Imagine this gibberish, roared out by a sandy-haired boy, as he came leaping from the door of a log-schoolhouse, ready to defy all the other boys to a race, a wrestle, or a jumping match, while he playfully laid sprawling as many of his friends as he could trip unawares.
There you have Andy Jackson!
Andy, tall, lank, red-headed, blue-eyed, freckled, barefoot, and dressed in coarse copperas-coloured clothes, was the son of a poor Scotch Irish widow. He was born and reared in the Carolinas. He lived with his mother in the Waxhaws Settlement. His home was a log-cabin in a clearing.
His mother earned her living and that of her two youngest boys. She had great ambitions for Andy. She sent him to school in the little log-schoolhouse. And, when she had earned enough money, she paid his tuition at a country academy.
No boy ever lived who liked fun better than Andy. He ran foot-races, leaped the bar, and high-jumped. To the younger boys, who never questioned his mastery, he was a generous protector. There was nothing he would not do to defend them.
But boys of his own age and older, found him self-willed, somewhat overbearing, easily offended, very irascible, and on the whole difficult to get along with.
He learned to read, write, and cast accounts—little more.
James Parton (Retold)
READING THE DECLARATION
Andy was nine years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed at Philadelphia.