I spent a summer of hard work in the fields. Evenings I read the books which Mr. Wright had loaned to me, Blackstone's Commentaries and Greenleaf on Evidence and a translation by Doctor Bowditch of LaPlace's Mécanique Celeste. The latter I read aloud. I mention it because in a way it served as an antidote for that growing sense of expansion in my intellect. In the vastness of infinite space I found the littleness of man and his best accomplishments.
Mr. Wright came up for a day's fishing in July. My uncle and I took him up the river. I remember that after he had landed a big trout he sat down and held the fish up before him and looked proudly at the graceful, glowing, arrowy shape.
"I never did anything in the Senate that seemed half so important as this," he remarked thoughtfully.
While we ate our luncheon he described Jackson and spoke of the famous cheese which he had kept on a table in the vestibule of the White House for his callers. He described his fellow senators—Webster, Clay, Rives, Calhoun and Benton. I remember that Webster was, in his view, the least of them, although at his best the greatest orator. We had a delightful day, and when I drove back to the village with him that night he told me that I could go into the office of Wright and Baldwin after harvesting.
"It will do for a start," he said. "A little later I shall try to find a better place for you."
I began my work taking only the studies at school which would qualify me for surveying. I had not been in Canton a week when I received a rude shock which was my first lesson in the ungentle art of politics. Rodney Barnes and Uncle Peabody were standing with me in front of a store. A man came out with Colonel Hand and said in a loud voice that Sile Wright was a spoilsman and a drunkard—in politics for what he could get out of it.
My uncle turned toward the stranger with a look of amazement. Rodney Barnes dropped the knife with which he had been whittling. I felt my face turning red.
"What's that, mister?" asked Rodney Barnes.
The stranger repeated his statement and added that he could prove it.
"Le's see ye," said Barnes as he approached him.