Strange Stories from History for Young People Part 8

After finis.h.i.+ng his college course Webster began studying law, but having no money, and being unwilling to tax his father for further support, he went into Northern Maine, and taught school there for a time. While teaching he devoted his evenings to the work of copying deeds and other legal doc.u.ments, and by close economy managed to live upon the money thus earned, thus saving the whole of his salary as a teacher. With this money to live on, he went to Boston, studied law, and soon distinguished himself. The story of his life as a public man, in the senate, in the cabinet, and at the bar, is well known, and does not belong to this sketch of his boyhood.

THE SCULLION WHO BECAME A SCULPTOR.

In the little Italian village of Possagno there lived a jolly stone-cutter named Pisano. He was poor, of course, or he would not have been a stone-cutter; but he was full of good humor, and everybody liked him.

There was one little boy, especially, who loved old Pisano, and whom old Pisano loved more than anybody else in the world. This was Antonio Canova, Pisano's grandson, who had come to live with him, because his father was dead, and his mother had married a harsh man, who treated the little Antonio roughly.

Antonio was a frail little fellow, and his grandfather liked to have him near him during his working hours.

While Pisano worked at stone-cutting, little Canova played at it and at other things, such as modelling in clay, drawing, etc. The old grandfather, plain, uneducated man as he was, soon discovered that the pale-faced little fellow at his side had something more than an ordinary child's dexterity at such things.

The boy knew nothing of art or of its laws, but he fas.h.i.+oned his lumps of clay into forms of real beauty. His wise grandfather, seeing what this indicated, hired a teacher to give him some simple lessons in drawing, so that he might improve himself if he really had the artistic ability which the old man suspected. Pisano was much too poor, as he knew, ever to give the boy an art-education and make an artist of him, but he thought that Antonio might at least learn to be a better stone-cutter than common.

As the boy grew older he began to help in the shop during the day, while in the evening his grandmother told him stories or sang or recited poetry to him. All these things were educating him, though without his knowing it, for they were awakening his taste and stimulating his imagination, which found expression in the clay models that he loved to make in his leisure hours.

It so happened that Signor Faliero, the head of a n.o.ble Venetian family, and a man of rare understanding in art, had a place near Pisano's house, and at certain seasons the n.o.bleman entertained many distinguished guests there. When the palace was very full of visitors, old Pisano was sometimes hired to help the servants with their tasks, and the boy Canova, when he was twelve years old, sometimes did scullion's work there, also, for a day, when some great feast was given.

On one of these occasions, when the Signor Faliero was to entertain a very large company at dinner, young Canova was at work over the pots and pans in the kitchen. The head-servant made his appearance, just before the dinner hour, in great distress.

The man who had been engaged to furnish the great central ornament for the table had, at the last moment, sent word that he had spoiled the piece. It was now too late to secure another, and there was nothing to take its place. The great vacant s.p.a.ce in the centre of the table spoiled the effect of all that had been done to make the feast artistic in appearance, and it was certain that Signor Faliero would be sorely displeased.

But what was to be done? The poor fellow whose business it was to arrange the table was at his wits' end.

While every one stood dismayed and wondering, the begrimed scullion boy timidly approached the distressed head-servant, and said, "If you will let me try, I think I can make something that will do."

"You!" exclaimed the servant; "and who are you?"

"I am Antonio Canova, Pisano's grandson," answered the pale-faced little fellow.

"And what can you do, pray?" asked the man, in astonishment at the conceit of the lad.

"I can make you something that will do for the middle of the table,"

said the boy, "if you'll let me try."

The servant had little faith in the boy's ability, but not knowing what else to do, he at last consented that Canova should try.

Calling for a large quant.i.ty of b.u.t.ter, little Antonio quickly modelled a great crouching lion, which everybody in the kitchen p.r.o.nounced beautiful, and which the now rejoicing head-servant placed carefully upon the table.

The company that day consisted of the most cultivated men of Venice--merchants, princes, n.o.blemen, artists, and lovers of art--and among them were many who, like Faliero himself, were skilled critics of artwork.

When these people were ushered in to dinner their eyes fell upon the b.u.t.ter lion, and they forgot for what purpose they had entered the dining-room. They saw there something of higher worth in their eyes than any dinner could be, namely, a work of genius.

They scanned the b.u.t.ter lion critically, and then broke forth in a torrent of praises, insisting that Faliero should tell them at once what great sculptor he had persuaded to waste his skill upon a work in b.u.t.ter, that must quickly melt away. But Signor Faliero was as ignorant as they, and he had, in his turn, to make inquiry of the chief servant.

When the company learned that the lion was the work of a scullion, Faliero summoned the boy, and the banquet became a sort of celebration in his honor.

But it was not enough to praise a lad so gifted. These were men who knew that such genius as his belonged to the world, not to a village, and it was their pleasure to bring it to perfection by educating the boy in art. Signor Faliero himself claimed the right to provide for young Antonio, and at once declared his purpose to defray the lad's expenses, and to place him under the tuition of the best masters.

The boy whose highest ambition had been to become a village stone-cutter, and whose home had been in his poor old grandfather's cottage, became at once a member of Signor Faliero's family, living in his palace, having everything that money could buy at his command, and daily receiving instruction from the best sculptors of Venice.

But he was not in the least spoiled by this change in his fortunes. He remained simple, earnest, and unaffected. He worked as hard to acquire knowledge and skill in art as he had meant to work to become a dexterous stone-cutter.

Antonio Canova's career from the day on which he moulded the b.u.t.ter into a lion was steadily upward; and when he died, in 1822, he was not only one of the most celebrated sculptors of his time, but one of the greatest, indeed, of all time.

THE BOYHOOD OF WILLIAM CHAMBERS.

Boys and girls who can buy attractive periodicals and books at any bookstore or news-stand, can have very little notion of the difficulty that little folk had seventy or eighty years ago in getting something to read. It was only about fifty years ago, indeed, that this first efforts were made to supply cheap, instructive, and entertaining literature, and one of the men who made those efforts was Mr. William Chambers, who, in 1882, when he was eighty-two years of age, published a little account of his life. What he has to tell of his boyhood and youth is very interesting.

His father was unfortunate in business, and became so poor that young Chambers had to begin making his own way very early in life. He had little schooling--only six pounds' (thirty dollars) worth in all, he tells us--and, as there were no juvenile books or periodicals in those days, and no books of any other kind, except costly ones, it was hard for him to do much in the way of educating himself. But William Chambers meant to learn all that he could, and that determination counted for a good deal. There was a small circulating library in his native town, and he began by reading all the books in it, without skipping one. Then he got hold of a copy of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," which most boys would regard as very dry reading. He read it carefully. When that was done young Chambers was really pretty well educated, although he did not know it.

About that time the boy had to go to work for his living. He became an apprentice to a bookseller in Edinburgh. His wages were only four s.h.i.+llings (about a dollar) a week, and on that small sum he had to support himself, paying for food, lodging, clothes, and everything else, for five years. "It was a hard but somewhat droll scrimmage with semistarvation," he says; for, after paying for his lodgings and clothes, he had only about seven cents a day with which to buy his food.

In the summer he jumped out of bed at five o'clock every morning, and spent the time before the hour for beginning business in reading and making electrical experiments. He studied French in that way too, and on Sundays carried a French Testament to church, and read in French what the minister read in English.

Winter came on, and the poor lad was puzzled. It was not only cold, but entirely dark at five o'clock in the morning during the winter months, and William, who had only seven cents a day to buy food with, could not afford either a fire or a candle to read by. There was no other time of day, however, that he could call his own, and so it seemed that he must give up his reading altogether, which was a great grief to the ambitious lad.

Just then a piece of good-luck befell him. He happened to know what is called a "sandwich man"--that is to say, a man who walks about with signs hanging behind and before him. One day this man made him a proposition. The sandwich man knew a baker who, with his two sons, carried on a small business in a cellar. The baker was fond of reading, but had no time for it, and as he and his sons had to bake their bread early in the morning, he proposed, through the sandwich man, to employ William Chambers as reader. His plan was that Chambers should go to the cellar bakery every morning at five o'clock and read to the bakers, and for this service he promised to give the boy one hot roll each morning.

Here was double good-fortune. It enabled Chambers to go on with his reading by the baker's light and fire, and it secured for him a sufficient breakfast without cost.

He accepted the proposition at once, and for two and a half hours every morning he sat on a flour-sack in the cellar, and read to the bakers by the light of a penny candle stuck in a bottle.

Out of his small wages it was impossible for the boy to save anything, and so, when the five years of his apprentices.h.i.+p ended, he had only five s.h.i.+llings in the world. Yet he determined to begin business at once on his own account. Getting credit for ten pounds' worth of books, he opened a little stall, and thus began what has since grown to be a great publis.h.i.+ng business.

He had a good deal of unoccupied time at his stall, and "in order to pick up a few s.h.i.+llings," as he says, he began to write out neat copies of poems for alb.u.ms. Finding sale for these, he determined to enlarge that part of his business by printing the poems. For that purpose he bought a small and very "squeaky" press and a font of worn type which had been used for twenty years. He had to teach himself how to set the type, and, as his press would print only half a sheet at a time, it was very slow work; but he persevered, and gradually built up a little printing business in connection with his book-selling. After a while he published an edition of Burns's poems, setting the type, printing the pages, and binding the books with his own hands, and clearing eight pounds by the work.

Chambers wrote a good deal at that time, and his brother Robert wrote still more, so that they were at once authors, printers, publishers, and booksellers, but all in a very small way. After ten years of this work, William Chambers determined to publish a cheap weekly paper, to be filled with entertaining and instructive matters, designed especially for the people who could not afford to buy expensive books and periodicals. Robert refused to join in this scheme, and so, for a time, the whole work and risk fell upon William. His friends all agreed in thinking that ruin would be the result; but William Chambers thought he knew what the people wanted, and hence he went on.

The result soon justified his expectations. The first number was published on the 4th of February, 1832. Thirty thousand copies were sold in a few days, and three weeks later the sale rose to fifty thousand copies a week.

HOW A BOY WAS HIRED OUT, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

When Michael Angelo was twelve years of age, although he had had no instruction in art, he did a piece of work which greatly pleased the painter Domenico Ghirlandajo. That artist at once declared that here was lad of genius, who must quit his school studies and become a painter.

This was what the little Michael most wished to do, but he had no hope that his father would listen for a moment to the suggestion. His father, Ludovico Buonarotti, was a distinguished man in the state, and held art and artists in contempt. He had planned a great political career for his boy, as the boy knew very well.

Ghirlandajo was enthusiastic, however, and, in company with the lad, he at once visited Ludovico, and asked him to place Michael in his studio.