The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1888-02-11

| from which many of the earlier settlers
in the American Boston came.
John must have been boy of rowing
habits, liking to wander away from his
home, to see new things, or he would
never have been the rowing man he was.
And dare say, he went to see Boston
or st. Botolph's Town, as it was first
called, and so in time came to be short
ened into Bos-town. And l dare say, too,
that he saw some Of the very houses that
are standing there to-day, though it is
over three hundred years since he was
born.
He was born in 1879, just nine years
before the great Spanish Armada was
sent ,ainst England. We talked about
that, you may remember, in our history
papers of last year, and you learned
something about Sir Francis Drake, and
Sir Walter Raleigh, who fought against
this Armada, and who were brave men
doing brave deeds, when John Smith was
a boy.
And he must have known about these
men, too, and about Sir. Humphrey Gill
bert, though not as you do, by reading
about them, for it is not likely he had
many books il he had any; for books
were few in those days, and books for
boys and girls we're not even thought Of.
Neither did he read about them in the
newspapers, for there were no newspa-
pers. Can you imagine time when
there were no books or newspapers?
News was then sent by couriers, or it
travelled by word of mouth; one man
told another, and the second man told
third, and 30, after while, the news got
over the whole country. And it took long
or for bit of news to go from London
to John Smiths home in Willoughby,
than it does now for it to go round the
world.
When the great Armada came, cour-
iers must have been sent to warn the
people, and great beacon-fres we're kind
led upon the hills to let them know that
| danger was near.
Now, do not find that an English boy
differs much from an American boy.
Both are wide awake, and equally ready
for any fun. And whether it be burning
beacons or Fourth of July fire works,
each is likely to be where they are if he
can get there. Neither can a sixteenth
century boy have differed very much
from a nineteenth century one. And 1
cannot imagine such wide awake boy
as John Smith must have been, going off
| to bed when the beacons that told of the
coming of the Armada were burning.
Very likely, too, he saw some of the
Spanish ships fleeing up to the North
Sea, by the coast Of Lincolnshire, with
English ships in hot pursuit.
I wonder if the house in which John
Smith lived when a boy was not like
some of those around me here. I went
into an English farmhouse the other day
that is over six hundred years old
It is stone, and has a stone floor, and
it's roof is of red tiles, among which
grass and flowers grow. Vines grow on
its walls, and gay flowers in its small,
square windowe 1t has tall settle be-
side the fireplace, just the cosiest place
for boy to have sat in winters even
ing, and listened to stories about the men
who we're making voyages to far-Rway
America, where gold was plenty, and
where a dusky people, called Indians,
lived. Stories, too, of mermaids and other
strange beings that lived IN the ocean;
and stories of wars and fghtings.
1t seems that John must have often
listened to such stories as these, aud SO
have got taste himself for adventure.
For when his father, thinking it time that
John should settle down to serious work
put him with weaver to learn his trade
he soon got tired of driving the shuttle
and ran away. He was then fourteen
Frances A. Humphrey, IN Little Men
! Women"