UPWARD AND ONWARD.
It was winter,—about three months after the sale of the squashes. The district school was in progress, and a male teacher presided over it.
"Scholars," said the teacher one day, "it is both pleasant and profitable to have an occasional declamation and dialogue spoken in school. It will add interest, also, to our spelling-school exercises in the evening. Now who would like to participate in these exercises?"
Nat was on his feet in a moment; for he was always ready to declaim, or perform his part of a dialogue. The teacher smiled to see such a little fellow respond so readily, and he said to Nat,
"Did you ever speak a piece?"
"Yes, sir, a good many times."
"Do you like to declaim?"
"Yes, sir, and speak dialogues too."
"What piece did you ever speak?"
"'My voice is still for war,'" replied Nat.
"A great many boys have spoken that," added the teacher, amused at Nat's hearty approval of the plan.
"Will you select a piece to-night, and show it to me to-morrow morning?" he asked.
"Yes, sir; and learn it too," answered Nat.
Only four or five scholars responded to the teacher's proposition, and Frank Martin was one, Nat's "right hand man" in all studies and games. The teacher arranged with each one for a piece, and the school was dismissed. As soon as school was out.
"Frank," said Nat, "will you speak 'Alexander the Great and a Robber' with me?"
"Yes, if the teacher is willing. Which part will you take?"
"The 'robber,' if you are willing to be great Alexander."
Frank agreed to the proposition, and as the dialogue was in Pierpont's First Class Book, which was used in school, they turned to it, and showed it to the teacher before he left the school-house. It was arranged that they should speak it on the next day, provided they could commit it in so short a time.
"Going to speak a dialogue to-morrow," said Nat to his mother, as he went into the house.
"What are you going to speak?"
"Alexander the Great and a Robber," replied Nat. "And I shall be the robber, and Frank will be Alexander."
"Why do you choose to be the robber?" inquired his mother. "I hope you have no inclination that way."
"I like that part," replied Nat, "because the robber shows that the king is as much of a robber as himself. The king looks down upon him with scorn, and calls him a robber; and then the robber tells the king that he has made war upon people, and robbed them of their property, homes, and wives and children, so that he is a worse robber than himself. The king hardly knows what to say, and the last thing the robber says to him is, 'I believe neither you nor I shall ever atone to the world for half the mischief we have done it.' Then the king orders his chains to be taken off, and says, 'Are we then so much alike? Alexander like a robber?'"
"That is a very good reason, I think, for liking that part," said his mother. "Many people do not stop to think that the great can be guilty of crimes. They honor a king or president whether he has any principle or not."
"That is what I like to see exposed in the dialogue," said Nat. "It is just as bad for a king to rob a person of all he has, in war, as it is for a robber to do it at midnight."
Nat always felt strongly upon this point. He very early learned that rich men, and those occupying posts of honor, were thought more of by many people, whether they were deserving or not, and it seemed to him wrong. He thought that one good boy ought to stand just as high as another, though his parents were poor and humble, and that every man should bear the guilt of his own deeds whether he be king or servant. Out of this feeling grew his interest in the aforesaid dialogue, and he was willing to take the place of the robber for the sake of the pleasure of "showing up" the king. It was this kind of feeling that caused him to sympathize, even when a boy, with objects of distress and suffering,—to look with pity upon those who experienced misfortune, or suffered reproach unjustly. It was not strange that he became a professed Democrat in his youth, as we shall see; for how could such a democratic little fellow be other than a true Jeffersonian Democrat?
Nat's part of the dialogue was committed on that evening before eight o'clock. He could commit a piece very quick, for he learned any thing easily. He could repeat many of the lessons of his reading book, word for word. His class had read them over a number of times, so that he could repeat them readily. At the appointed time, on the next afternoon, both Nat and Frank were ready to perform.
"I have the pleasure this afternoon," said the teacher, "to announce a dialogue by two of the boys who volunteered yesterday. Now if they shall say it without being prompted, you will all concede that they have done nobly to commit it so quickly Let us have it perfectly still. The title of the dialogue is 'Alexander the Great and a Robber.' Now boys, we are ready."
Frank commenced in a loud, pompous, defiant tone, that was really Alexander-like. It was evident from the time he uttered the first sentence that, if he could not be "Alexander the Great," he could be Alexander the Little.
Nat responded, and performed his part with an earnestness of soul, a power of imitation, and a degree of eloquence that surprised the teacher. The scholars were not so much surprised because they had heard him before, but it was the first time the teacher had seen him perform.
"Very well done," said the teacher, as they took their seats. "There could not be much improvement upon that. You may repeat the dialogue at the spelling-school on Friday evening; and I hope both of you will have declamations next week."
"I will, sir," said Nat.
The teacher found a reluctance among the boys to speak, and one of them said to him,
"If I could speak as well as Nat, I would do it."
This remark caused him to think that Nat's superiority in these rhetorical exercises might dishearten some of his pupils; and the next time he introduced the subject to the school, he took occasion to remark,
"Some of our best orators were very poor speakers when they began to declaim in boyhood. It is not certain that a lad who does not acquit himself very well in this exercise at first, will not make a good orator at last. Demosthenes, who was the most gifted orator of antiquity, had an impediment in his speech in early life. But he determined to overcome it, and be an orator in spite of it. He tried various expedients, and finally went to a cave daily, on the sea-shore, where, with pebble-stones in his mouth, he declaimed, until the impediment was removed. By patience and perseverance he became a renowned orator. It was somewhat so, too, with Daniel Webster, whom you all know as the greatest orator of our land and times. The first time he went upon the stage to speak, he was so frightened that he could not recall the first line of his piece. The second time he did not do much better; and it was not until he had made several attempts, that he was able to get through a piece tolerably well. But a strong determination and persevering endeavors, finally gave him success."
In the course of the winter Nat spoke a number of pieces, among which were "Marco Bozzaris," "Speech of Catiline before the Roman Senate on Hearing his Sentence of Banishment," and "Dialogue from Macbeth," in all of which he gained himself honor. His taste seemed to prefer those pieces in which strength and power unite. At ten and twelve years of age, he selected such declamations and dialogues as boys generally do at the age of sixteen or eighteen years. It was not unusual for the teacher to say, when visitors were in school,
"Come, Master —— [Nat], can you give us a declamation?" and Nat was never known to refuse. He always had one at his tongue's end, which would roll off, at his bidding, as easily as thread unwinds from a spool.
About this time there was some complaint among the scholars in Nat's arithmetic class, and Samuel Drake persuaded one of the older boys to write a petition to the teacher for shorter lessons. This Samuel Drake was a brother of Ben, a bad boy, as we shall see hereafter, known in the community as Sam. When the petition was written, Sam signed it, and one or two other boys did the same; but when he presented it to Nat, the latter said,
"What should I sign that for? The lessons are not so long as I should like to have them. Do you study them any in the evening?"
"Study in the evening!" exclaimed Sam. "I am not so big a fool as that. It is bad enough to study in school."
"I study evenings," added Nat, "and you are as able to study as I am. The lessons would be too long for me if I didn't study any."
"And so you don't mean to sign this petition?" inquired Sam.
"Of course I don't," replied Nat. "If the lessons are not too long, there is no reason why I should petition to have them shorter."
"You can sign it for our sakes," pleaded Sam.
"Not if I think you had better study them as they are."
"Go to grass then," said Sam, becoming angry, "we can get along without a squash peddler, I'd have you know. You think you are of mighty consequence, and after you have killed a few more bugs perhaps you will be."
"I won't sign your petition," said Frank, touched to the quick by this abuse of Nat.
"Nor I," exclaimed Charlie Stone, another intimate associate of Nat's, and a good scholar too.
Nat was sensitive to ridicule when it proceeded from certain persons, but he did not care much for it when its author was Sam Drake, a boy whom every teacher found dull and troublesome. He replied, however, in a pleasant though sarcastic manner, addressing his remark to Frank and Charlie,
"Sam is so brilliant that he expects to get along without study. He will be governor yet."
Sam did not relish this thrust very much, but before he had a chance to reply, Frank added, "I suppose you will make a speech, Sam, when you present your petition." All laughed heartily at this point, and turned away, leaving Sam to bite his lips and cogitate.
Sam was certainly in a predicament. He had several signers to his petition, but they were all the lazy, backward scholars, and he knew it. To send a petition to the teacher with these signatures alone, he knew would be little less than an insult. If Nat, Frank, and Charlie, would have signed it, he would not have hesitated. As it was, he did not dare to present it, so the petition movement died because it couldn't live.
The teacher, however, heard of the movement, and some days thereafter, thinking that his dull scholars might need a word of encouragement, he embraced a favorable opportunity to make the following remarks:—
"It is not always the case that the brightest scholars in boyhood make the most useful or learned men. There are many examples of distinguished men, who were very backward scholars in youth. The great philosopher Newton was one of the dullest scholars in school when he was twelve years old. Doctor Isaac Barrow was such a dull, pugnacious, stupid fellow, that his father was heard to say, if it pleased God to remove any one of his children by death, he hoped it would be Isaac. The father of Doctor Adam Clarke, the commentator, called his boy 'a grievous dunce.' Cortina, a renowned painter, was nicknamed, by his associates, 'Ass' Head,' on account of his stupidity, when a boy. When the mother of Sheridan once went with him to the school-room, she told the teacher that he was 'an incorrigible dunce,' and the latter was soon compelled to believe her. One teacher sent Chatterton home to his mother as 'a fool of whom nothing could be made.' Napoleon and Wellington were both backward scholars. And Sir Walter Scott was named the 'The Great Blockhead' at school. But some of these men, at a certain period of youth, changed their course of living, and began to apply themselves with great earnestness and assiduity to the acquisition of knowledge, while others, though naturally dull, improved their opportunities from the beginning, and all became renowned. No one of them advanced without close application. It was by their own persevering efforts that they finally triumphed over all difficulties. So it must be with yourselves. The dullest scholar in this room may distinguish himself by application and dint of perseverance, while the brightest may fail of success, by wasting his time and trusting to his genius. The motto of every youth should be 'UPWARD AND ONWARD.'"