THE SCARLET TANAGER A flame went flitting through the wood; Against the tender green outlined, From early morn till day was done The vision flitted to and fro. At last the wood was all alone; A thousand tanagers will glow. MARY AUGUSTA MASON. MARY AUGUSTA MASON was born in Windsor, N. Y. She contributes both prose and poetry to many of the leading magazines. Her collected poems are entitled "With the Seasons." WEBSTER'S SCHOOL DAYS In 1791, when Daniel had just turned nine, a new honor, which deeply affected his later career, came to his father. The many evidences of confidence and esteem a gratified community had bestowed on Ebenezer Webster in the dark days of the Revolution did not cease with the war. The leader in strife remained a leader in peace, was sent year after year first to one and then to the other branch of the Assembly, was a delegate to the convention which ratified the Federal Constitution, and finally, in 1791, was placed on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas for the county in which he resided. These courts were composed of a presiding judge, always an able lawyer, and of two side justices, usually laymen of hard common sense and sterling integrity; and it was to one of these side justiceships that Ebenezer Webster was appointed. The office was one of honor and dignity, and carried with it an annual salary of several hundred dollars, just enough to enable the father to go on with his long meditated plan for the education of Daniel. Of his five sons, Ebenezer, David, and Joseph had grown to manhood, were settled in life, and long past the school age. To educate the two remaining, Ezekiel and Daniel, was beyond his means. But if his longing to see at least one son rise above the humble calling of a farmer was to be gratified, it must be one of these, and to choose which cost the father a bitter struggle. He met it with the unfaltering courage that marked the man, made his decision, and one day in 1795 announced his determination. "On a hot day in July," said Webster, describing the scene many years later, “it must have been in one of the years of Washington's administration, I was making hay with my father, just where I now see a remaining elm-tree. About the middle of the forenoon the Hon. Abiel Foster, M.C., who lived in Canterbury, six miles off, called at the house and came into the field to see my father. When he was gone, my father called me to him and we sat down beneath the elm. 66 He said: 'My son, that is a worthy man; he is a member of Congress; he goes to Philadelphia and gets six dollars a day, while I toil here. It is because he had an education which I never had. If I had had his education, I should have been in Philadelphia in his place. I came near it as it was. But I missed it, and now I must work here.' 6 "My dear father,' said I, you shall not work; brother and I will work for you, and we will wear our hands out, and you shall rest.' And I remember to have cried, and I cry now at the recollection. 66 6 My child,' said he, 'it is of no importance to me. I now live but for my children. I could not give your elder brothers the advantages of knowledge, but I can do something for you. Exert yourself, improve your opportunities, learn, learn, and when I am gone you will not need to go through the hardships which I have undergone, and which have made me an old man. before my time." " Almost a year passed, however, before the plan so long cherished was fairly started, and Daniel, dressed in a brand-new, home-made suit and astride a side-saddle, rode with his father to Exeter to be entered at the famous academy founded by John Phillips. The principal then and forty years thereafter was Dr. Benjamin Abbot, one of the greatest teachers our country has yet produced. As the doctor was ill, the duty of exam ining the new pupil fell to Joseph S. Buckminster, then an usher at the academy, but destined to influence strongly the religious life of New England. It was the custom of the doctor, we are told, to conduct the examination of applicants with pompous ceremony, and that, imitating him, young Buckminster summoned Webster to his presence, put on his hat, and said, "Well, sir, what is your age?" "Fourteen," was the reply. "Take this Bible, my lad, and read that chapter." Young Webster was equal to the test, and read the whole passage to the end in a voice and with a fervor such as Master Buckminster had never listened to before. "Young man," said he, "you are qualified to enter this institution," and no more questions were put to him. The voice and manner so famous in later life were even then strikingly manifest. But one other gift of nature still lay dormant-he could not declaim. Long after he had become the greatest orator of the day, he said to a friend: "I could not speak before the school. Many a piece did I commit to memory and rehearse in my room over and over again, but when the day came, and the school-master called my name, and I saw all eyes turned upon my seat, I could not raise myself from it. When the occasion was over, I went home and wept bitter tears of mortification." His stay at the academy was short. At the close of the year he was at home again, teaching a small class of boys and girls at his uncle's house on the North Road, and while so engaged he made the acquaintance of the Rev. Samuel Wood, minister at Boscawen. Dr. Wood was also an educator, and took charge of Webster's Latin. A young senior from Dartmouth taught him some Greek, and in August, 1797, Webster became a freshman in Dartmouth College. Save He had now reached a turning point in his career. during the nine months spent at Phillips Exeter, he had never been so far from home, had never been so completely thrown upon his own resources, nor brought in close contact with so many young men of his own age and generation. He was free to make of himself what he pleased. He read widely in English literature and in history, acquired a familiarity with Latin and with Latin authors, never forgot anything once acquired, was always able to display his knowledge to the best advantage, was in no sense a student or a scholar, but became the bestinformed man in college, and impressed all who met him as a youth of uncommon parts, with promise of being a great man. When a "So much as I read," says he, "I made my own. half-hour, or an hour at most, had elapsed, I closed my book, and thought over what I had read. If there was anything peculiarly interesting or striking in the passage, I endeavored to recall it and lay it up in memory, and commonly could effect my object. Then if, in debate or conversation afterward, any subject came up on which I had read something, I could talk very easily so far as I had read, and there I was careful to stop." As time passed, this wide reading stood him in good stead, and for a year he paid his board by aiding in editing a weekly newspaper for which he made selections from books and contemporary publications, now and then writing a few paragraphs himself. Nor were his physical characteristics less striking. College-mates never forgot his deep-set eyes, the solemn tones of his voice, the dignity of his carriage, and, above all, his |