On another occasion, when twelve years old, he was working in the hay-field, pitching hay upon the cart; he was badly ruptured, and had to be carried to the house. As soon as he was able to travel he went alone to Boston, and sought out Dr. Warren, a noted surgeon, and laid his case before him. Dr. Warren was so much struck with the lad’s courage and intelligence that he refused to accept any fee. “If you do exactly what I tell you, you will get well,” he said, “and I know you will do so from looking in your face.” The surgeon had a truss made, and prescribed treatment, but all the remainder of his life Isaac was obliged to wear the truss, although he outgrew the injury in a measure until it broke out afresh in Mexico from over-exertion.
Measured by modern conditions, it was a severe and laborious home life in which the farmer’s boy grew up, but it was a wholesome one, and well adapted to bring out all his powers. Morning and evening, throughout the year, he had his round of duties, feeding and milking the cows, feeding the pigs, cutting and bringing in wood, etc. During the winter he rose long before daylight to attend to these chores and shovel snow from the paths, then after a hasty breakfast trudged away to school, and on returning again resumed the round of unending farm work. In summer there was no school for three or four months, and then he worked on the farm, hoeing corn, making hay, driving oxen, and performing all the hard and varied labors of a New England farmer’s son. But the New England farmers of that day were the owners of the soil. They knew no superiors. The Revolutionary struggle, as recent to them as the great Rebellion is to us, was fresh and vivid in their minds, and stimulated noble ideas of liberty and national independence. The standard of personal honesty, manhood, and morals, bequeathed from their Puritan ancestry, was high. Such was the moral atmosphere of Isaac Stevens’s household, heightened by his own earnest, philanthropic, and elevated sentiments. All his children were intellectual and high-minded, and nothing can be more touching than the constant ambition and striving of his five daughters for education and self-improvement. All became teachers, but died young, victims of consumption.
Nor was the life of the youth nothing but a round of hard work and privation. If he worked hard and studied hard, he enjoyed play with equal zest, and shared the rougher sports of those days with his cousins and other boys of his age. They were more pugnacious and rougher than nowadays. Wrestling was a common sport, and boyish fights and scuffles were usual.
At the age of fifteen he entered Phillips Academy in Andover. Nathan W. Hazen, Esq., a well-known and respected lawyer of the town, furnished him board and lodgings, in return for which he took care of the garden, and did the chores about the place. One of his schoolmates, describing his first appearance at the academy, said: “The door opened, and there quietly entered an insignificant, small boy, carrying in his arms a load of books nearly as large as himself. But the impression of insignificance vanished as soon as one regarded his large head, earnest face, and firm, searching, and fearless dark hazel eye.”
He remained at the academy over a year. As usual, he took the front rank from the beginning. His reputation as a scholar, especially in mathematics, extended beyond the school. Besides his studies he took sole care of Mr. Hazen’s garden, a half acre in extent, groomed the horse, milked the cow, and fed them, cut and brought in the wood, and did many other jobs about the house, performing an amount of labor, as Mr. Hazen declared, sufficient to dismay many a hired man. He studied early in the morning and late at night. His power of concentrating his mind upon any subject was extraordinary. His industry was untiring. The impress this boy of fifteen made upon those with whom he came in contact during his stay at this place is really remarkable. Mr. Hazen, who proved a considerate friend and adviser to the struggling youth, relates that every evening Isaac would bring his chair close to the office table, at which the former was accustomed to read or write, in order to avail himself of the light, and would work out mathematical problems on his slate. He would remain quietly with his hand to his head in deep thought for a little time, when suddenly he would shower a perfect rainstorm of figures upon his slate without hesitation, or erasure, oftentimes completely filling it. Generally the correct result was reached; but when the solution was not found the first time, he would rapidly wipe off every figure and begin again as before. His mind always sought out and mastered the bottom principle. It was remarked that, whenever he had once solved a problem, he could unhesitatingly solve all others of the same character.
On one occasion a mathematician of some note, who had just published a new arithmetic, brought his work to the academy, and tested the acquirements of the scholars by giving them his new problems to solve. When Isaac was called to the blackboard, he astonished the author and the teacher alike by the ease and rapidity with which he solved every example. They plied him again and again with the most difficult problems, but he mastered them in every instance. “Well, sir,” exclaimed the author, somewhat piqued, “I think you could make the key to this book.” Isaac took the book, and in three days returned it with every example worked out.
A very difficult problem was sent from Yale College to the academy. While the teachers and scholars were puzzling over it, Isaac sat in thought for half an hour with his hand to his head, then rapidly worked out the problem on his slate and presented the solution.
Young as he was, it seems that he had thought enough on religious subjects to become a decided Universalist and Unitarian. A religious revival took place while he was at the academy, and many of the scholars were brought within its influence. Among others, one of the teachers became “converted,” and sought all means to promote a similar experience among his pupils. In order to remove the stumbling-blocks of doubt and ignorance, he offered to answer any questions they might propound on religious topics. The first question Isaac put, “Can a sincere Universalist be saved?” was met by a decided and uncompromising “No.” But the youth plied the unfortunate zealot with such queries that he was forced to confess his inability to answer them, and to withdraw his offer. Once, when he wanted the whole class to attend one of the revival meetings, he put it to them that all who were willing to dispense with the afternoon session and attend the meeting should rise. All promptly stood up except Isaac, who resolutely kept his seat. “Every one in favor except Stevens,” exclaimed the teacher with some bitterness, realizing the protest against his own bigotry. In truth, the youth’s sense of right had been shocked by the doctrines he heard advanced; he was strongly opposed to such revival meetings, and his earnest nature would not bend in a matter of principle.
At one of these meetings his two sisters, Hannah and Susan, yielded to the exhortations and influences of the occasion, and took their seats on the converts’ or mourners’ bench, as it was called. Perceiving this, Isaac immediately marched up to the front, and made them both leave the church with him, no slight proof of his influence over them, older than himself. In fact, while they felt great pride in his talents, his sisters had come still more to respect and lean upon his sound judgment and firm will. He lavished upon them all the great tenderness and affection of his strong and earnest nature.
During his boyhood he was affected with excessive diffidence, or bashfulness. With characteristic resolution and good sense, he set himself to overcome this weakness. He made it a point always to address any one whose presence inspired this awkward feeling, but, he said, it was years before he overcame it.