The Child's Book of American Biography Part 8

The whole Th.o.r.eau family were proud of Henry, and his mother never tired of telling what fine letters and essays he could write. She and Sophia went one day to call on an aunt of Ralph Waldo Emerson's, Miss Mary Emerson, who was eighty-four. Mrs. Th.o.r.eau began to talk about Henry right away. Miss Emerson nodded her head and said: "Very true," now and then, but kept her eyes shut every minute her callers stayed. When they rose to go, Miss Emerson said: "Perhaps you noticed, Mrs. Th.o.r.eau, that I kept my eyes closed during your call. I did so because I did not wish to look on the ribbons you are wearing--so unsuitable for a child of G.o.d and a woman of your years!" Poor Mrs. Th.o.r.eau was seventy, and her bonnet was as bright and gay as it had been possible to buy, for she loved rich colors and silks and velvets. She did not mind Miss Emerson's rebuke a bit, but Sophia stuffed her handkerchief in her mouth to keep from laughing aloud.

When Henry was a boy, he used to delight in his Uncle Charles Dunbar, who paid the family a visit every year. Mr. Dunbar was not a worker like his sister, Cynthia Th.o.r.eau. He did not have any business but drifted about the country, living by his wits. One of his favorite tricks was to pretend to swallow all the knives and forks, and a plate or two, at a tavern, and offer to give them back if the landlord would not charge for his dinner. He was a great wrestler and could do sleight-of-hand tricks.

Henry used to watch him and ask question after question, and he learned how to do a few tricks himself.

Just as his mother hoped, when Henry grew up, he decided to be a writer.

To be sure he taught school a while and gave lectures which people did not understand very well, for he had strange ideas for those times, but he wrote page after page, sitting in the woods, and liked that better than all else. He first wrote an account of a week's trip on the Concord and Merrimac rivers. This book did not sell very well, and one time he carried home from the publishers seven hundred copies that no one would buy, saying: "Well, I have quite a respectably sized library now--all my own writing, too!"

But four or five years later Th.o.r.eau built a hut on the sh.o.r.e of Walden Pond and lived there all alone, like a hermit, for two years. He did this for two reasons: because he wanted to prove that people spend too much time and money on food and clothes and because he wanted a perfectly quiet chance, with no neighbors running in, to write more books. He said he spent but one hundred dollars a year while he lived in this hut. He raised beans on his land, ate wild berries, caught fish--and "went visiting" now and then. I should not wonder if he often took a second helping of food, when visiting. To buy his woodsman's clothes and a few necessities, he planted gardens, painted houses, and cut wood for his friends. He wrote a book called _Walden_ which tells all about these seven or eight hundred days he went a-hermiting, and after that, several other books. These sold very well. In all of them he was rather fond of boasting that he had found the only sensible way to live. "I am for simple living," he would say, and always was declaring "I love to be ALONE!" But sometimes people pa.s.sing by the pond used to hear him whistling old ballads, or playing very softly and beautifully on a flute, and they thought he sounded lonely. Although he makes you feel, when you read his books, that it is fine to roam the fields, sniffing the wild grape and the yellow violets, and that no one can find pleasure like the man who rows, and skates, and swims, and tills the soil, yet the question is bound to come: "_Is_ a man all alone in a hut any better off than a jolly father in a big house, playing games with his children?"

Let me tell you, too, that after all Th.o.r.eau's talk about wanting to be alone, the last year he lived in the hut, he used to steal off, just at twilight, to a neighbor's house where there were little children. While they curled up on a rug, in front of the open fire, he would draw near in a big rocking-chair and sit for an hour or more telling them stories of his childhood. He would pop corn, make whistles for them with his jack-knife, or, best of all, do some of the juggling tricks, which he had learned, as a boy, from his uncle Charles. And one day he appeared at the door with a hay-rack to give them a ride. He had covered the bottom of the rack with deep hay, then spread a buffalo robe over the hay to make it comfortable. He sat on a board placed across the front and drove the span of horses, and as he drove, he told funny stories and sang songs till the children thought a hermit was a pretty good sort of a chum.

The hut went to pieces years ago, and only a pile of stones marks the place where it stood, but if you go to Concord, you will find a pleasant street named for Th.o.r.eau, and the house in which he lived the last twelve years of his life, half hidden by tall trees. And also you can read his books and learn how he enjoyed the woods and what beautiful things he found in them.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

As much as seventy years ago, in the city of Boston, there lived a small girl who had the naughty habit of running away. On a certain April morning, almost as soon as her mother finished b.u.t.toning her dress, Louisa May Alcott slipped out of the house and up the street as fast as her feet could carry her.

Louisa crept through a narrow alley and crossed several streets. It was a beautiful day, and she did not care so very much just where she went so long as she was having an adventure, all by herself. Suddenly she came upon some children who said they were going to a nice, tall ash heap to play. They asked her to join them.

Louisa thought they were fine playmates, for when she grew hungry they shared some cold potatoes and bread crusts with her. She would not have thought this much of a lunch in her mother's dining-room, but for an outdoor picnic it did very well.

When she tired of the ash heap she bade the children good-by, thanked them for their kindness, and hop-skipped to the Common, where she must have wandered about for hours, because, all of a sudden, it began to grow dark. Then she wanted to get home. She wanted her doll, her kitty, and her mother! It frightened her when she could not find any street that looked natural. She was hungry and tired, too. She threw herself down on some door-steps to rest and to watch the lamplighter, for you must remember this was long before there was any gas or electricity in Boston. At this moment a big dog came along. He kissed her face and hands and then sat down beside her with a sober look in his eyes, as if he were thinking: "I guess, Little Girl, you need some one to take care of you!"

Poor tired Louisa leaned against his neck and was fast asleep in no time. The dog kept very still. He did not want to wake her.

Pretty soon the town crier went by. He was ringing a bell and reading in a loud voice, from a paper in his hand, the description of a lost child. You see, Louisa's father and mother had missed her early in the forenoon and had looked for her in every place they could think of. Each hour they grew more worried, and at dusk they decided to hire this man to search the city.

When the runaway woke up and heard what the man was shouting--"Lost--Lost--A little girl, six years old, in a pink frock, white hat, and new, green shoes"--she called out in the darkness: "Why--dat's ME!"

The town crier took Louisa by the hand and led her home, where you may be sure she was welcomed with joy.

Mr. and Mrs. Alcott, from first to last, had had a good many frights about this flyaway Louisa. Once when she was only two years old they were traveling with her on a steamboat, and she darted away, in some moment when no one was noticing her, and crawled into the engine-room to watch the machinery. Of course her clothes were all grease and dirt, and she might have been caught in the machinery and hurt.

You won't be surprised to know that the next day after this last affair Louisa's parents made sure that she did not leave the house. Indeed, to be entirely certain of her where-abouts, they tied her to the leg of a big sofa for a whole day!

Except for this one fault, Louisa was a good child, so she felt much ashamed that she had caused her mother, whom she loved dearly, so much worry. As she sat there, tied to the sofa, she made up her mind that she would never frighten her so again. No--she would cure herself of the running-away habit!

After that day, whenever she felt the least desire to slip out of the house without asking permission, she would hurry to her own little room and shut the door tight. To keep her mind from bad plans she would shut her eyes and make up stories--think them all out, herself, you know.

Then, when some of them seemed pretty good, she would write them down so that she would not forget them. By and by she found she liked making stories better than anything she had ever done in her life.

Her mother sometimes wondered why Louisa grew so fond of staying in her little chamber at the head of the stairs, all of a sudden, but was pleased that the runaway child had changed into such a quiet, like-to-stay-at-home girl.

It was a long time before Louisa dared to mention the stories and rhymes she had hidden in her desk but finally she told her mother about them, and when Mrs. Alcott had read them, she advised her to keep on writing.

Louisa did so and became one of the best American story-tellers. She wrote a number of books, and if you begin with _Lulu's Library_, you will want to read _Little Men_ and _Little Women_ and all the books that dear Louisa Alcott ever wrote.

At first Louisa was paid but small sums for her writings, and as the Alcott family were poor, she taught school, did sewing, took care of children, or worked at anything, always with a merry smile, so long as it provided comforts for those she loved.

When the Civil War broke out, she was anxious to do something to help, so she went into one of the Union hospitals as a nurse. She worked so hard that she grew very ill, and her father had to go after her and bring her home. One of her books tells about her life in the hospital.

It was soon after her return home that her books began to sell so well that she found herself, for the first time in her life, with a great deal of money. There was enough to buy luxuries for the Alcott family--there was enough for her to travel. No doubt she got more happiness in traveling than some people, for she found boys and girls in England, France, and Germany reading the very books she herself, Louisa May Alcott, had written. Then, too, at the age of fifty, she enjoyed venturing into new places just as well as she did the morning she sallied forth to Boston Common in her new green shoes!

SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE

Some of these days when you are learning about countries, mountains, and rivers, you may like to know that a minister by the name of Morse was called the Father of American Geography. He wrote all the first geographies used. Some were hard, others much easier. But whatever he wrote, he had to have the house very quiet. Between the sermons he had to get ready for Sundays and the books he had to make for schools, he was nearly always writing in his study, so his little boy "Sammy" had been taught to tiptoe through the rooms and to be quiet with his toys.

He could not remember the time when his mother was not whispering, with a warning finger held up, "Sh--Sh--Papa's writing!"

Sammy liked to draw, especially faces! One day an old school-teacher had come to see his father about a geography. This man had a large, queer-shaped nose. Sammy wondered if he could draw a picture of it. He did not dare disturb any one by asking for paper and pencil, so he took a large pin and scratched a picture on his mother's best mahogany bureau. The scratches looked so like the man that Sammy clapped his hands and shouted with laughter. His mother came running to see what had happened and when she looked ready to cry and said: "Oh, Samuel Finley Breese Morse--what _have_ you done?" he knew right away that something was wrong. She usually called him just Sammy. It was only when she was displeased that she used the whole long name. After this he was watched pretty closely until he went to school. Then he grew so fond of reading that there did not seem to be time for anything else.

In school it was noticed that Samuel Morse had better lessons than most of the boys, and that when it came to questions in history or questions about pictures and artists, it was Samuel who was able to answer them.

When he was fourteen, he wrote a life of a noted Greek scholar. It was not published, but it was very good. He also painted pictures in water colors of his home and portraits of all the family. These were so perfect that every one said he should go to Europe and study with the famous Benjamin West. Finally his parents agreed that this was the right thing for him to do, but they said he would have to live very simply, because the Morses were not rich.

Samuel did not mind working hard, eating little, or dressing shabbily, if he could just study with a fine teacher. West noticed how willing Samuel was to do his pictures over and over again, so he took much pains with him. Samuel won several prizes and medals, and his pictures were talked of everywhere.

Morse came back to Boston when he was twenty-four, poor and threadbare, but famous. People flocked to see his pictures but did not buy them. So he went to New York to try his luck in that city. From a little boy he had liked to try experiments with magnets and electricity, so he often went to lectures on electricity and thought about different things that might be done with such a force, if only people could learn how to use it. These lecturers that he heard often made the remark: "If only electricity could be made to _write_!"

This sentence kept going through Samuel's head, as he sat at his easel, painting. It stayed in his mind when he went to Europe for the second time. It followed him aboard s.h.i.+p when he was returning from that second trip, sad and discouraged, because a big picture on which he had spent much time and money had not sold. Poor Samuel Morse felt like crying, but he said to himself: "Well, I won't sit by myself and sulk just because I have had more hard luck. I will be sociable and talk with the other pa.s.sengers." It was fortunate he did, for a group of men were telling about some experiments they had seen in Paris with a magnet and electricity. Samuel asked some questions and then began to pace the deck and think. Pretty soon he took out a notebook from his pocket and began to make marks in it. He got more and more excited as the hours went by, for he knew he had thought of something wonderful. He had invented an alphabet for sending dispatches from one part of the world to another!

When it was daylight, he had written out an alphabet of dots and dashes that stood for every letter and number in the English language!

Morse expected others to be as pleased as he with his invention, but they did not even believe in it. "The idea," said they, "that a man in New York can talk with another in San Francisco!"

Of course, if people did not believe Morse's idea was right, they naturally would not give any money to try it out, so for years this man almost starved while he lived in one small room that had to serve for work-shop, bedroom, kitchen, and artist's studio, while he took pupils, did small pictures, anything, in fact, to get money for his machine and to pay for his room and food. You see he needed one beautifully made machine, and he must have a long line of poles and wires built before he could prove that with his dots and dashes people could talk to each other, although they were miles apart. And this would cost a lot of money. He sent many letters to Was.h.i.+ngton, asking Congress to help him.

The men in Congress were not interested. His letters were not answered.

"Poor old chap," they laughed, "he's gone crazy over his scheme!"

Finally, as no attention was paid to his letters, Mr. Morse saved up a little money and went to Was.h.i.+ngton himself. One senator agreed to ask Congress to advance him some money. But the time kept slipping by, and nothing was done.

One night when it was late, and all the senators were eager to get through with bills and business, the senator who liked Mr. Morse saw him sitting away up in the gallery, all alone. He went up to him and said: "I _know_ your bill (or request) will not pa.s.s. Oh, do give it up and go home!"

When Mr. Morse went out of the building, he had given up all hopes of getting help. He went to his boarding-house, and when he had paid for the room and his breakfast the next morning, (he never ran in debt--for he had a horror of it!) he had just thirty-seven cents left in the world. After he had crept up the many flights of stairs, he shut the door of his small room and knelt down beside his bed. He told G.o.d that he was going to give up his invention--that perhaps it was not right for him to succeed. He had tried to do something which he thought would be a help in the world, and if he could not, he would try to be brave and sensible about it. Then, being very tired, he fell asleep like a tired child.

But the next morning--what do you think?--a young lady, the daughter of the friendly senator, came rus.h.i.+ng into the room where Mr. Morse was eating his breakfast, and holding out both hands, said joyfully: "I've come to congratulate you. Your bill has pa.s.sed!"

"It cannot be," he answered.

"Oh, it is true. My father let me be the bearer of the good news."

"Well," said Mr. Morse, trembling with delight, "you, my dear message-bearer, shall send the first message that ever goes across the wires."

It did not take long to convince the world that Professor Morse (as he was now called) had invented a fine thing. In less than a year a line was completed from Was.h.i.+ngton to Baltimore, and Miss Ellsworth, the kind senator's daughter, sent the first message ever heard over a recording telegraph.

People found it a great blessing to be able to send quick news, and Samuel Morse was soon called the greatest benefactor of the age. The man who had lived in one room and who had gone for two days at a time without food received so many invitations to banquets that he could not go to half of them. The ten powers of Europe held a special congress and sent the inventor eighty thousand dollars for a gift. The Sultan of Turkey, the King of Prussia, the Queen of Spain, the Emperor of the French, the King of Denmark, all sent decorations and presents. The name of Samuel F. B. Morse was on every lip.