WILLIAM HICKLING PRESCOTT
George Washington was a daring soldier himself and of course noticed how other men behaved on a battlefield. He liked a man who had plenty of courage—a real hero. There was a certain Colonel Prescott who fought at the battle of Bunker Hill whom Washington admired. He always spoke of him as Prescott, the brave.
Colonel Prescott had a grandson, William Hickling Prescott, who was never in a battle in his life and did not know the least thing about soldiering, but he deserved the same title his grandfather won—"Prescott, the brave"—as you will see.
William was born in Salem, in 1796. His father, a lawyer who afterwards became a famous judge, was a rich man, so William and his younger brothers and sisters had a beautiful home; and as his mother was a laughing, joyous woman, the little Prescotts had a happy childhood.
William was much petted by his parents. His mother taught him to read and write, but when he was very small he went to school to a lady who loved her pupils so well that she never allowed people to call her a school-teacher—she said she was a school-mother. Between his pleasant study hours with Miss Higginson, this school-mother, and his merry play hours at home, the days were never quite long enough for William.
When he was seven, he was placed in a private school taught by Master Knapp. And there he was asked to study rather more than he liked. He had loved story books almost from his cradle, and what he read was very real to him. Sometimes, when he was only a tiny boy, he felt so sure the goblins, fairies, and giants of which he had been reading might suddenly appear, unless his mother were at hand to banish them, that he would follow her from room to room, holding on to her gown. Still these books were much nicer, he thought, than the ones Master Knapp told him to study. He was full of fun and frolic and took all Master Knapp's rebukes so cheerfully that the teacher could not get angry with him. His schoolmates adored him. Even if he did play a good many jokes on them, they were not mean, vicious jokes. He had altogether too kind a heart to hurt a person or to say unkind things. He did manage to get his history lessons, and he liked to read lives of great men. But he did not study any great amount until after his father moved to Boston, and William began to fit himself for Harvard College. He was proud of his father and fancied that he would like to be a lawyer like him.
The poor fellow fell to the floor as if he were dead. Page 166.