Horatio Alger - From Farm Boy to Senator

Peter Harvey, in his interesting volume of “Reminiscences of Daniel Webster,” relates many incidents for which he was indebted to the free and friendly communications of Mr. Webster himself. One of these I will transfer to my pages, as it will be likely to amuse my young readers. I can do no better than quote it without alteration from Mr. Harvey’s book.

“Mr. Webster was once telling me about a plain-spoken neighbor of his father, whose sons were schoolmates of his own. The neighbor had moved into the neighborhood of Hanover, where he had opened a little clearing, and had settled upon a piece of comparatively barren land. After Daniel had been in college several months his father said to him,

“‘John Hanson is away up there somewhere. I should like to know how he is getting along. I think you had better find him out, and go and see him.’

“So Daniel inquired about, and soon found out pretty nearly where Hanson lived.

“‘One Saturday afternoon,’ related Mr. Webster, ’I thought I would trudge up there through the woods, and spend Sunday with my old friends. After a long, tedious walk I began to think I should never find the place; but I finally did, and when I got there I was pretty well tired out with climbing, jumping over logs, and so on. The family were not less delighted than surprised to see me, but they were as poor as Job’s cat. They were reduced to the last extreme of poverty, and their house contained but one apartment, with a rude partition to make two rooms.

“’I saw how matters were; but it was too late to go back, and they seemed really glad to see me. They confessed to me that they had not even a cow, or any potatoes. The only thing they had to eat was a bundle of green grass and a little hog’s lard, and they actually subsisted on this grass fried in the hog’s fat. But it was not so bad after all. They fried up a great platter of it, and I made my supper and breakfast off it. About a year and a half afterwards, just before graduating, I thought that, before leaving Hanover, I would go and pay another visit to the Hansons. I found that they had improved somewhat, for they now had a cow and plenty of plain, homely fare. I spent the night there, and was about to leave the next morning, when Hanson said to me,

“’“Well, Daniel, you are about to graduate. You’ve got through college, and have got college larnin’, and now, what are you going to do with it?”

“’I told him I had not decided on a profession.

“’“Well,” said he, “you are a good boy; your father was a kind man to me, and was always kind to the poor. I should like to do a kind turn to him and his. You’ve got through college, and people that go through college either become ministers, or doctors, or lawyers. As for bein’ a minister I would never think of doin’ that; they never get paid anything. Doctorin’ is a miserable profession; they live upon other people’s ailin’s, are up nights, and have no peace. And as for bein’ a lawyer, I would never propose that to anybody. Now,” said he, “Daniel, I’ll tell you what! You are a boy of parts; you understand this book-larnin’, and you are bright. I knew a man who had college larnin’ down in Rye, where I lived when I was a boy. That man was a conjurer; he could tell by consultin’ his books and study if a man had lost his cow where she was. That was a great thing, and if people lost anything, they would think nothin’ of payin’ three or four dollars to a man like that, so as to find their property. There is not a conjurer within a hundred miles of this place; and you are a bright boy, and have got this college larnin’. The best thing you can do, Daniel, is to study that, and be a conjurer !”’”

We can imagine the serious, earnest tone in which this advice was given, and we may easily suppose that Daniel found it hard not to laugh when the climax was reached. We can hardly imagine the advice to have been taken. If, in place of Daniel Webster, the great lawyer, and the defender of the Constitution, we had Daniel Webster, the famous conjurer, it would be a ludicrous transformation. There are few persons who do not consider themselves qualified to give advice, but when my young readers are advised about the serious business of life, let them consider whether the advice comes from one who is qualified by wisdom and good judgment to give it.

Daniel’s path seemed to lie plain before him. He was a college student, receiving and using such advantages as Dartmouth could give him. At nineteen he would be a graduate, and well qualified to commence a professional course. So far as he was concerned Daniel felt that he had reason to congratulate himself. But there was another for whom he began to feel solicitude.

Ezekiel Webster was nearly two years older than Daniel, and like him possessed uncommon natural gifts. A strong affection had united the two brothers from their earliest years. There was no reason, apart from Judge Webster’s poverty, why Ezekiel, as well as his younger brother, should not be allowed a college education. But the father hesitated long before he ventured to offer Daniel the education which he longed to give him, and to raise the necessary money was obliged to mortgage his humble house. His plan for Ezekiel was that he should remain at home and carry on the farm. As he grew older, and hard work had made him in his own words “old before his time,” he felt that it would be a relief to have a son like Ezekiel to take the burden from his shoulders, and keep up the farm. But Ezekiel scarcely more than Daniel had a vocation for farming. He too had a thirst for learning, and felt that a farmer’s life would be uncongenial. It is natural that he should have felt dissatisfied with his prospects, and that the claims of Duty which he recognized should nevertheless have seemed to him difficult to obey.

Such was the state of feeling when Daniel came home on a vacation. To him Ezekiel revealed his thoughts and inward struggles.

“I ought to stay, Daniel,” he said; “now that you are away father needs me more than ever, but I can’t bear the idea of growing up in ignorance, with no work more elevating than working on the farm.”

Daniel was touched. He could see how unequal their lots were likely to be. While he might be a successful lawyer, his favorite brother, whose talents he considered to equal his own, would have to toil on the barren acres of their paternal farm.

“I can’t bear the idea, either, Zeke,” he answered. “You are sacrificing yourself to me. Father has mortgaged the farm to pay my expenses, and you are working to pay it.”

“If but one of us can have an education, Dan, I am glad that you are that one.”

“But, Zeke, you are as smart as I, nay, smarter, and ought to have the same advantages.”

“It cannot be, Daniel. I know that well enough. If I could be spared to leave home I should like to go out West. In a new part of the country I should have a better chance of getting on than here. Here on our barren little farm there is no chance to do better than get a bare living.”

“I wish you could go to college too. Isn’t there some way of managing it?”

“I have thought of it many times, but I see no way,” answered Ezekiel despondently.

“May I mention the subject to father, Zeke?”

“It would only trouble him, and after all it would do no good.”

All night long the two brothers talked the matter over, and finally Zeke gave his consent to Dan’s broaching the subject to their father. The result I will give in Daniel’s words.

“I ventured on the negotiation, and it was carried, as other things often are, by the earnest and sanguine manner of youth. I told him [Judge Webster] that I was unhappy at my brother’s prospects. For myself I saw my way to knowledge, respectability and self-protection; but as to him, all looked the other way; that I would keep school, and get along as well as I could, be more than four years in getting through college, if necessary, provided he also could be sent to study. He said at once he lived but for his children; that he had but little, and on that little he put no value, except so far as it might be useful to them; that to carry us both through college would take all he was worth; that, for himself, he was willing to run the risk, but that this was a serious matter to our mother and two unmarried sisters; that we must settle the matter with them, and if their consent was obtained, he would trust to Providence, and get along as well as he could.”