Daniel knew of Mr. Wood’s reputation as a teacher, and the prospect did not displease him.
Still his father had not announced the plan he had in view for him.
One cold winter day, when the snow lay deep on the ground, Judge Webster and Dan started for the house of his future teacher. As they were ascending a hill slowly through deep snows the Judge, who had for some time been silent, said, “Dan, I may as well tell you what plan I have in view for you. I shall ask Mr. Wood to prepare you for college, and I will let you enter at Dartmouth as soon as you are ready.”
Daniel could not speak for emotion. He knew what a sacrifice it would involve for his father with his straitened means to carry through such a plan as that, and his heart was full. As he himself says, “A warm glow ran all over me, and I laid my head on my father’s shoulder and wept.”
I am afraid that some boys—possibly some of my young readers—have received a similar announcement from their fathers with quite different feelings.
We are to imagine Dan, then, an inmate of the minister’s family, pursuing his studies with success, but with less of formal restraint than when he was a pupil at Exeter. Indeed I shall not attempt to conceal the fact that occasionally Dan’s love of sport, and particularly of fishing, drew him away from his studies, and led him to incur the good doctor’s remonstrances.
One day after a reprimand, which was tempered, however, by a compliment to his natural abilities, Daniel determined to surprise his teacher.
The task assigned him to prepare was one hundred lines of Virgil, a long lesson, as many boys would think. Daniel did not go to bed, but spent all night in poring over his book.
The next day, when the hour for recitation came, Dan recited his lesson with fluency and correctness.