel in the arms of an old chamberlain. Later, while sitting in a little chair at the window of the palace, he reviewed the troops of his Empire. But though little Pedro was now Emperor of THE PATRIOT EMPEROR 115 all Brazil, he was too young to rule. A Regent ruled for him for ten years, while Pedro studied and prepared himself to govern his People. W. H. Koebel and Other Sources THE PATRIOT EMPEROR Viva Dom Pedro the Second! AT last a large political party in the capital grew tired of installing Regents and electing new ministers, and insistently demanded that the Emperor himself begin to reign, although legally he was still too young. According to the Con- stitution, an Emperor reached his majority at the age of eighteen, and Dom Pedro was only fifteen. But in spite of his youth, Dom Pedro the Second was declared constitutional Emperor and perpetual defender of Brazil. Viva Dom Pedro the Second ! So mature was the young Emperor in mind and appearance, that he was well fitted to play the part of an eighteen-year-old. His tutors were the best that could be found in Europe or South America, and he was a brilliant student. He had a trick of relighting his lamp at night and studying for a while after every one had gone to bed. Natural history, mathematics, and astron- omy were his favourite subjects at that tune. x 116 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND But in the course of his life he studied almost everything under the sun, and he could talk fluently on any subject in English, German, French, Italian or Spanish; he read Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. When he was sixty he learned Sanskrit. His library was packed with histories, biographies, encyclopaedias, and law-books. Besides his library the Emperor loved peace, happiness, and prosperity. These were his gifts to Brazil during his long reign, while surrounding Nations were struggling with anarchy and civil war. Before Dom Pedro was eighteen, he signed a contract of marriage with a Princess whom he had never seen, Theresa Christina Maria, sister of the King of the two Sicilies. A Brazilian squadron conducted her to Rio, and the city received her with splendid ceremonies. n My People UNDER Dom Pedro's guiding influence, Brazil gained steadily in power, importance, and rep- utation. Home industries and foreign commerce doubled. Telegraphic communications were es- tablished with the United States and Europe. Good steamship lines, both coastwise and oceanic, made Brazil accessible to all the world. Public property was opened to settlement, and the Gov- THE PATRIOT EMPEROR 117 eminent became as hospitable to all foreign enterprise as it had before this been exclusive. Above all things, Dom Pedro wanted to stimu- late the love of knowledge among his People, to give the boys and girls of every class an equal chance. Free public schools were established all over the Empire. One time, the Emperor learned that 3,000,000 francs had been pledged by citizens for a fine bronze statue of himself to be given the place of honour in a city square. Dom Pedro, expressing his deep gratitude, said that it would please him far more if the money could be used for public schools instead. The grade and high school buildings of Rio have always been noted for their beauty, size, and equipment. While so many of the South American States were lagging far behind the times, Brazil, under Dom Pedro, caught up with other progressive Nations of the World. Liberty of speech and religious tolerance were not even questioned, but taken for granted. m Emancipating the Slaves 1888 THE greatest national event during Dom Pedro's reign was the Abolition of Slavery, and no one worked harder to bring it to pass than the Emperor himself. 118 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND The African slave-trade had been abolished in 1850 and from that time on public opinion grew more and more in favour of Emancipation, in spite of the strong opposition of planters and wealthy slave owners. , Following Dom Pedro's example, many hign- minded citizens freed their own slaves. The slave was enabled to free himself in many ways, such as raising his own purchase money. The incentive to do this was great, for an ambitious slave had plenty of chance to rise in the world. Dom Pedro's dearest wish was that he might live to see every slave in the country a free man, and this wish came true in the last year of his reign. - He had gone abroad in poor health, leaving his daughter Isabel as Regent. When Congress met, the Princess Isabel railroaded the Abolition Bill through both Houses in eight days, and signed *the bill which put the law into immediate effect. IV The Empire of the Southern Cross No More! SOON after the humane Princess Isabel had freed the slaves, Dom Pedro came hastening home from Europe. He landed in Rio, and was received with genuine enthusiasm. But his loved personality could no longer stand between the throne and THE PATRIOT EMPEROR 119 the widespread desire for a Republic together with , the popular discontent aroused by the Princess's acts. In 1889, a Republican revolt took the whole Empire by surprise. It had long been brewing beneath the surface, but so great was the Em- peror's popularity that Republicans had tacitly agreed to postpone the new Government until his death. A rumor that Dom Pedro might abdicate in favour of Princess Isabel, and thus initiate another generation of monarchy, precipitated the Revo- lution. The Republican leagues, with the back- ing of the army and navy, refused to wait any longer. Dom Pedro, summoned from Petropolis by tel- egram, found a Provisional Government already organized when he reached the capital. In the Imperial Palace at Rio, surrounded by insurgents, the old Emperor was told briefly that his long reign was over. "We are forced to notify you," said the ultima- tum, "that the Provisional Government expects from your Patriotism the sacrifice of leaving Brazilian territory with your family in the shortest possible time." Dom Pedro the Second replied simply: "I resolve to submit to the command of cir- cumstances and will depart with my family for 120 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND Europe tomorrow, leaving this beloved Country to which I have tried to give firm testimony of my love and my dedication during nearly hah* a century as chief of the State. I shall always have kind remembrances of Brazil and hopes for its prosperity." The next day the Imperial Family sailed for Lisbon. In three days' time a monarchy had been overthrown without bloodshed or opposition. The Emperor, who had sometimes been called the best Republican in Brazil, was replaced by a military dictator. The homesick Emperor, living in European hotels or rented villas, "always remained as one on the point of departure, as if he ever expected to be recalled by his former subjects, a hope which till the last moment would not die out of his heart." Margarette Daniels (Arranged) THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL BRAZIL, whose name originally meant the Land of Red Dye Wood, is to-day, the United States of Brazil with a Constitution like our own. It has a President, Vice-President, and House of Congress, and an army and navy. It has rail- THE UNITED STATES OF BRAZIL 121 roads, beautiful cities, many towns, and a world commerce. Brazil exports quantities of rubber, sugar, coffee, and other products. The milky juice of the caoutchouc or rubber, is gathered largely from the wild rubber-trees growing in the tropical forests far in the interior of Brazil, or along the banks of the Amazon. Our United States receives great shipments of this rubber. The coffee-trees flourish hi the famous red earth of Brazil, producing large crops of the delicious berry, to make happy the breakfast tables of the world. There is the friendliest of relations between our United States and Brazil. It is no uncommon sight to meet Brazilian sailors in their picturesque uniform, at home on the streets of New York City. And when the statue of Bolivar, the Liberator of Venezuela, was unveiled hi Central Park in 1921, there was present a detachment of Brazilian Marines detailed from their battle- ship anchored in New York Harbour. They made an imposing appearance, filing down the park- slope of Bolivar Hill, in the military procession which accompanied President Harding. The year 1922, the one hundredth anniversary of Brazilian Independence, has been celebrated by People of the United States. Out of friendship for Brazil, they have presented her with a statue 122 DOM PEDRO THE SECOND of Liberty cast in bronze. Liberty holds aloft two entwined banners, the Brazilian Flag and the Stars and Stripes. The Brazilian Government has selected one of the most prominent spots in the city of Rio Janeiro, as a site for the statue. DECEMBER 20 WILLIAM BRADFORD AND THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS The word of God to Leyden came, Dutch town, by Zuyder Zee: "Rise up, my Children of no name, My kings and priests to be. There is an Empire in the West Which I mil soon unfold, A thousand harvests in her breast, Rocks ribbed with iron and gold." They left the towers of Leyden Town, They left the Zuyder Zee, And where they cast their anchor down, Rose Freedom's realm to be" J. E. RANKIN THE PILGRIM FATHERS So they left that goodly and pleasant city which had been their resting place near twelve years. But they knew they were Pilgrims, and looked not much on these things; but lift up their eyes to the Heavens, their dearest country, and quieted their spirits. Governor WILLIAM BRADFORD WIIJLIAM BRADFORD was born about 1590 The Mayflower reached Cape Cod; Mayflower Compact signed, November 11, 1620 The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, probably December 20, 1620 William Bradford died, May 9, 1657 THE FATHER OF THE NEW ENGLAND COLONIES WILLIAM BRADFORD'S birthday, we celebrate on the anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. We do not know the exact date of his birth. He was just an ordinary boy living in a small English village. He was brought up by relatives, for his father and mother had died when he was a child. They had left him a small fortune, so he was not in want. When about twelve years old, he began to read the Bible. It interested him so much, that when older he attended the meetings of some neigh- bours who were studying the Bible and wor- shipping God in their own little Assembly. Separatists, they were called, for they had sep- arated from the Established Church of England. In those days, it was a crime in England for any one to hold or attend religious meetings of Separatists. The Bible printed in the English tongue, had long been forbidden reading, but in William Bradford's days, it was beginning to be read quite widely, specially by Separatists. These poor people's Assemblies were watched 126 WILLIAM BRADFORD by spies and informers. Separatists were arrested and imprisoned, while some were executed. Others fled into Holland brave liberty-loving Holland where there was no persecution for religion's sake. William Bradford became a Separatist. When about eighteen years old, he, too, fled into Holland, where he might serve his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, hi full liberty of conscience. For ten years or more he lived in Holland. He was a member of an English Separatist Church in Leyden, under the gentle rule of its beloved pastor, John Robinson. The Separatists believed that every man in the church-congregation should have a voice in its management; thus they elected their pastor. The time came when a part of Pastor Robin- son's congregation decided to emigrate and seek a home in the New World. The leaders of this little band of Pilgrims the Pilgrim Fathers, we call them were William Bradford, John Carver, and Edward Winslow. With them went William Brewster, who was to be their pastor in the New World. Miles Standish, also, went with them, and became the Captain of their small army, which defended them against the Indians. So the Pilgrim Fathers, together with their wives, little ones, and men and maid servants, said farewell to Holland's hospitable shore. THE FATHER OF THE COLONIES 127 Soon after, they sailed from England in the M ay- flower, to found a settlement in the savage New World, under the rule of England. They took with them the seeds of American Independence. They had left England so that they might have the freedom which was theirs by rights. They were come to America so that they might govern themselves, every man hav- ing a voice in the government of the new settle- ment as well as in the management of his own congregation. This principle of self-government, the Pilgrims embodied in the famous Mayflower Compact, an agreement which they drew up and signed the day they reached New England. Meanwhile, far to the South of New England another Colony of Englishmen had planted and was fostering other seeds of American In- dependence. 1 But let us see what became of William Brad- ford, since we are celebrating his birthday. We will let Cotton Mather tell it in his own quaint style: "The rest of his days were spent in the services and the temptations of that American wilderness. Here was Master Bradford, in the year 1621, unanimously chosen the Governor of the Planta- tion. The difficulties whereof were such that if he had not been a person of more than ordinary 1 See page 308. 128 WILLIAM BRADFORD piety, wisdom, and courage, he must have sunk under them." He served for thirty -seven years, "in every one of which he was chosen their Gov- ernor, except the three years wherein Master Winslow and the two years wherein Master Prince, at the choice of the people, took a turn with him. . . . But the crown of all was his holy, prayerful, watchful, and fruitful, walk with God. ... He died May 9th, 1657, in the 69th year of his age, lamented by all the Colonies of New England as a common Blessing and Father to them all." THE SAVAGE NEW WORLD IT was November, 1620. The ocean swelled angrily. A cold wind was blowing, as day broke over the gray water. Sea-gulls swooped and wheeled around the good ship Mayflower, which, with tattered sails, was driving through the billows. For over two months she had been on her way from Plymouth, England, carrying the Pilgrims. And, now, while the dull day was breaking, suddenly a cry was heard : "Land Ho!" The Pilgrims came crowding to the deck, fathers, mothers, children, men, and maid-ser- vants. They looked eagerly toward the west. They saw the coast of the New World, as the THE SAVAGE NEW WORLD 129 ship rushed nearer, low with a white line of surf beating against its wooded shore. It was a very new, strange, savage world awaiting them, full of unknown horrors and Indians. Yet the Pilgrims were not fearful. Had they not committed themselves to God's will? And was not this to be their home, the land to which He was bringing them? So they fell on their knees, and blessed Him who had guided them safely through storm and stress. The wide bay where they first anchored ' Cape Cod Bay was wooded to the water's edge, with pines and oaks, with sassafras and juniper, with birch and holly, ash and walnut. Whales swam spouting around the ship, while flocks of wild fowl flew screaming overhead. And when at last the Pilgrims went ashore in that uninhabited spot, how briskly the mothers and sisters rubbed and scrubbed, as they washed the Pilgrims' clothes. For it had been a frightful two months' voyage, with so many storms and so much sickness aboard, that little washing had been done. And the first thing the Pilgrim Mothers did, was to hold a great wash day. And while the women washed, the carpenter repaired the ship's shallop; for William Bradford and some of the others wished to explore the coast, in order to find a safe and pleasant spot for their settlement. 130 WILLIAM BRADFORD While the shallop was being got ready, the Pilgrims decided to send out a party by land, to see what the country was like. And many thrilling adventures, the Pilgrim Fathers had before they discovered a site, and built Plymouth Town. On their first adventure, they saw Indians in the distance. They walked through fields of corn-stubble which belonged to Indians. They found a white man's kettle and the ruins of a cabin. They dug up a fine, great, new basket filled with corn, red, yellow, and blue. They took the corn with them, intending to search out the owner, and pay him well. On the second adventure, they found empty Indian wigwams, more corn, and the grave of a man with yellow hah 1 . On the third adventure, they left their shallop, at night, to camp on shore. In the gray dusk of morning, a band of fierce Nauset Indians at- tacked them. A flight of brass-headed or claw- tipped arrows came flying across the Pilgrims' barricade. The Pilgrims fired their guns, and the Nausets, whooping loudly, bounded away into the dusk. The Pilgrims pursued them for a short distance. Though many arrows had fallen around them, none of the Pilgrims were hurt. They gave thanks to God for their deliverance; and, after WELCOME, ENGLISHMEN! 131 naming the spot The Place of the First Encounter, they sailed away in their shallop to explore the coast near by. Then, at last, they discovered a beautiful site for their town, situated on a fine harbour. They returned to the Mayflower, with the good news. And a few days before Christmas, the Mayflower anchored in the harbour, and the Pilgrim folk landed on Plymouth Rock. On Christmas day, they began to build Plymouth Town. WELCOME, ENGLISHMEN! "WELCOME!" That cry just one English word sounded through the street of Plymouth, and startled the Pilgrims. They caught up their muskets and ran from the houses. A tall naked savage, his lank hair clinging to his shoulders, was stalking along the street, hold- ing a bow and arrows. "Welcome!" he shouted. The Pilgrims returned his greeting. He was Samoset, Chief of Pemaquid, he told them. He had journeyed from very far off. He had learned English among the Englishmen who sometimes came to fish off the coast of his country. 132 WILLIAM BRADFORD The Pilgrims, glad to talk with a friendly Indian, invited him to eat with them. Then, as the wind was rising, they wrapped a warm coat around his naked body. They gave him biscuit with butter, and cheese, and a piece of cooked duck; all of which he seemed to relish hugely. And in answer to their questions Samoset told them many things about that country. As for the Nauset Indians, who had attacked them so fiercely at The Place of the First Encounter, he said that these Nausets hated all white men because a certain Englishman, one Captain Hunt, a short time before the Pilgrims landed, had cruelly deceived the Nauset Indians, kidnapping twenty of them, and selling them to other white men. All this and much more, Samoset told the Pilgrims. He stayed with them that night. The next day they sent him away with a gift of a knife, a ring, and a bracelet. He went off promis- ing that he would come soon again and bring other Indians to trade with them. But the Pilgrims were troubled, for they had not found the owners of the buried corn. LOST! LOST! A BOY! THERE were children on the Mayflower Oceanus Hopkins who was born at sea, Peregrine LOST! LOST! A BOY! 133 White who gave his first baby -cry soon after the Mayflower reached the New World, Francis Billington who almost blew up the Mayflower, while trying to make fireworks, and John Bill- ington. John was a mischievous youngster, and so lively that the Pilgrim Fathers had to keep a stern eye upon him. But in spite of their watch- ing, he got lost. For one day, soon after the Pilgrims were settled in Plymouth, he slipped out of the town, and into the woods that stretched farther than eye could see from the top of the highest tree. That night when John did not come home, the Plymouth folk were worried. Where was the boy? they asked. How had he managed to slip from the town without being seen? Had he strayed into the woods? Had a savage caught him and carried him off? Governor Bradford sent a party to look for him. They scoured the woods about, but there was no John. Five days went by, five anxious days for the Plymouth folk. And John had not returned when a message came from the friendly Indian, King Massasoit, saying that the Nausets had the lad. The Nauset Indians were the same fierce savages who had attacked the Pilgrims at The Place of the First Encounter. 134 WILLIAM BRADFORD A shallop was launched and victualed; and the next morning ten of the Pilgrims, with Tis- quantum, their Indian interpreter, set sail for Nauset. It was a dangerous trip. At first the day was calm and bright, then came on a storm of wind with thunder and lightning, that lashed the little ship; while a waterspout almost broke over her. "But GOD be praised!" says the Pilgrim Chronicle, which tells about the lost boy, "GOD be praised ! it dured not long, and we put in that night for harbour at a place called Cummaquid, where we had some hope to find the boy." But they did n't find him there. "The Nausets have got him," said the friendly Cummaquid Indians, when they came down the next morning to catch lobsters. And they invited the Pilgrims to come ashore and eat with them. So six of them landed, hoping to learn something more about John. lyanough, the handsome young Cummaquid Chief, welcomed them heartily. He made a feast of venison and maize cakes. And after they had eaten, he offered to go with them to help rescue John. So the Pilgrims put out to sea again, tak- ing lyanough and two of his braves. They made the best speed possible, for they were anxious to find what had happened to the boy. The tide was out when they reached Nauset, and LOST! LOST! A BOY! 135 the water was so shallow that they had to anchor at a distance from land. lyanough, his braves, and Tisquantum, went ashore to find Aspinet the Nauset Chief. They hoped to persuade him to give up John, if he was still alive. ; Meanwhile, crowds of Nauset Indians came running down to the beach. They waded out from shore; and soon they were swarming around the shallop. The Pilgrims stood guard to keep them from boarding her, for they remembered all too well, how these same savages had attacked them with showers of brass-headed arrows. Finally, they allowed two of the Indians to climb into the shallop. And what was the Pil- grims' delight when they found that one of the two was part owner of the corn dug up at Cornhill. They welcomed him gladly. They told him that they wished to pay for the corn. They asked him to come to Plymouth for the payment. He promised that he would. By this time the sun was setting, but lyanough had not returned with news of John. This made the Pilgrims all the more anxious. After sunset, they saw a long train of Nauset Indians come winding down to the beach. At their head, walked their haughty Chief Aspinet. He drew near to the edge of the beach. Some of his warriors stood guard with their bows and arrows ready to shoot. The others laid down 136 WILLIAM BRADFORD their weapons and followed Aspinet into the water. They began to wade out toward the shallop. And whom should the Pilgrims see sitting on the shoulders of a big Indian, but John himself, covered with strings of beads! He had been visiting in the Nauset village, where his new friend the big Indian had feasted and entertained him in his wigwam. And while the Indian was giving John over to the Pilgrims, Aspinet announced that he and his people wished to make peace with the white men. So the Pilgrims made peace with him, and presented him with a strong English knife. They gave another one to the big Indian in return for his kindness to John. Aspinet and his warriors then went back friendly and satisfied, to their village. So the lost boy was found. And so the buried corn was paid for at last. THE RATTLESNAKE CHALLENGE IT was just before Christmas, when a strange Brave came into Plymouth town, carrying a bun- dle of new arrows wrapped in a rattlesnake-skin. He asked for Tisquantum. When they told him that Tisquantum was away, he smiled and seemed glad. He laid down the skin, and turned to run out of the town. JOHN BILLINGTON BROUGHT ON THE SHOULDERS OF AN INDIAN THE RATTLESNAKE CHALLENGE 137 But Governor Bradford did not like his looks nor his queer gift, so ordered Captain Standish to seize him. The Captain laid hold of him, and locked him up for the night. At first the poor Indian shook so with fear that he could not speak. Then as they questioned him gently, he grew calmer. And when they promised to set him free if he would tell who had sent him, he confessed to being a messenger from Canonicus, the great Chieftain of the Naragansett Indians, a People powerful and many thousands strong. Governor Bradford, in the morning, set him free, bidding him go back to Canonicus and tell him that if he would not live at peace with the white men, as their other Indian neighbours did, the white men would show him their wrath. The messenger listened quietly. He refused all offers of food, but thanked the Pilgrims for their kindness. Then he sped away to his master. t When Tisquantum came back, they asked him what the rattlesnake-skin meant. To send a rattlesnake-skin meant an enemy, he said. It was the same as sending a challenge. In answer, Governor Bradford stuffed the skin full of powder, and sent it back by an Indian runner to Canonicus. The runner delivered it with such terrifying words of defiance, that Canonicus would not even touch it for fear of the powder and shot, nor 138 WILLIAM BRADFORD would lie let the rattlesnake-skin stay overnight in his village. The runner refused to take it back to Plymouth. Canonicus then gave it to one of his own Indians, who had it posted from place to place, until at last it was returned to Governor Bradford unopened! * THE GREAT DROUGHT How the Pilgrims' little farms did flourish! Rye, barley, maize, oats, beans, and peas grew and thrived; also parsnips, carrots, turnips, onions, melons, radishes, and beets. In the gardens, were fragrant herbs. Refreshing watercresses grew wild hi the meadows; while fruit ripened on the trees, which the Pilgrims had found al- ready growing in the land. But early during the third Summer, destruction threatened those little farms. There was a great drought. For many weeks, scarcely a drop of rain fell. The corn, oats, rye, and barley, drooped their yellowing blades. The beans stopped running, and lay parched and shrivelling. The other vegetables were turning yellow. Unless rain should fall soon, the Pilgrims knew that they and their little children must starve when Winter came. To add to the misery of it all, a ship laden with THE GREAT DROUGHT 139 supplies, which had been sent from England, was missing. Nothing had been heard of her for months. And now, during the great drought, the wreck of a ship was cast on shore. In sorrow and anxiety, the Pilgrims met to- gether for a day of public fasting and prayer. We will let Edward Winslow himself, tell what happened: "But, Oh! the mercy of our God! who was as ready to hear as we to ask! "For though in the morning when we assembled .together, the heavens were as clear and the drought as like to continue as ever it was, yet our Exercise (public worship) continuing some eight or nine hours, before our departure the weather was overcast, the clouds gathered together on all sides. " And on the next morning distilled such soft, sweet, and moderate showers of rain continuing some four- teen days and mixed with such seasonable weather, as it was hard to say whether our withered corn or drooping affections were most quickened or revived. " Such was the bounty and goodness of our God ! " So that having these many signs of God's favour, and acceptation, we thought it would be great ingrati- tude if secretly we should smoother up the same or content ourselves with private thanksgiving, for that which by private prayer could not be obtained. "And therefore another Solemn Day was set apart and appointed for that end. Wherein we returned glory, honour, and praise, with all thankfulness to our good God which dealt so graciously with us. Governor Edward Winslow (Condensed) The story of " The First Harvest Home in Plymouth" may be found in " Good Stories for Great Holidays." JANUARY 7 r. GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM "OLD PUT" The picturesque wolf -slayer, a brave and sterling Patriot. JOHN FISKB There was a generosity and buoyancy about the brave old man, that made him a favourite throughout the Army; especially with the younger officers, who spoke of him familiarly and fondly as "Old Put." WASHINGTON IRVING General ISRAEL PUTNAM was born in Massa- chusetts, January 7, 1718 Moved to Connecticut, 1740 Left his plough to fight at Bunker Hill, 1775 He died, May 29, 1790 SEEING BOSTON IT was before the War for Independence. A country boy in rough homespun clothes was walk- ing along the streets of Boston. He was star- ing at the shop signs and windows. It was his first visit to the big city. He had never seen such interesting things before. The boy was Israel Putnam, the son of a farmer. A city boy, much bigger than Putnam, saw him wandering about staring curiously at every- thing. He thought that it would be safe to bully such a raw-looking boy. Stepping up to Putnam, he began to make fun of his coarse clothes and his awkward walk. Putnam stood it as long as he could, for though he was known as a fighter at home, he never provoked a quarrel. But now, as he saw a crowd gathering which seemed to enjoy his humiliation, his blood rose. He turned on the big boy, and gave him such a drubbing that the crowd cheered with delight. The boy slunk off, and Putnam walked away and had no more annoyance. That was the kind of boy and man too Israel Putnam was; slow to anger; but when once roused by injustice, nothing could hold him back. 144 GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM THE FIGHT WITH THE WOLF ISRAEL PUTNAM grew older, married, and went to live in Connecticut. He had a stock farm. One winter, wolves began to kill his animals. There was a she-wolf, particularly fierce and ravenous, who had lost the toes of one foot. She attacked and devoured animals for miles around. During a single night Putnam lost seventy fine sheep and goats, besides having many lambs and kids badly torn. In the morning he found around the fold the tracks of the she-wolf's toe- less foot. Putnam and some of his neighbours traced her to a cave about five miles away. Then they returned home. The next morning they started out with dogs, guns, and brimstone. The dogs chased the wolf into her cave, but came running out again torn and yelping. Putnam and the men built a fire in the cave-entrance. They threw on brimstone which gave out choking fumes. They threw on straw which made a thick smoke. But there were no signs of the wolf. All was quiet in the cave. It grew to be nearly ten o'clock at night. Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter the cave, but he would not stir. Putnam, then, asked his negro man to go in and shoot the beast. But the black man, shivering with fright, refused to crawl in. Putnam grew angry. In spite of all that his neighbours could say, he threw off his coat and lighted a torch. Then, tying a rope around his legs, he gave the end to his friends, saying when he signaled to pull him out. In he went, headfirst, holding the lighted torch before him. Stooping, he groped his way into the body of the cave. The torch made a dim circle of light; all the rest of the den was in terrifying darkness. Silence like death was around him. He cautiously proceeded onward to an ascent. As he was slowly climbing it on hands and knees, he discovered the glaring eyeballs of the she-wolf just in front of him. Startled at the sight of the flaming torch, she gnashed her teeth and gave a sullen growl. Putnam kicked the rope, and his friends, who were listening with painful anxiety and who heard the growling of the beast, pulled him out so quickly that his shirt was stripped over his head and his body was badly cut. After he had adjusted his clothes, he loaded his gun with buckshot. Then holding the torch in one hand and the gun in the other, he entered again. This time the wolf assumed a still more fierce and terrible aspect, howling, rolling her eyes, and snapping her teeth. Then she dropped her head between her legs making ready to spring. At this moment Putnam raised his gun and fired. 146 GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM Stunned by the noise and suffocated with smoke, he felt himself being jerked backward out of the cave. His friends had heard the shot, and were pulling the rope. He rested a few moments in the fresh ah*, while letting the smoke dissipate. Then in he went a third tune. The wolf lay stretched on the floor as if asleep. He put the torch to her nose to make sure that she was dead. Then he took her by the ears and kicked the rope. \ His friends, with loud cheers, drew him out, and the wolf with him. FROM PLOUGH TO CAMP ISRAEL PUTNAM did not stay on his farm. When the French and Indian War broke out, he en- listed. He served as major. He had many thrill- ing escapes from Indians. Once he was captured and tortured by savages, but was rescued by the French. After many years' service, he resigned and went back to his farm. When the news of the Battle of Lexington reached him, he was plough- ing. He left his plough in the field, and unyoked his team. Then, in his old farm-clothes, he sprang on a horse and galloped off to Governor Trumbull for orders. I FROM PLOUGH TO CAMP 147 "Go," said the Governor, "to the seat of action." "But my clothes, Governor!" exclaimed Putnam. "Oh, never mind your clothes,*' answered he, "your military experience will be of service to your countrymen." "But my men, Governor! What shall I do about my men?" "Oh, never mind your men," said he, "I'll send your men after you." So without waiting to change his soiled farm- clothes, Putnam put spurs to his horse and in a single day rode all the way to Cambridge. He attended a council of war held by the Americans, returned to Connecticut, raised a regiment, and went back to Cambridge in tune to take part in the Battle of Bunker Hill. There on Prospect Hill he unfurled the new Banner of Connecticut, which, as a cannon fired a salute, was seen to rise and unroll itself to the wind. When Washington, appointed by Congress to be Commander-in-Chief, arrived at Cambridge, and saw the redoubts that had been cast up by Putnam and his men, he said to Putnam: "You seem, General, to have the faculty of infusing your own spirit into all the workmen you employ." Washington had brought with him a com- 148 GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM mission from Congress, making Israel Putnam a Major-General. HE MADE WASHINGTON LAUGH GENERAL PUTNAM once had the honour of making Washington laugh heartily. It was during the Siege of Boston. There was a traitor in camp. No one knew who he was. A strange woman a spy had delivered a letter, intended for him, to the wrong person. It was laid before Washington. It was in cipher. Washington ordered the woman to be arrested, but she was gone. Not long after, as Washington was standing in the upper window at Headquarters, he saw the oddest sight. It was stout "Old Put" himself, in all his regi- mentals, mounted on his horse, proudly cantering up to Headquarters. Behind him, seated on his saddle-bow and hanging on like grim death, was a very fat woman. "Old Put" had captured the spy. Washington burst into a hearty laugh. He hurried to the top of the stairs, just as "Old Put" escorted the fat woman into the hall. Wash- ington, as gravely as he could, called down, in his severest tones, that unless she confessed everything, a halter was waiting for her. A GENEROUS FOE 149 She confessed immediately, and the traitor in camp was found. A GENEROUS FOE ISRAEL PUTNAM was brave, bluff, and honest, and he was also compassionate. During the French and Indian War, the enemy's wounded lay dying and neglected on one of the battle-fields. After the fierce fighting was over, Putnam himself hurried out onto the field, to tend the poor fellows. He gathered them together into one place. He gave them what food and drink he could get. He furnished each with a blanket. Under one badly wounded French sergeant, he placed three blankets, and laid him in a comfort- able position against a tree. Gratefully, the suffering man squeezed his hand, while Putnam said reassuringly: "Ah! depend upon it, my brave soldier, you shall be brought to the camp as soon as possible, and the same care shall be taken of you as if you were my brother." At the Battle of Princeton a Scotch Captain of the British Army was desperately wounded in the lungs and left for dead. Putnam found him in great pain, with no surgeon, and with- out any friend to cheer him. He had him 150 GENERAL ISRAEL PUTNAM supplied with every comfort and the best of care. One day, when Putnam was visiting him, the Scotchman said : "Pray, sir, what countryman are you?" "An American," answered Putnam. "Not a Yankee!" exclaimed the Scotchman. "A full-blooded one," replied Putnam. "I'm sorry for that!" rejoined the Scotchman with an oath. "I did not think there could be so much goodness and generosity in an American, or, indeed, in anybody but a Scotchman!" ; Thanks to Putnam's friendly Yankee care, the Scotchman recovered. PUTNAM NOT FORGOTTEN! WHEN General Putnam, full of years and honours, retired from the Army, Washington wrote him a letter telling him that he was entitled to full pay till the close of the War, and afterward to half- pay. The letter was cordial and warm, and in it Washington said: "Among the many worthy and meritorious officers, with whom I have had the happiness to be connected in service through the course of this War, and from whose cheerful assistance and advice I have received much support and confidence . . . the name of Putnam is not forgotten, nor will it be but with that stroke of time which shall obliterate from my mind PUTNAM NOT FORGOTTEN! 151 the remembrance of all those toils and fatigues through which we have struggled for the preservation and establishment of the Rights, Liberties, and Inde- pendence of our Country. . . . "I commend you, my dear sir, my other friends, and with them the interests and happiness of our dear Country, to the keeping and protection of Almighty God. "GEORGE WASHINGTON'* JANUARY 11 ALEXANDER HAMILTON . DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION THE CONSTITUTION; OR, THE NEW ROOF 1787 Our roof is now raised, and our song still shall be A Federal Head o'er a People that's free! Huzza I my brave boys, our work is complete, The World shall admire Columbia's fair seat; Its strength against tempest and time shall be proof; And thousands shall come to dwell under our roof. FRANCIS HOPKINSON (Condensed) ALEXANDER HAMILTON He gave the whole powers of his mind to the contemplation of the weak and distracted condition of the Country. . . . He saw . . . the absolute necessity of some closer bond of Union for the States. . . . He saw at last his hopes fulfilled; he saw the Constitution adopted, and the Government under it estab- lished and organized. The discerning eye of Washington immediately called him to the post which was far the most important in the admin- istration of the new system. He was made Secretary of the Treasury. And how he fulfilled the duties of such a place, at such a time, the whole Country perceived with delight and the whole World saw with admiration. DANIEL WEBSTEB ALEXANDER HAMILTON was born in the West Indies, January 11, 1757 Came to New York City, 1772 Signed the Constitution, 1787 Was appointed first Secretary of the Treasury, 1789 He was killed by Aaron Burr in a duel, 1804 THE BOY OF THE HURRICANE ON the llth of January, 1757, there was born on the little West Indian island of Nevis, a boy who was to become one of the foremost citizens of his adopted Country, and who was to have a large part in determining its Independence, its form of government, and in working out the details of its administration. This was Alexander Hamilton. His mother died when. he was very young. His father was not so situated as properly to care for his son, so he was sent to the adjoining island of St. Croix, to live with his mother's relatives, who were people of means. He was given a place in their counting-house, where he acquitted himself with much credit, though the work was not at all to his liking. When Hamilton was only fifteen years old, a terrible hurricane swept over the island. The sea was lashed into fury. The storm swept across the land, uprooting trees, and carrying devastation in its path. Even the bravest of the inhabitants were greatly frightened, and many were terror-stricken. But young Hamilton 156 ALEXANDER HAMILTON watched the storm with the greatest interest and without fear. A few days later, an account of the storm appeared in a paper printed in a neighbouring island. The account was so vivid, the word- painting so marvellous, that the people were certain some writer of note must have been among them without their knowledge. And when they learned that the account was written by Alexander Hamilton, and he a mere boy, they were greatly astonished. They felt that such a lad should have a better chance for education than St. Croix could afford, and a wider field in which to exercise his talents. His friends raised a fund for him, and he was sent to America. He entered a preparatory school at Elizabethtown in the Jerseys. He then went to New York City, and entered King's College, now Columbia University. , . At this time, he was disposed to side with the friends of the King of England hi the controversy between the Colonists and the Mother Country; but after he had been at college for half a year, he made a visit to Boston where he heard Samuel Adams, James Otis, and other Patriots, and came back a most earnest Patriot himself. About the time of the breaking out of the War for Independence, Hamilton organized a company of the college students who adopted the name CALL COLONEL HAMILTON 157 "Hearts of Oak." Later Hamilton was appointed the Captain of the first company of artillery raised in the Colony. He so thoroughly drilled and disciplined it, that the attention of General Greene was attracted. He sought the acquaint- ance of Hamilton, and spoke most enthusiasti- cally to Washington about him, saying that he was a natural master of men, and a young man worthy the attention of the Commander-in-Chief . 'Sherman Williams (Arranged} CALL COLONEL HAMILTON WHILE young Hamilton was directing his battery during the passage of the Raritan, Washington, who was anxiously watching the passing of the troops, observed Hamilton's skill and courage. He ordered one of his officers to find out the young man's name, and tell him to report at Headquarters. Therefore, as soon as possible, young Hamilton hurried to Headquarters. As a result of this interview, Washington made him a member of his own staff. Hamilton became Washington's private secretary. Many a night, after long hours of work to- gether, Washington and Hamilton would retire to their rooms. Then suddenly a courier with important despatches would gallop up to Head- 158 ALEXANDER HAMILTON quarters. Washington would arise, read the despatches and say : "Call Colonel Hamilton." And the young secretary would come and take his dictation. ^ Washington had the greatest confidence in Hamilton's judgment. So much did Washington value his advice, that when he wrote his "Fare- well Address," "acting as every wise man would do under the circumstances," he asked Hamilton for his opinion, as he also asked James Madison for his. Washington desired to get the different points of view of two large minds, on so impor- tant a document. A STRUGGLE AFTER the Constitution of the United States had been framed by the Constitutional Convention, a severe political struggle took place to bring about its ratification by the States themselves. There were selfish political interests at work to prevent ratification. The influence of Alexander Hamilton, through his speeches and writings, so brilliant and con- vincing, did much to bring the People of the United States to understand the absolute neces- sity for a strong Federal Union and for a Constitu- tion to safeguard the liberties of the Country. HE KNOWS_EVERYTHING 159 In the State of New York, the opposition to ratification was most violent. But Alexander Hamilton, during weeks of furious debate in the State Convention, spoke again and again in de- fense of the Constitution. And when the weary weeks of contention were passed, the vote was taken; and Alexander Hamilton's arguments had won votes enough to carry the ratification of the Constitution. He had saved the day. "HE KNOWS EVERYTHING" "HE knows everything," said Robert Morris to President Washington. Robert Morris, during the War for Independ- ence, had been Superintendent of Finance. When Congress needed funds, when Washington wished money with which to pay the soldiers, Robert Morris provided the means since his private commercial credit was great. Men had confidence in his business ability and honour. Once, when Congress was utterly without cash, Robert Morris supplied the Army with four or five thousand barrels of flour. And when France sent troops to America to fight for us, Robert Morris personally borrowed through Count Ro- chambeau, money for our Country's use. When Robert Morris sought to procure for Congress, money from abroad, he borrowed 160 ALEXANDER HAMILTON large sums through the Patriot, Haym Salomon, "the little friend in Front Street." So after Washington was elected President, and while he was making up his Cabinet, he vis- ited Robert Morris, and said: "The Treasury, Morris, will of course be your berth. After your invaluable services as Financier of the Revolution, no one can pretend to contest the office of Secretary of the Treasury with you.' r This flattering offer, Robert Morris promptly declined, adding: "But, my dear General, you will be no loser by my declining the Secretaryship of the Treasury, for I can recommend to you a far cleverer fellow than I am, for your minister of finance, in the person of your former aide-de-camp, Colonel Hamilton." < "I always knew Colonel Hamilton to be a man of superior talents," said Washington, "but never supposed he had any knowledge of finance." To which Robert Morris replied: "He knows everything, sir! To a mind like his, nothing comes amiss." Washington then appointed Hamilton to be Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton took up his duties. The Country and the States were in debt. He organized the finances of our young and new Nation, putting them upon a sound basis; he provided funds with HE KNOWS EVERYTHING 161 which to pay the National debt, so that the United States of America "might command the respect of the Nations of the World." It was Alexander Hamilton who laid the foun- dations of the financial system of our Republic. JANUARY 17 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN THE AMERICAN SOCRATES We have reason to be thankful he was so long spared, that the most useful life should be the longest, also that it was pro- tracted so far beyond the ordinary span allotted to man, as to avail us of his wisdom in the establishment of our own Freedom. THOMAS JEFFERSON OUR COUNTRY Dr. Benjamin Franklin to General George Washington I must soon quit the scene, but you may live to see our Country flourish, as it will amazingly and rapidly after the War is over; like a field of young Indian Corn, which long fair weather and sunshine had enfeebled and discoloured, and which in that weak state, by a thundergust of violent wind, hail, and rain, seemed to be threatened with absolute destruc- tion; yet the storm being past, it recovers fresh verdure, shoots up with double vigour, and delights the eye not of its owner only, but of every observing traveller. March 5, 1780 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN was born in Boston, January 17, 1706 Went to Philadelphia, 1723 Through his diplomacy, France was persuaded to recognize the United States by treaty, February 6, 1778 He signed the Constitution of the United States, 1787 He died in Philadelphia, April 17, 1790 THE WHISTLE TOLD BY FRANKLIN HIMSELF WHEN I was a child of seven years old, my friends on a holiday filled my pocket with coppers. I went directly to a shop where they sold toys for children, and being charmed with the sound of a whistle that I met by the way in the hands of another boy, I voluntarily offered and gave all my money for one. I then came home and went whistling all over the house, much pleased with my whistle, but disturbing all the family. My brothers and sisters and cousins, under- standing the bargain I had made, told me I had given four times as much for it as it was worth; put me in mind what good things I might have bought with the rest of the money, and laughed at me so much for my folly, that I cried with vexation. And the reflection gave me more chagrin than the whistle gave me pleasure. This, however, was afterwards of use to me, the impression continuing on my mind, so that often, when I was tempted to buy some unneces- sary thing, I said to myself: 166 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN give too much for the whistle!" And I saved my money. As I grew up, came into the world, and ob- served the actions of men, I thought I met with many, very many, who gave too much for the whistle. From The Whistle , THE CANDLE-MAKER'S BOY BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, when a boy, used to work in his father's shop at the Sign of the Blue Ball. His father was a tallow chandler, and made soap and candles. The boy got up early, cut wicks for candles, filled moulds with tallow, ran errands, and tended shop. Though he worked hard and honestly, his heart was not in his work. He wanted to go to sea. His elder brother, a sailor, had come home; and he told the most thrilling tales of his adven- tures. So Benjamin Franklin could not get the sea out of his mind. He grew to detest the trade of tallow chandler, and hankered more and more for the sea. His father, wishing him to give up thoughts of a roving life, took him to talk with joiners, brick- layers, turners, and other workmen, and to watch them at work. But none of their trades appealed to the boy. His place was at home his father urged, adding: 167 "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men." THE BOY OF THE PRINTING PRESS BUT Benjamin Franklin did not run away to sea. He became a printer's boy. Because he liked books, he was apprenticed to his brother James, who had set up a printing press in Boston. To James's house he went, taking with him his collection of precious volumes. There he worked hard by day, and read and studied at night. Recollecting his father's fa- vourite proverb, "Seest thou a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before Kings," Franklin saved his money, and worked early and late. When James began to issue a newspaper, Franklin helped him print it, and delivered copies to customers. He wrote articles and slipped them under the printing-house door, and James published them, without knowing who was their author. Later Franklin wrote clever, audacious, and humorous articles on the questions of the day, which were widely read and much talked about. So things continued until he was seventeen years old, when he ran away but not to sea. 168 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN He and his brother quarrelled often. Benjamin the apprentice was saucy and provoking, and James the master was hot-tempered and beat his younger brother severely. After a particularly bad quarrel, Franklin sold some of his books, and took passage on a sloop bound for New York. Arriving at New York, he found no employ- ment there, and went on to Philadelphia. THE THREE ROLLS EARLY in the morning of an October day, young Benjamin Franklin, seventeen years old and seeking his fortune, reached Philadelphia. He was tired and hungry, and had only a dollar of his little fund left. He stopped at a baker's, and bought three big puffy rolls. He put a roll under each arm, and, munching the third, walked along Market Street. In the doorway of a house, stood a young girl. She saw the awkward, handsome boy, trudging past hungrily eating a big roll. She laughed to herself; she thought it funny to see him with his broad-brimmed hat, knee-breeches, and buckled shoes all shabby and dusty, and his great pockets stuffed with stockings and shirts. So she laughed to herself, did Deborah Read. And little she knew that in a few years, she would become that boy's wife! But so it happened. STANDING BEFORE KINGS 169 Young Benjamin Franklin found work in a printer's shop. He came to lodge at Deborah Read's home. In a few years, he owned his own printing press. He married Deborah Read. He became a well-known printer. He issued an influential newspaper, and published "Poor Richard's Almanack." He was industrious, studious, thrifty, and prosperous. In time, he became the most famous and learned citizen of Pennsylvania, and a great American Patriot. STANDING BEFORE KINGS WHEN the American Colonies rose against the exactions of England, Benjamin Franklin was called upon to serve his Country as a diplomat in France and England. "My father," wrote Franklin, "having among his instructions to me when a boy frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, 'Seest thou a man diligent hi his calling, he shall stand before Kings; he shall not stand before mean men,' "I from thence considered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and distinction, which en- couraged me, though I did not think that I should ever literally stand before Kings, which, however, has since happened, for I have stood before five, and even had the honour of sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner." 170 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN THE WONDERFUL KITE EXPERIMENT IN Benjamin Franklin's time, there were no electric trains, no telegraphs, telephones, radio- graphs, and radiophones. The driving and light- ing power of electricity was not understood. People did not know that lightning was due to the presence of electricity in nature. Benjamin Franklin, who was keen and in- quisitive, made scientific experiments with the Leyden jar and with simple machines which produced electricity by friction. He discovered that in certain ways, the action of electricity and lightning was the same, and he observed that electric fluid might be conducted along a pack- string. So he determined to prove that electricity and lightning were the same, by drawing light- ning down from the clouds along a pack-string. He used a silk kite, with a sharp-pointed wire fastened to its framework, and a silk ribbon tied to the end of the kite-string holding a metal key in place. He secretly flew the kite during a June thunder- storm. And as he saw the kite-string stiffen in a strange way, he eagerly laid his hand against the key. Instantly he felt a shock of electricity pass through him. He had made one of the most important discoveries of all ages! FRANKLIN AND THE KITE EXPERIMENT THE RISING SUN 171 His discovery was soon known throughout the world. Men made other experiments, and in time invented the wonderful electrical machines and devices which we enjoy to-day. THE RISING SUN WHEN the Federal Constitutional Convention met at Philadelphia, General Washington was unanimously made President of the Convention. He took the chair with diffidence. He assured the members that he was not used to such a situation, that he was embarrassed, and he hoped they would excuse his errors. And hi what masterly fashion he conducted the convention, history shows. Behind his chair was painted a picture of the sun. After the debates were over and the Consti- tution was adopted, Benjamin Franklin, who had just signed the immortal Document, turned to some of the members. He drew their attention to the sun behind General Washington's chair. "I have often and often," said Franklin, "in the 'course of the session and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a rising, and not a setting, sun." 172 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN , TO MY FRIEND From Franklin's Witt and Testament MY fine crabtree walking-stick, with a gold head curiously wrought in the form of the Cap of Liberty, I give to my friend and the friend of Mankind, General Washington. If it were a Sceptre, he has merited it, and would become it. Benjamin Franklin FEBRUARY 12 ABRAHAM LINCOLN THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the Nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all Nations. ABRAHAM LINCOLN March 4, 1865 Oh, slow to smite and swift to spare, Gentle and merciful and just! Who, in the fear of God, didst bear The sword of power, a Nation's trust! In sorrow by thy bier we stand, Amid the awe that hushes all, And speak the anguish of a land That shook with horror at thy fall. Thy task is done; the bond are free: We bear thee to an honoured grave, Whose proudest monument shall be The broken fetters of the slave. Pure was thy life; its bloody close Hath placed thee with the sons of light, Among the noble host of those Who perished in the cause of Right. WILLIAM CULLEN BBYANT ABRAHAM LINCOLN was born, February 12, 1809 Was elected President, 1860 Issued the Emancipation Proclamation, New Year's Day, 1863 Was re-elected, 1864 He was assassinated, 1865 THE CABIN IN THE CLEARING IT was only a small cabin in a forest-clearing in the wilderness of Indiana. It stood on a knoll overlooking a piece of ground where corn and vegetables grew. In the woods around the cabin were bear, deer, and other wild creatures. The furniture was rude, brought from the East, or made of logs and hickory-sticks, while the bed was a sack of leaves. In the big fireplace, the logs cut from the forest, burned with a cheerful blaze. And there lived little Abe Lincoln, nine years old, with his father and sister and his mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Abe was born in Kentucky. When he was seven, his family moved to the cabin in Indiana. He helped clear the way through the wilderness to the new home. So with swinging the axe and blazing trails, he was made unusually large and strong for his age, alert and courageous a real backwoods boy. He could shoot, fish, cut down trees, and work on the farm in the clearing. In his veins ran the ' red blood of Kentucky pioneers. His grand- father, in the days of Daniel Boone, had been killed by an Indian, while Abe's father a child 176 ABRAHAM LINCOLN then had been rescued from this same Indian by his brother, Mordecai Lincoln, a daring lad, who shot the savage with his dead father's rifle, so saving his little brother. HOW HE LEARNED TO BE JUST Let us have faith that Right makes Might, and in that Faith, let us to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, from his speech at Cooper Institute BUT it was not all work for Abe on the new farm in Indiana. He picked wild plums and pawpaws in the woods, and ate corn dodgers, fried bacon, roast wild turkey, and fish caught in the Indiana streams. He went to school when he could, which was not often, for in those days schools were few and far between, and teachers were not many. But little Abe had the best teacher of all, his mother, Nancy Lincoln. For, though his father could scarcely write his own name, his mother could read, and she loved books. She taught her little son his letters and how to read. Often they sat together in the cabin, Abe and his sister at their mother's knee, while she read the Bible to them. "I would rather my son would be able to read the Bible, than to own a farm, if he can't have but one," she said. She was a beautiful woman, slender, sad, and pale, with dark hair. She was more refined than OFF TO NEW ORLEANS 177 most women of those hardy pioneer times, but she could use a rifle, work on the farm, spin, and do other housework. Because of her gentle and firm character, she was loved and respected not only by her husband and children, but by her neighbours. Above all things she had a deep and tender religious spirit which she shared with Abe and his sister, Sarah. She taught Abe to love truth and justice and to revere God. In time he could repeat by heart much of the Bible, and, when he grew up, he thought and wrote in the simple, clear, and forceful language of the Bible. And he learned from it his ideas of right and his scorn of wrong, making him "Honest Abe." \ f OFF TO NEW ORLEANS YOUNG ABE LINCOLN went on several flatboat trips carrying produce down the Mississippi to New Orleans. One of these trips made a deep and lasting impression upon him. In New Orleans, he visited the slave-market. There negro men, women, and children were bought, sold, and flogged. Wives were torn from their husbands, children from their mothers, and auctioned off like cattle. The anguish of these scenes wrung Lincoln's heartstrings. With quivering lips, he said, "If 178 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ever I get a chance to hit that thing, I will hit it hard." John Hanks, a relative who was with him at the slave-market, said in after years : "Lincoln saw it; his heart bled; said nothing much, was silent, looked bad. I can say it, knowing him, that it was on this trip that he formed his opinions of slavery. It run its iron into him, then and there." THE KINDNESS OF LINCOLN The Little Birds WHEN Lincoln was a lawyer, one day he was going with a party of lawyers to attend court. They were riding, two by two, on horseback through a country lane, Lincoln hi the rear. As they passed through a thicket of wild plum and crab-apple trees, his friends missed him. "Where is he?" they asked. Just then Lincoln's companion came riding up. "Oh," replied he, "when I saw him last, he had caught two young birds that the wind had blown out of their nest, and was hunting for the nest , to put them back." After a little while, Lincoln rode up, and when his friends rallied him about his tender heart, he said: THE KINDNESS OF LINCOLN 179 "I could not have slept, unless I had restored those little birds to their mother." Rescuing the Pig ANOTHER time, Lincoln was riding past a deep miry ditch, and saw a pig struggling in the mud. The animal could not get out, and was squealing with terror. Lincoln looked at the pig and the mud, and then at his clothes clean ones, that he had just put on. Then he decided in favour of the clean clothes, and rode along. But he could not get rid of the thought of the poor animal struggling so pitifully in its terror. He had not gone far when he turned back. He reached the ditch, dismounted, and tied his horse. Then he collected some old wooden rails, and with them made a foot-bridge to the bottom of the ditch. He carefully walked down the bridge, and caught hold of the pig. He pulled it out, and setting it on the ground, let it run away. The screaming, struggling pig, had spattered Lincoln's clean clothes with mud. His hands were covered with filth; so he went to the nearest brook, washed them, and wiped them on the grass. Later, when telling a friend about his advenr 180 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ture, Lincoln said that he had rescued the pig for purely selfish reasons, "to take a pain out of his own mind." Opening Their Eyes . IT was toward the close of the Civil War, the crisis had come, and the end of the long struggle was in sight. The Union troops were hemming hi Richmond. President Lincoln went himself to City Point, and there he remained, anxiously waiting. In his tent lived a pet cat. It had a family of new-born kittens. Sometimes, the President relieved his mind by playing with them. Finally Richmond was taken, and Lincoln prepared to visit the city. Before he left his tent, he picked up one of the kittens, saying: "Little kitten, I must perform a last act of kindness for you before I go. I must open your eyes." He passed his hand gently over its closed lids, until the eyes opened; then he set the kitten on the floor, and said: "Oh! that I could open the eyes of my blinded fellow-countrymen as easily as I have those of that little creature!" LINCOLN AND THE CHILDREN 181 Hurrah for Lincoln! ABRAHAM LINCOLN loved children, and even strange children were drawn to him, as though they had known him all their lives. Here are a few of the stories told about Lincoln and his child-friends. Soon after Lincoln was elected President, he went to Chicago, where he was welcomed with shouts and cheers. Later, as he sat in a room talking with friends, a little boy was led in. At the sight of the Presi- dent-elect, he took off his hat and swung it, shouting: "Hurrah for Lincoln!" Lincoln rose, and catching the little fellow in his strong hands, tossed him to the ceiling, shouting: "Hurrah for you!" Only Eight of Us t Sir! ON this same visit to Chicago, while Lincoln was talking with visitors, a little German girl, heading a delegation of other girls, walked timidly up to him. "What do you want, my little girl? What can I do for you?" he asked kindly. '182 ABRAHAM LINCOLN "I want your name," she said. "But there are many other little girls that want my name, and as I cannot give it to them all, they will feel hurt if I give it to you." She looked around at her companions, and said, "Only eight of us, sir!" Lincoln could not resist that, so he sat down immediately, and forgetting his other visitors, took eight sheets of paper and wrote a line and his name on each. These he gave to the little girls, and they went away happy. He ' Beautiful! ONCE a little girl's father took her to call upon Lincoln. She had been told that he was very homely. But when he lifted her on his knee and talked to her in his kindly, merry way, she turned to her father, and exclaimed : "OPa! He is n't ugly at all! He's beautiful!" Please Let Your Beard Grow BUT there was another little girl who did not think so. She lived in Westfield, in the State of New York. She had seen Lincoln's picture, and did not like it; so after his election she wrote a letter asking him to let his beard grow, as she thought it would make him better looking. Lincoln enjoyed the letter very much. It HE'S BEAUTIFUL" THE PRESIDENT AND THE BIBLE 183 happened later that he was on a train passing through Westfield, and, as the train stopped for a few minutes, he was asked to address the people at the station. He told about the letter, and stroking his chin, added : "I intend to follow her advice!" He then called for the little girl. She came forward, and he greeted her kindly. Three Little Girls ONE day, after Lincoln had gone to Washington, three little girls, the children of a workingman, went to the White House on a reception day. They joined the throng, and were pushed along until they came to where Lincoln was shaking hands with each of his visitors. When the children reached him, they were so bashful, that they did not dare to put out their hands. But Lincoln saw them passing by, and called: "Little girls, are you going to pass me without shaking hands?" Then, stooping over, he kept every one waiting while he shook hands with each child. THE PRESIDENT AND THE BIBLE LINCOLN'S love of truth, justice, and mercy, his detestation of everything ignoble, brutal, or 184 ABRAHAM LINCOLN mean, were taught him or strengthened in him from childhood through his reading of the Bible. The language of his speeches and writings was forceful and direct like the English of the Bible, and such a phrase as "A house divided against itself," he took from the Bible. While President, he used to carry a New Testament with him; and he could quote whole passages. He used often to rise early in the morning to get time to read and pray before the pressing business of the day began. He read the Bible aloud to the coloured servants of the White House. Once, when a Committee of Coloured People waited upon him, to present him with a fine copy of the Bible, he took it and made a speech to them, a part of which was: "In regard to this great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good Saviour gave to the World was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and here- after, are to be found portrayed in it. "To you I return my most sincere thanks for the very elegant copy of the great Book of God which you present." WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN 185 WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN SPEAK A LINCOLN ORDER To the Army and Navy THE President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of the pre- scribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine will, demand that Sunday labour in the Army and Navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperilled, by the profanation of the day or name of the Most High. "At this time of public distress" adopting the words of Washington in 1776 "men may find enough to do in the service of God and their Country without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality." The first General Order issued by the Father of his Country after the Declaration of Inde- pendence indicates the spirit in which our in- stitutions were founded and should ever be defended: 186 ABRAHAM LINCOLN i "The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavour to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier, defending the dearest Rights and Liberties of his Country." November 15, 1862. ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE DEDICATION OF THE GETTYSBURG NATIONAL CEMETERY FOURSCORE and seven years ago our Fathers brought forth on this continent a new Nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that Nation, or any Nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that Nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate we cannot consecrate we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The World will little note nor long remember what we say THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS 187 here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of Freedom; and that Government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the earth. ABRAHAM LINCOLN November 19, 1863. The following famous stories about Lincoln are in " Good Stories for Great Holidays": A Solomon Come to Judgment; The Colonel of the Zouaves; Courage of his Convictions; George Picket? s Friend; He Rescues the Birds; His Spring- field Farewell Address; Lincoln and the Little Girl; Lincoln the Lawyer; Mr. Lincoln and the Bible; A Stranger at Five- Points; Training for the Presidency; Why Lincoln was called "Honest Abe"; The Widow and her Three Sons; The Young Sentinel. FEBRUARY 22 GEORGE WASHINGTON THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY Where may the wearied eye repose, When gazing on the Great; Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state? Yes one the first the last the best The Cincinnati^ of the West, Whom Envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one! LORD BYBON LINCOLN ON WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate this day. Washington is the mightiest name of earth long since mightiest in the cause of Civil Liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked death- less splendour, leave it shining on. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, February 22, 1849 WASHINGTON was born, February 22, 1732 Was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the American Army, 1775 Was made President of the Federal Convention for Framing the Constitution, and signed the Consti- tution, 1787 Was inaugurated, first President of the United States, 1789 Issued his "Farewell Address," 1796 He died at Mount Vernon, December 14, 1799 THE BOY IN THE VALLEY THE boy George Washington was magnificently strong and tall, with firm muscles and powerful body. He could run, leap, wrestle, toss the bar, and pitch quoits. He rode fiery horses and hunted foxes. He was a silent, determined lad, truth-telling, with a wonderful grip on his temper. By the time that he was sixteen he was an excellent surveyor. And he was a proud and happy boy when, one spring day, he leaped on his horse, and, with a companion, rode away into the Wilderness on a real job of surveying. Lord Fairfax, his close friend, owned a great estate of over five million acres stretching to the westward. A part of the estate was a wilderness, and lay on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It had never been surveyed. Squat- ters were stealing the land. So Lord Fairfax had sent sixteen-year old George Washington to survey it for him. As the boy rode over the mountains, and guided his horse down the steep trail into the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, Spring was busy all around him. Cascades and torrents of snow- 192 GEORGE WASHINGTON water were rushing from the mountain-tops to feed the bright Shenandoah River "The Daugh- ter of the Stars," the Indians called the river. The boy spent the better part of the first day riding through fine groves of sugar maples, and admiring the trees and the richness of the land. Here and there showed the little clearings, where the squatters were preparing their small farms for crops of tobacco, hemp, and corn. For some days, he surveyed along the banks of the river and in the valley, roughing it at night. And many were the adventures he had about which he has written in his diary. Sometimes he slept before the camp-fire or in a hut, at others in a tent. Once, he was nearly burnt to death when his straw bed caught fire. He roasted wild turkeys, and ate off chips for plates. He swam his horse through swollen streams, and followed the rough roads made by the squatters. But his most exciting adventure was with Indians. On the bank of the Potomac stood a little cabin. Near it was hung a huge kettle suspended over a place always ready for a fire. The cabin be- longed to Cresap, a frontiersman, and so did the kettle. He kept the fireplace and everything in readiness for the passing Indians to cook their meals. The grateful Red Skins called him "Big Spoon." THE BOY IN THE VALLEY 193 Rain and floods drove Washington to the cabin. Big Spoon invited him to stay until the bad weather was past. On the third day, Washington looked out and saw a band of Indians carrying a scalp, come toward the cabin. It was a war-party returning from a raid. I Big Spoon greeted them heartily, for every- body was welcome at his place. The Indians built a fire, sat down in a circle, and held a big cele- bration. Then they performed a war-dance, while their musicians played on drums made of pots half full of water, with deerskin stretched tightly over them. And as Washington watched their savage antics, he little dreamed how soon he himself would be fighting with Red Skins. When his surveying was finished, he returned home to make his report. Lord Fairfax was, delighted with his careful work and fine maps. In fact, to-day the surveys Washington made when a boy, stand unquestioned; they are so perfect. Roughing it in the Shenandoah Valley was not the last of Washington's adventures in the Wil- derness. He was appointed public surveyor. For the next three years, he spent a great deal of time in the wilds, with settlers, frontiersmen, trappers, and Indians. 194 GEORGE WASHINGTON He grew to be over six feet tall, and remark- ably strong and rugged. He overcame difficulties and faced dangers through pluck and perse- verance. He became a Colonel of a Virginia regiment. He acquired military training and widened his knowledge of handling all sorts of men. What he learned about Indian warfare and life in the forests and in the Wilderness, taught him the caution and knowledge which he showed while guarding the retreat of what was left of Braddock's troops. So his adventures while a boy in the Valley, and his experiences as a young man roughing it on the frontier, fighting with Indians, carrying messages through the Wilderness, and serving as a soldier, all prepared Washington to become the Liberator of our Country. WASHINGTON'S MOTHER MOLLY BALL of Virginia, Molly Ball with hair like flax and cheeks like mayblossoms, as she is described in the fragment of a quaint old letter, married Augustine Washington 'of Virginia, and became the mother of George Washington. Washington was like his mother hi qualities of character. He had her strength of will, love of WASHINGTON'S MOTHER 195 truth, firm purpose, high sense of duty, dignity, and reverence. All these noble qualities were strengthened and made practical by her careful education and discipline. When he became great, she was quietly proud of him. And when people spoke warmly of his glory and success, she would say: "But, my good sirs, here is too much flattery. Still, George will not forget the lessons I early taught him. He will not forget himself, though he is the subject of so much praise." When she was informed by special messenger that Cornwallis had surrendered, she exclaimed: "Thank God! war will now be ended, and peace, Independence, and happiness, bless our Country!" After the surrender of Cornwallis, Washington visited his mother at Fredericksburg, where she was living in her own little house. She was about seventy-five years old. He reached Fredericksburg surrounded by his numerous and brilliant suite. He dismounted, and sent to inquire when it would be her pleasure to receive him. Afoot and alone, he walked to her house. She was by herself, employed in a household task, when she was told that the victor-chief was waiting at her door. She bade him welcome by 196 GEORGE WASHINGTON a warm embrace, calling him "George," the dear familiar name of his childhood. She spoke to him of old times and old friends, but of his glory, not one word. Meanwhile, in the town of Fredericksburg there was excitement and rejoicing. The place was crowded with foreign and American officers. Gentlemen from miles around were hastening into town to congratulate the conquerors of Yorktown. The citizens got up a splendid ball in Washing- ton's honour, to which his mother was specially invited. The foreign officers were eager to meet their Chief's mother. They had heard of her remark- able character. They expected to see her enter the ballroom in glittering attire, clad in rich brocades, like the noble ladies of Europe. How surprised they were, when, leaning on her son's arm, she entered dressed simply. She was dignified and imposing. She received quietly all the compliments and attentions showered upon her. At an early hour she wished the company much pleasure, saying that it was time for old folk to be in bed. She retired leaning on the arm of her son. "If such are the matrons in America," ex- claimed the foreign officers, "well may she boast of illustrious sons!" George Washington Parke Custis and Other Sources WASHINGTON AND THE CHILDREN 197 WASHINGTON'S WEDDING DAY WASHINGTON plighted his troth with Martha Dandridge, the charming widow of Daniel Parke Custis. She was young, pretty, intelligent, and an heiress. It was a brilliant wedding party which assem- bled on a winter day in the little church near Mrs. Custis's home. There were gathered the gay, free-thinking, high-living Governor, gor- geous in scarlet and gold; British officers, red- coated and gold-laced; ami all the neighbouring gentry in their handsomest clothes. The bride was attired in silk and satin, laces and brocade, with pearls on her neck and in her ears. While the bridegroom appeared in blue and silver trimmed with scarlet, and with gold buckles at his knees and on his shoes. After the ceremony, the bride was taken home in a coach and six, Washington riding beside her, mounted on a splendid horse, and followed by all the gentlemen of the party. Henry Cabot Lodge (Arranged) WASHINGTON AND THE CHILDREN I THERE were two joyous little people who went to live with the bride in her new home at Mount 198 GEORGE WASHINGTON Vernon. They were her two children, Jack Custis, six years old, and his sister Patsy, just four years old. Washington gave them little ponies to ride. He bought fashionably dressed baby dolls for Patsy, silver shoe and knee buckles for Jack, and for both of them toys, gingerbread-figures, sugar- images, and little books with coloured pictures in them. He gave them each a Bible bound in turkey leather with their names printed in gilt letters on the inside covers. ri WASHINGTON loved all children. He always smiled at them. He was soecially popular with boys. When he rode in state to Independence Hall in his cream-coloured coach drawn by six bays, and with postilions and outriders, boys were always at hand to cheer as he drove by. And when he returned to Mount Vernon, there were other boys waiting to welcome him. He could always count on boys, wherever he went, to shout and wave their hats. He used to touch his own hat to them as politely as if they were veterans on parade. After his great dinners at Mount Vernon, as soon as the guests were done eating, he would WASHINGTON AND THE CHILDREN 199 tell his steward to call in the neighbours' boys, who were never far away at such a time. In they would come, crowding around the table, and make quick work of the cakes, nuts, and raisins the guests had left. At twilight, Washington had a habit of pacing up and down the large room on the first floor with his hands behind him. One evening, a boy who had never seen him, climbed up to a high open window to look in at him. The boy fell and hurt himself. Washington heard him cry, and sent a servant to see what was the matter. The servant came back and said, "The boy was trying to get a look at you, sir." "Bring him in," said Washington. And when the boy came in, he patted him on the head, saying: "You wanted to see General Washington, did you? Well, I am General Washington." But the little fellow shook his head, and replied : "No, you are only just a man. I want to see the President." Washington laughed, and told him that he was the President and a man for all that. Then he had the servant give him some cakes and nuts, and sent huii away happy. Grace Greenwood and Other Sources (Retold) 200 GEORGE WASHINGTON THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE RED COATS WHEN Washington with the Army entered Bos- ton after the British had evacuated the city, he made the best tavern in town his Headquarters. It had been the British Headquarters. The tavern-keeper's little girl was running about very much interested in all that was going on. Washington called her to him, and holding her on his knee, asked : "Now that you have seen the soldiers on both sides, which do you like best?" The little girl hesitated, but like the great Washington himself, she could not tell a lie, so she said: "I like the Red Coats best." Washington laughed at her frankness, and said gently: "Yes, my dear, the Red Coats do look the best, but it takes the ragged boys to do the fighting." Wayne Whipple (Retold) NELLIE AND LITTLE WASHINGTON GEORGE WASHINGTON loved children, and, as he had none of his own, he adopted two of his wife's grandchildren, Nellie Custis and George Washington Parke Custis. NELLIE AND LITTLE WASHINGTON 201 The little boy was known as "Washington." Nellie was a beautiful child with smiling black eyes and thick curly brown hair; while her brother was of very light complexion. They had good times together at Mount Veraon. There was a delightfully fearsome pack of hounds in the kennel; French dogs, the gift of Lafayette, "fierce, big-mouthed, savage." And there were litters of beautiful puppies. The stables were full of horses, fine creatures for pets and playfellows. Nellie liked to be with the horses, and was constantly alarming her grandmother as she flashed by the windows or down the lanes, mounted upon some half-broken colt. The children loved old Nelson, Washington's war horse. They used to climb upon the fence to pat his forehead, as he came racing up to greet his master. There were many other animals gifts to Washington of friends and admirers. Among them were Spanish jackasses, Chinese pigs, and Chinese geese. There was always something going on to inter- est the children. They might run down to the river-landing to see what strange fish "Daddy Jack" had caught; day in and day out, "Daddy Jack" was always fishing there in his canoe. Or they might go to meet the hunter "carrying his 202 GEORGE WASHINGTON gun and pouch, his body wrapped with strings of game, his dogs at heel." They liked to look at the game, and smooth the thick feathers or soft fur. There were birds, squirrels, wild turkeys, molly cotton-tails, wily 'possums, and canvas- back ducks. i Coaches of company, too, were coming and going. State dinners were cooked and served to nobles and dignitaries. And when the children ran about the gar- dens, they saw rare things growing "fig-trees, raisins, limes, oranges, large English mulberries, artichokes." Then there were the mills to visit, the smithy, the shops, the fields, and the negro-quarters, all in company with their dear adopted father, Washington himself. But the children and indeed every one looked forward to the evening, when Washington sat with them. This was the children's hour, when by the uncertain twinkle of the home-made candles, they danced and sang their little songs. The curled darling of the house was "Master Washington " George Washington Parke Cus- tis. Many years later, when Lafayette visited Master Washington, then grown up, he told how he had first seen him on the portico of Mount Vernon, a little boy, a very little gentleman, with a feather in his hat, holding fast to one finger of Washington's hand, which finger was so large that the little boy could hardly hold on to it. As for Nellie, she wanted to romp and play from morning till night. She did not like to have her hair dressed with feathers and ribbons. She did not enjoy her books and music. And she used to cry for hours together, while her determined grandmother stood guard over her, keeping her at practice on the beautiful harpsichord, which Washington had given her.