The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1890-07-17
OF WEBSTER

OF WEBS TER.
Daniel and his brother Ezekiel were
once given directions by his father TO per
form some kind Of farm labor during his
temporary absence from home, but on his
return at night he found the labor upper
formed, and frowning, said: have
you been doing, Ezekiel" "Nothing,
SIR" was the reply. well, Daniel, what
have you been doing?" "Helping Zeke,
SIR" And there are many more queer say
ings of his boyish days. II is aid that
some years after Webster reached his zen-
it'll he went out early in the morning over
his Marshfield home, and saw an old
woman picking cranberries. "What are
you about 2" said the great %jurist; don't
you know il is against the law to do what
you are doing ?" She turned around upon
him, and fixing her feeble old eyes upon
him, said:
"Men make laws, but | don't mind 'em;
pick cranberries wherever ] find en-"
Webster said not a word, but turned upon
his heel, and the old woman picked cram
berries there as long as she lived.
When Webster was about seven years
of age. his father kept n house of public
entertainment, where the teamsters were
in the habit of obtaining their dinner and
feeding their horses, and the incipient
orator and statesman often entertained
his fathers guests by reading aloud some
of the psalms of David, the great delight
Of his rustic listeners, and il was a fire.
quent remark when n teamster pulled up
his horse at the Webster tavern, Lets go
in and near a psalm from Dan Webster"
nnI, IN faa- ,nnpfhs hafa.a h,p I..tb
Webster, bending under the weight of
years and painful illness, told these and
other things at Marshfield to his private
secretary.
Then come Webster's college days, or
rather, first, his days at Exeter under DIR.
Benjamin Abbott, when he recited his
first Latin lessons 10 the late Joseph
Stevens Buckminster, at that time n tutor
at Phillips.
His first attempt TO ''speak i'm public on
the stagen was "A decided failure. For the
m he became embarrassed and
burst into tears. This man, afterward a
giant i'm everything he undertook, who
the age of Z, had an antipathy to public
defamation almost insurmountable. But
he overcame il, as Lanman goes on to
say, by the triumph of his will, and from
the laughing stock of The school he be-
came of the best teachers. When
Is years old he went to B~oscawen, n.
Y, and his preceptor, DIR. Wood,
thought proper to give him a scold-
ing for spending too much of
his time upon the hills and along the
streams, hunting and fishing .-fallings
which he never got over, for he has often
been heard to say he would rather fish
than eat" On this particular occasion he
was assigned 100 lines of Virgil to commit
to memory. He spent the entire night
over his books. When the recreation
ln..r IN rsix,aI no r..ital tla Inn IEn.. ...:,l.
appreciation. "But | have a few more
lines that can ~recite," said the boy Dam
iel. "Well let us have them" said the
tutor, n forthwith the boy reeled off an.
other hundred. VERY remarkable. You
are, indeed, a smart boy" .But 1 have
of them. il you please"
Webster never took To farm work. His
father once sent him from Exetert to go up
To the old homestead and assist him in
haying a few days. He went up and
started in, and worked until about IL
o'clock i'm the forenoon. He complained
to his mother that his hands were blis-
tered and he didn't like the work. His
kind mother excused her favorite son.
and about an hour after dinner lhis father
being away young Daniel tackled up the
family horse, packed two of his sisters i'm
the wagon and drove off after ~huckleber-
ries. This ended his farming days. Back
TO school went the incipient statesman.
Webster was only n few months prepar-
ing for college, during which brief period
he mastered the study of Greek. so that
his tutor said i'm that short time he &C.
quired what it took other boys an entire
year TO accomplish. Daniel was, as a boy,
the sickliest and most slender of all his
fathers children, yet from his earliest
boyhood he was a great devourer of the
standard books of the day, such as Pope's
translation of Homer, the"Essay ON Man."
and Addison's spectator" the second OF
which he committed to memory i'm Dart
mouth college. Although he had not
looked this through since his 18th year, he
was, says Lanman, n short time before his
death in 1852, able TO recite most Of il
from beginning to end. The Bible and
Shakespeare were his great favorites, and
he would almost to the day Of his death
recite from memory many of the psalms
and hymns of DIR. Watts. What a de.
lightful idea do we get from these boyist
traits? How lovely does the character of
Webster appear to us. and what an ex.
ample To the young.
And so the boy goes on through college
n enters the world of strife and takes
the proudest place a man can take-a
leader of men; not, perhaps, at once, but
gradually learning To know men. After
his graduation he kept school at Fryeburg,
Me-, at "A salary of $3.50 per mum, a
large price then, for IL was "A large school
Ii was there he went through his first
reading of Blackstone and other works.
to which, perhaps, he owed the founda-
ton of his fame. He passed thee evenings
in copying deeds at % cents per deed, and
when, i'm 1851, he returned from the
White mountains with his son, Fletcher,
he came by way of Fryeburg. and after
the lapse of half a century he went to the
Office OF the county recorder and exhib.
tied TO his sons two large bound volumes
of deeds in his own handwriting, the sight
of which was OF course suggestive oi
manifold emotions. Webster told his
son. Fletcher, that the ache was not yet
ont ~ his unUars which An much uritina