To a woman like this every act of life became a matter of conscience, and the training of her child of course became such to Mrs. Glazier. She had watched the pitfalls which the "world, the flesh and the devil"—that trinity of evil—provide for the feet of the unwary, and she determined that young Willard's steps, if she could prevent it, should never stray that way.
Her husband took life and its duties much more easily. He was less rigid in his sense of parental responsibility. While a man of great rectitude of purpose, he was good-natured to a fault—somewhat improvident, careless of money, ever ready to extend aid to the needy, and especially disinclined to the exercise of harshness in his home, even when the stern element of authority was needed. In short, he was one of those big-hearted men who are so brimful of the "milk of human kindness" that the greatest pain they ever feel is the pain they see others suffer. His plan therefore was, spare the rod even if you do spoil the child.
But—perhaps fortunately for young Willard—Mrs. Glazier held different views. From his very infancy she endeavored to instil into his nature habits of truthfulness, industry and thrift. "Never waste and never lie" was her pet injunction. Her aim was not to make her son a generous, but a just man. "One hour of justice is worth an eternity of prayer," says the Arabian proverb, but Mrs. Glazier, while she exalted justice as the greatest of the virtues, also believed that in order to make man's heart its temple, prayer was an absolutely necessary pre-requisite. She likewise endeavored from the first to habituate the boy's mind to reflect upon the value of money and the uses of economy. She would have "coined her blood for drachms" if that would have benefited her husband or her son. Her savings were not spent upon herself, but in the hard school of a bitter experience she had learned that money means much more than dollars and cents—that its possession involves the ability to live a life of honor, untempted by the sordid solicitations that clamor round the poor man's door and wring the poor man's heart.
The result was that as soon as he began to comprehend her words, young Willard had impressed upon his memory maxims eulogizing all who practise habits of sobriety, industry and frugality, and denunciatory of all who fail to do so.
His mother never wearied of teaching him such sayings of Dr. Franklin as these: "Time is money," "Credit is money," "Money begets money," "The good paymaster is lord of another man's purse," and "The sound of a man's hammer heard by his creditor at six o'clock in the morning makes him easy six months longer, while the sound of his voice heard in a tavern, induces him to send for his money the next day;" "Trifling items aggregate into large totals," while the text that ruled the house was that of the Scripture, "If any would not work neither should he eat."
The effect of the constant teaching of such lessons was not however perceptible in the lad's habits in very early life. He was no model little boy, no monster of perfection—he was like the boys that we see around us every day—not one of the marvels we read about. But the seed was sown in his soul which was destined to quicken into fruit in after life.
At the early age of four years his mother began to teach him to read and write, and under her loving tuition he acquired a knowledge of these two branches of culture quite rapidly.
Just about this time an incident occurred which came near finishing young Willard's career in a manner as sudden as it would have been singular.
The "Homestead Farm" was at that time pretty well stocked for a place only containing one hundred and forty acres, and among the cattle was a sturdy Alderney bull whose reputation for peace and quietness was unusually good.
On a certain morning, however, early in the spring of the year 1845, young Master Willard happened to overhear a conversation between two of the farm hands, in the course of which one of them declared that "old Blackface was tarin' round mighty lively." This statement interested the lad to such an extent that he concluded to go and see how this "tarin' round" was done.