Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-23
DANIEL WEBSTER.
Anecdotes of the Expounder of the Con-
stitution

: from the B1ston Saturday Evening Gazette
Daniel and his brother Ezekiel wer
once given directions by the father to per
form some kind of farm labor during hi
temporary absence from home, but on hi
return at night he found the labor upper
formed, and, frowning, said: "What hav.
you been doing, Ezekiel?. "Nothing
sir" was the reply. "Well, Daniel, wha
have you been doingg' Helping Zeke
sir.n And there are many more queer say
ings of his boyish days. 1t is said that
some years after Webster reached hi:
zenith he went out early in the morning
over his Marshield home and saw an OLD
woman picking cranberries. "What are
you about p said the great jurist "don't
you know it's against the law to do what
you are doing !" She turned round upon
him, andfxing her feeble old eyes upon
him, said:
Men make laws but don't mind EN-;
pick cranberries wherever find EN-.
Webster said not word, bur 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 house of public
entertainment, where the teamsters we're
in the habit of obtaining a dinner and
feeding their horses, and the incipient or
ator and statesman frequently entertained
his fathers guests by reading aloud some
of the Psalms OF David, to the great de-
light of his rustic listeners, and it was a
frequent remark, when teamster pulled
up his horse at the Webster tavern, Lets
go in and hear psalm from Dan Web
ster." Only a few months before his death
Webster, bending under the weight of
years and painful illness, told these and
other things at Marshfield to his private
Secretary.
Then came Webster's college days, or
rather, first, his days at Exeter under DR..
Benjamin Abbott, when he recited his
first Latin lessons to the late Joseph
Stevens Buckminster, at that time tutor
at Phillips. His first attempt to "speak
in public on the stage" was decided fail
ure. For the moment lie became en-
barrassed, and burst into tears. This man,
afterward giant in everything he under
took, who could repeat psalms to few
teamsters at the age of seven, had an an
tipathy to public defamation almost in
surmountable. But he overcame it, as
Lanman, goes on to say, by the triumph
of his will. and from the laughing-stock of
the school he became one of the best re-
citers
When fifteen years old he went to Bos-
cawen, n. H., and his preeeptor, DIR.
Wood, thought proper to give Daniel a
scolding for spending too much of his time
upon the hill and along the streams,
hunting and fishing failings 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 recitation hour ar
rived he recited his 100 lines with APP
probation. "But have few more lines
that l can recite," said the boy Daniel
"Well, let us have them," said the tutor,
and forthwith the boy reeled off another
hundred. every remarkable. You are,
indeed, smart boy" "But l have an
other 100" said Daniel, "and 500 of them,
if you please"
Webster never took to farm work. His
father once sent him from Exeter to go
up to the old homestead and assist HIM
in having a few days He went up and
started in, and worked until about IL
o'clock in the forenoon. He complained
to his mother that his hands were bis
tered and he didn't like the work. His
kind mother excused her favorite son,
and about an hour after dinner (his father
being away young Daniel tackled up the
family horse, packed two of his sisters in
the wagon, and drove off after huckleber-
l1l l., - Co., do d. a.
to school went the incipient statesmen.
Webster was only few months prepar-
ing for college, during which brief period
he mastered the study of Greek, SO that
his tutor said in that short time he ac-
ouired what it took other boys an entire
year to accomplish. Daniel was, as boy,
the sickliest and most slender of all his
fathers children, yet from his earliest boy
hood he was great devourer of the stand
ard books of the day, such as Pope's trans
lation of Homer, the Essay on Man" and
Addison's Spectator" the second of which
he committed to memory in Dartmouth
College. Although he had not looked
tn through since his fifteenth year, he
was. says Lanman, short time before his
death in 1852, able to recite most of it
from beginning to end. The Bible and
Shakespeare were his great favorites, and he
would almost to the day of his death re-
cite from memory many of the psalms
and hymns of DIR. Watts. What de-
lightful idea do we get from these boyish
traits How lovely does the character OF
Webster appear to us, and what an ex-
ample to the young
And so this boy goes on through college
and enters the world of strife and takes
the proudest place 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 salary Of $3.50 per annum, a large
price then, for it was large school. 1t
was there he went through his first read
ing of Blackstone and other works, to
which, perhaps, he owed the foundation Of
his fame. He passed the evenings in
copying deeds at 25 cents per deed, and
when, in 1851, he returned to the White
Mountains with his son Fletcher, he came
by way of Fryeburg, and, after the lapse
of half century, he went to the office o.
the County Recorder and exhibited to hi;
son two large bound volumes of deeds ir
his own handwriting, the sight of which
was, of course, suggestive of manifold emo
tions. Webster told his son Fletcher thai
the ache was not yet out of his fingers
which so much writing caused them.
But the writer cannot follow the subjec
of this sketch as he would wish to tn.
beautiful day in October, 1852, when that
mournful procession passed along thu
green at Marshfeld, bearing all that was
mortal of this great man. Something
however, has been learned from reading
Lanman's memories, viz: that the private
life of Webster was full of liberation o
the faults of others; that he possessed
vast sense of humor; that he never injured
any one; that he loved his friends an'
neighbors, and, to sum up the whole. die'
a perfect Christian. Lanman says: 9Th
distinct impression left upon my mind wa
that if he were not genuine Christian
the promises of the Bible were all fable
and God knows that l would rather di
| tLa,, for y,,oy,,apt iuaoipa such a state n