There being no herald's college in this free and happy country, where equality was declared by the revolutionary congress to be as self-evident as our right to independence, I have no means of tracing the pedigree of my friend for many generations back. Indeed, as it was long ago remarked by Lord Camden, alterations of sirnames were in former ages so very common, as to have obscured the truth of our pedigrees, so that it is no little labor to deduce many of them. But, although no crest marks the career of his ancestors, or shield emblazons their escutcheon with mementoes of achievements in arts or in arms; and although I claim not in his behalf, as of the heroes in olden times, "a pedigree that reached to heaven," yet no doubt exists of the antiquity of his family. The name was duly inscribed in the Doomsday book of the Norman Conqueror, and had not the limbs of the genealogical tree been broken, it is believed that their ancestry might, nevertheless, have been traced back to a gentleman by the name of Japheth, "who was the son of Noah." Still, as I have already intimated, this inquiry can be of little consequence. In this land of freedom, where every tub stands on its own bottom—where men are the architects of their own fame and fortunes—where he that hath neither coat nor shoes is at liberty to go without them,—it is of little moment whether a man knows who he happens to be, or not, provided always that he behaves well. Nay, if he cannot tell whence he sprung, he escapes the censure of being the son of his father, and may arrive at the highest honors of the republic without either borrowing merit from the dead, or having any too much of his own. Avoiding genealogies, therefore, I will come directly to the point, and assume it as granted, that, inasmuch as Mr. Daniel Wheelwright is known to have had a father and mother, so likewise he must have had grand-parents. And these were, doubtless, sensible and judicious people, more desirous of being industrious and useful, than what the world calls great. Borrowing, therefore, a hint from their own honest name, in selecting an occupation for their son, they chose that of coachmaking—an art, which, in the progress of civilization, he carried from New-Jersey into the beautiful valley of the Mohawk—not many years after the original proprietors of that section of the republic had been finally driven away by those who understood tilling their land better than they. It was in this picturesque and delightful valley, on the banks of the river, and in a town alike celebrated for the taste of its people in architecture, and distinguished as a seat of learning, that my friend and hero, Daniel, first saw the light. I have cast no figure to ascertain which of the divinities presided at his birth, or what particular star first pencilled his pale blue eyes with its silver rays. But no angry planet was culminating in that particular chamber of the heavens at the time, for he grew up the best-natured being in those parts; and if the genius of Dulness was not actually present on the occasion, his court must have been held on that evening at no great distance therefrom. Not to be too particular, however, it is enough for the present to say, that he waxed towards the stature of manhood much as other boys do—save that he was never engaged in a quarrel—from the circumstance, probably, that he had neither sufficient energy, nor decision of character, to commence or to end one. To do him justice, if honesty be a fault, it was surely his; and I can truly say that in all the passing vicissitudes of his life, it has never been taken out of him to this day. His father was industrious and economical, never losing an hour in which he could make any thing, or parting with a dollar so long as he could keep it. In his domestic arrangements he was exceedingly careful that nothing should be lost. If he had eels for breakfast, he would always contrive, by preserving and drying the skins, to save more than the original cost of these somewhat questionable members of the piscatory family. He early instructed his son in the elementary principles of his trade; and it is believed that before he was seventeen he not only knew the number of spokes in a wheel, but had actually adjusted them to the felloes, and driven them up to the hub. He was also taught in some branches of household carpentry work, which proved of no disadvantage to him in the end. Full of good nature, he was always popular with the boys; was never so industrious as when manufacturing to their order little writing desks, fancy boxes, and other trifling articles not beyond the scope of his mechanical ingenuity—for which he exacted such compensation as he could obtain. In sober truth, like his parent, he was fond of money. The world, he was wont to say, owed him a living, and he prided himself not a little on his skill in procuring the wherewithal. And yet he was rarely known to realize one shilling that did not cost him two; or in other words, in all his multifarious transactions of barter and otherwise, he was almost uniformly overreached. There was one way, moreover, in which his little earnings could always be taken from him. He was fond of good living, albeit not his father's fault, since his family board was seldom spread with other than the plainest and least expensive fare. Certain was it, therefore, that the palate had never received any epicurean lessons at home; but it was equally certain that he had acquired a taste for the good things of this world. Hence those of his associates who had a design upon whatever of small change they supposed him from time to time to have accumulated, had only to tempt him with some trifling luxury, and the work was done. A plate of oysters was irresistible!
CHAPTER III.
HIS DESTINY UNDERGOES A CHANGE.
"God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents."—Shakspeare.
Daniel Wheelwright grew up a tall and stately youth; and to do him justice, his personal appearance was not a little in his favor. I have before intimated that the city in which he dwelt was the seat of a learned institution; and it was his fortune—ill or good, will appear in the sequel—to make the acquaintance of several inmates of the university, who seemed "to take a liking to him," to borrow the quaint juvenile expression in such cases, especially during the ripening and ingathering of the fruit in his father's little orchard. At these seasons their visits were frequent; and as the student's life appeared to be at once more easy and promising than a coachmaker's, and more genteel withal, Daniel manifested a desire to change his occupation. It may be, however—for Daniel is my friend, and were he not, I would do him no injustice—that the fire of ambition had begun to glow in his bosom, and that he was really and truly desirous of describing a wider "circle" than that of a carriage wheel. His mother, too—mothers always most love and indulge the oldest son—discovered a genius in Daniel requiring only means and opportunity, to wing an eagle-flight. It was some considerable time, however, before the father could be persuaded into the measure. By dint of industry and economy, he was getting along snugly in the world; and as he had no more extended education himself, he judged it all-sufficient if a man could read his Bible, and cast the interest on a note of hand by the assistance of Daboll's Arithmetic. My friend's common-school education, therefore, was judged by his father to be all that was necessary for an honest man. But the woman prevailed,—as women generally do. It happened that at the distance of some sixty or seventy miles farther up the vale of the Mohawk, lived a man whom she had previously known in New-Jersey, and whose occupation was that of "teaching young ideas how to shoot"—not grouse and woodcock, but to shoot forth into scions of learning. He had a son whom he desired exceedingly to send to college; but as he was forever compelled to be scraping the bottom of his scanty exchequer to supply the current wants of his family, he was destitute of the means;—and there were fewer education societies, and other facilities for obtaining eleemosynary instruction in those days than in the present age of disinterested benevolence. The inventive genius of the woman was therefore not slow to devise a project by which her friend might be served, while at the same time her own favorite design might be furthered—and that, too, without making, even prospectively, any essential encroachment upon the means of her husband. For the attainment of this object—or rather for the removal of so formidable an obstacle in the future career of her son—she had for a long while been taxing her inventive and diplomatic powers. An arrangement was therefore soon negotiated, by which the pedagogue received our hero under his own roof, and prepared him for the university, while his own son was taken as a boarder into the family of the coachmaker, where he remained during the whole of his collegiate course. The immediate results were auspicious. The son of the pedagogue took the honors of his class, and has since been enabled to rejoice as the president of a transmontane university; and our hero was, in turn, duly prepared for matriculation beneath the academic evergreens of his own neighborhood. It is but fair to acknowledge, moreover, that students have entered that institution, as well as divers others, no better prepared than Daniel Wheelwright. Notwithstanding the natural indolence of his character, he knew that he must know something before he could enter college, and that in case of a failure, he must again cultivate more acquaintance with the felloes of the shop, than with the fellows of the university; and with the stimulus of such a consideration before him, he applied himself to his books with extraordinary diligence. His preceptor was in all respects adequate to his task; and the requisites of the college being quite liberal and republican—not repressing the generous ardor of young ambition by exacting too much in the outset—the aspiring Daniel crossed the threshhold of the university without any considerable difficulty. His prudent and sagacious mother had managed every thing with consummate forecast and tact; and to avoid any difficulty that might have resulted from too many unanswered questions, her son had been represented to the faculty as a very modest and diffident youth, who knew much more than he could tell—like the grave bird, of which it was believed that although it said but little, it thought the more. Indeed, it is believed that he had actually read Cornelius Nepos and three books of the Æneid. He had likewise thumbed over his Greek grammar, and gone through the gospel of John. The kind mother heard of his initiatory success with delight, and the father was rather gratified than otherwise—especially as it cost him nothing.
CHAPTER IV.
OF UNIVERSITY HONORS AND THE WAY THEY ARE OBTAINED.
"O this learning! what a thing it is!"—Shakspeare.