Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American.
8. HORACE GREELEY, EDITOR
Horace Greeley was born February 11, 1811, on a small stony farm in New Hampshire, in a lonely, unpainted house. His parents were very poor, being unable to feed and clothe and educate their family of seven children, of whom Horace was the third. His mother, a bright, cheerful, laughing woman, loved to tell her children stories. When Horace was two years old he would lie on the floor and look at the words in the Bible and ask about the letters. At three he went to school, and very soon learned to read and to spell wonderfully. Before he was six he had read the Bible, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and every book he could borrow. He would lie before the fireplace after a hard day’s work on the farm and read by the light of a pine-knot. When he went to bed, he would tell his brother what he had been reading or studying, but his brother would fall asleep while Horace was talking.
When he was thirteen the school-teacher said to Horace’s father, “Mr. Greeley, your boy knows more than I do. It is no use to send him to school any more.” He had always wanted to be a printer. One day he walked twelve miles and was given a trial in a printer’s office. He learned more in a day than most boys do in a month. The other boys joked him. They threw ink and type at him. Because Horace’s hair was light, they got the ink-ball and stained it black. Everybody looked for a fight, but he good-naturedly washed the ink from his hair, and became the favorite of all. During the four years he spent learning his trade he visited his home twice, walking most of the six hundred miles each way. Later he trudged all the way on foot to New York, walking along the canal-path, and arrived there with all his clothes in a bundle carried over his back with a stick, and with but ten dollars in his pocket. Soon he started the printing of several cheap newspapers, but he lost money on each of these until, on borrowed money, he started the New York Tribune, which has been increasingly successful to the present time. His income from the Tribune was long above fifteen thousand dollars a year, frequently as much as thirty-five thousand dollars or more. Subscriptions for his paper were found in all the North from Maine to Oregon, large packages going to remote rural districts, and everywhere a personal affection for the editor was felt. In his editorials he advocated from time to time such doctrines as protective tariff, national cooperation for the elevation of labor, total abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and above all, antislavery. He was elected to Congress, and while there introduced the first bill for giving small tracts of government land free to actual settlers. He wrote books, visited Europe, and traveled through America to California. On his return he wrote, “Go West, young man!” He helped to nominate Lincoln for president, and later was himself nominated for president, being defeated by Grant by more than one-half million majority. One month after this great defeat his wife died, and soon after he was attacked with brain fever and died November 29, 1872, aged sixty-one years. Through life his personal peculiarities, careless dress, and independent manners, had brought upon him endless ridicule, but his death revealed his high position as a leader of opinion and, as Whittier called him, “our later Franklin.”
9. AUDUBON, NATURALIST
Every boy who loves out-of-door life should know the story of John James Audubon. He was born on a farm in Louisiana, May 4, 1780. His parents were French and when very young he was taken to France where he attended school. His favorite study was of animals and birds. He often roamed the woods, bringing home birds’ nests and eggs, curious rocks, and bits of moss. His father bought him a picture-book of birds. The delighted boy painted these copies, but saw they were not like real birds. Later he took lessons of the great French painter, David, who taught him to draw and paint things as they are. Returning to America, his father gave him a large farm in Pennsylvania where his studies of birds led him to decide to write a book on bird life, and illustrate it by his own drawings. This was a great task, but when this young man decided to do anything he never allowed difficulties to stand in his way. So he began his work and studied and painted year after year. He had to live much of the time in the woods, studying how the birds lived and built their nests. Sometimes he went by boat down the river; sometimes he went on horseback. Often he tramped alone through the trackless woods. Many nights he slept out-of-doors. He lost all his money and was obliged to stop his work and paint portraits and sell his choice drawings for a living. His heroic wife took up school-teaching to help him out with his work. One day while traveling he left his paintings of nearly a thousand birds in a wooden box in the home of a friend. Two months later, when he returned and opened the box, he found two large rats had got into the box and cut up all the paintings with their sharp teeth, making a nest for their young among the gnawed pieces. He said, “I will make better paintings!” It took him four long years to complete his pictures, but at last the great book was completed and published and praised throughout France, England, and the United States.
The Society for the Protection of Our Feathered Friends was organized by this great naturalist, who spent the rest of his life for this great object. At present there are few places where boys and girls have not heard of Audubon. He died at his beautiful home on the Hudson River, greatly honored and beloved in France, England, and the United States.