Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
808
aAHolilenx
Our Subscription Price.
Subscriptions to **GOLDEN Days’? $3.00 r
annum, $1.50 per six mouths, §1,00 per four months,
all payable in advance,
Single numbers six centseach. We pay all post-
age.
YS
TO THOSE WHO DESIRE TO GET UP CLUBS,
If you wish to get up a club for **GOLDEN
8,77 send ox your name, and we will forward
you, free of charge, anuinber of speciinen copies
of the paper, se that, with them, you cau give your
neighborhood a good canvassing.
OUR CLUB RATES,
For $ we wilt send two copies for one year to one
address, or each cupy to a separate aididress.
For $10 we will send four copies for one year to
one address. or each copy to a separate addres
For $20 we will send eight copies to one address,
or each copy fo separate addresses,
‘The party who sends us $20 for a club of eight
copies (all sent at one time) will be entitled to a
copy for one year FREE,
3 rs-up of clubs of eight copies can afterward
add single copies at $2.50 each,
Money should be sent to us elther by Post Office
Order or Registered Letter, so as to provide as far
as possible against its loss by mail.
All communications, business or otherwise, must
be addressed to JAMES E VERSON
- Pu
er.
GREAT MEN
AT THE FOOT OF THE LADDER.
BY REV. E. A. RAND.
Henry Wilson, the Lapstone Hero.
It was about sixty years ago that a
New Hampshire lady called to a little
fellow of eight, as he trotted by her
home. He was a poor boy, and his
clothes showed it. He stopped at the
call, and was made happy by the gift of
more suitable clothing. His kind bene-
factress asked if he could read.
“Yes; pretty well.”
“Come, -then, and see me at my house
to-morrow.”
The next day, when he called, she
said:
“T had intended to give a Testament to
some good boy that would be likely to
make a proper use of it. You tell me
you can read. Now, take this book, and
et me hear you.” .
He read a while. .
“Now, carry the book home with you.
Read it entirely through, and you shall
ave it.” :
In a week he reported that he had read
the book.
“Tt cannot be! But let metry you!’
exclaimed the lady.
examination was successfully
assed.
Pethe little fellow that thus won his
Testament was the late Henry Wilson,
Vice-President of the United States. He
afterward avowed that his experience
about the Testament was the start of his
intellectual career. It certainly was
noble vantage-ground from which to go
out and win future victories.
Henry Wilson was born in 1812, at
Farmington, N. H.
“J was born in poverty,” he once af-
firmed. “Want sat by my cradle, I
know what it is to ask a imotber for
bread when she has none to give.”
In his younger days, he was not known
as Henry Wilson, but he wore the high-
sounding and long-sounding title, ‘* Jere-
miah Jones Colbath.’” .
When only ten, he founda round iu
his ladder that could not have been an
easy one to surmount; it was to be
bound out to a farmer until he was
twenty-one. .
Jerry was to have bread and butter,
his clothes, a chance to attend school a
month in winter, and, when he was free,
he was promised—not as many sheep
and cattle as the shrewd Jacob acquired
from Father-in-law Laban—butsix sheep
only and one yoke of oxen.
One month of winter-schooling! How
could Jerry obtain a boy’s best help—an
education? From his reading, in part.
The old kitchen-tire was his candle, and
that helped him through many books.
He read eagerly at every opportunity
offered him.
So great was his‘ diligence, that, when
twenty-one, he had_mastered almost a
thousand volumesof history, philosophy,
and in various other departments of
. stud,
itis twenty-first birthday dawned at
Jast. In the barn-yard bleated his sheep
and Jowed his oxen—his' only property.
He sold them for eighty-four dollars,
and that was eighty-two more than hi
had ever had before, as a two-dollar bill
was never his,
e
<to:GOLDEN DAYS+re>
He concluded also to change the form
of another piece of property—his name.
His reasons we do not know, If his
quick temperament could not stand so
long a name as Jeremiah Jones Colbath,
Ifenry Wilson was certainly an improve-
ment. .
The first month after he was twenty-
one, he worked hard in the woods, earn-
ing six dollars in all that time.
* When I got the money,” he said, at
an evening speech in later life, those
dollars looked as large to me as_ the
moon looks to-night !””
What next? That isa question con-
fronting every young man. Henry Wil-
son answered the question, finally, by
tramping to a shoe-town, Natick, Mass.,
and his journey of nigh one hundred
miles cost him one hundred and five
cents,
There he went to work making shoes,
and resolute to earn all he could toward
an education, there was occasion . for the
remark his landlady made about him:
“Heisavery good young man; we.
like him much; but he keeps-us all
awake by his continual pounding
through the night.”
It will be noticed in the history of
great Americans that a debating society
has sometimes been instrumental in
bringing them forward, and “The Na-
tick Debating Society’? taught Henry
Wilson to think, to argue, to handle
the weapons of parliamentary rules, to
face large bodies in debate. He was
anxious to have access to the town-
library, and it was one reason moving
him to board with the librarian,
Overworking, his health gave out, and
he strove to regain it bya journey toa
inilder air,
Xeturning, he carried out his long-
cherished plan to obtain an education,
and went to an academy, ugh
twenty-four years of age, he did not feel
that he was too old.
n he came to Natick again, he
taught school, and then paying all his
dues, he had twelve dollars with which
to commence the manufacture of shoes,
By degrees, he came before the people
as one that might creditably lead in
political affairs. Ready of speech, intel-
igent, clear-headed, far-seeing in his
judginents, and bold to Jead one man or
twenty, and bold to go alone, the people
began to ‘honor this hero of the lap-
stone.
From the State Legislature he went to
the United States Senate, and finally
became Vice President of this country.
He died, when sixty-three years old,
Noveinber 22, 1875. .
What made this hero of the lapstone ?
Money did not make him, When he
was about to be inaugurated he had so
little ready mouey that he said to Charles
Sumner:
“Sumner, can you lend me a hundred
dollars? I have not got money enough
to be inaugurated on.””
, The money was lent. -
Industry made Henry Wilson. <A de-
termination to improve every opportu-
nity for self-culture made hiin. He read
to remember, and then read again still
to remember.
Temperance inade him. Once, John
Quincy Adams, ata Washington dinner,
said to Ilenry Wilson, then a young
man:
“ Will you take a glass of wine with
ir???
me, sir
What would the shoemaker do?
“Sir, | never take wine,” was the an-
swer.
“TTe floated into power upon the wave
of principle,”’ has been said of Wilson,
His Christianity made him. Ile was
not only moral but religious, and not
only religious but Christian.
There were reasons -yhy a man: using
a _lapstone as a pedestal should build for
himself a lofty monument.
A GREAT MAN'S CURIOUS FAULT.
Hans Christian Anderssen, whose de-
lightful stories for children made him
famous, had a curious defect of character.
In every letter that he ever wrote, he
alluded to some escape from danger, real
orimaginary. For instance, when only
fifteen vears old, he wrote an account of
his first journey by carriage across the
Island of Zealand, which, he adds, ‘was
not without danger, for the road went up
and-down hill several times.” He had
a perpetual fear of being buried alive, so
that when he went to bed at night, he
always placed by his bedside a piece of
paper, on which was written: “I am
only apparently dead.”
THE STORMY PETREL.
BY MRS. G. HALL,
Do yon know what these famous birds
are like, with their airy forms, deep
mourning suits, and curiously webbed
feet, enabling them to walk as easily
upon the water as a land-bird can hop
along the garden-walk? :
The petrel isabout the size of the swal-
low, and, in general appearance and
flight, not unlike them. Although the
very smallest web-footed bird known, it
can brave the utmost fury of the tem-
pest, often skimming, with incredible
velocity, the trough of the sea, as well as
the tops of her snowy crests.
“ Up and down, up and down,
From the buse of the waves to the bil-
ow’'s crown,
In the midst of the flashing and feathery
0%
The ‘Stormy Petrel’ finds her home.”
It is avery interesting sight to watch
these strange creatures in a gale, as they
suddenly drop their teet and strike the
water, which throws them up again with
renewed force, sometimes leaping, with
both legs parallel, on the surface of the
Wovember 25, 1882,
name is given them, bearing an affinity
to the malice imputed to the poor petrel.
.They have been called “Witches ;”
“Mother Carey Chickens,” in honor, no
doubt, of sume celebrated hag of that
name; ‘Little Peter,” Lecause of their
ability to walk upon the water, though
their namesake was far more faithless
than they. .
Now there are many other birds who
have a very nice perception of a change
of atmosphere, perhaps quite as good ba-
rometers as the petrels.
ou never seen swallows just
before a hard rain hawking for flies, that
they may be supplied with food when it
cannot be so easily obtained? And fun-
nier yet to see ducks trim their feathers
and afterwards toss up the water over
their backs to see if they are all prepared
for the wetting they are about to get?
Wonld it not be just as absurd to ac-
cuse the swallows and ducks of bringing
the rain in their preparation for its com-
s
But when the storm does come, that
the sailors think they presage, they, tvo,
are as much troubled by it as the har-
diest seainen, and seek the nearest shel-
ter, whether it be rock or island, and if
so fartrom land that they can find no
harbor of that sort, they will follow the
first ship, and hiding under the stern,
Toughest waves, for several yards at a
Ame.
It we examine the real sea-birds, such
as are formed for indefatigable swim-
ming and diving, or for these wide
flights over the ocean,we shall find their
organization very wonderful. Their
short, compressed toes easil y cleave the
waters, and by means of ‘their mein-
branes, or webs, form, as it were, broad
oars. Their muscular legs, placed more
behind than in other birds, are beauti-
fully adapted for rowing, although their
movements on land are awkward and
slow.
All creatures living upon the sea of
course require a thick waterproof gar-
ment or mantle, against weather or
storin, and consequently we find the
plumage of sea-birds thicker, closer, and
much better furnished with down than
that of any other species, and the gland
which all birds have, and from which
comes an oily matter, to keep their feath-
ers moist, is most abundant among those
that live upon the water, Surely the
petrel then has no reason to complain
of imperfect clothing,
ut although so thoroughly arm
and equipped for their pecttiar service
they have long been fearfully regarded
by the ignorant and superstitious, not
only asa messenger of violent tempests
and unseen dangers to the mariner, but
as a wicked agent, somehow, in creating
hem.
“No one can tell anything about
strange birds,” says the sailor. “ Itieae
mysterious to us where they came from
as it is where they are going,”
_ This very mystery about their belong-
ings has doubtless given- rise to the
superstftion they have. Instead of heap-
ing all sorts of invectives upon these
r, harmless creatures, they ought to
je very thankful that their delicate
acuteness so enables them to give warn-
ing of an approaching tempest,
Some one has written that they might
as well condemn the midnight licht-
house, that, like a beacon star, guides
them on their way, or the buoy, that
warns them of the rocks below, as these
harmless mariners who in like manner
Prepare them,
ery few persons who cross
lantic Ocean have not observed thers
solitary wanderers of the deep. In ever
remain there until the storm be over.
n such cases their low, mournful ery
or note of “Weet, weet,” sends dread
% every superstitious mind on board the
hip. .
The popular opinion used to be that
the petrels carried’ their eggs under
their wings in order to hateh them; but
this is as utterly impossible as that they
could control the elements,
Deep in the ground or hid behind the
rocks on some solitary island they build
their scanty nests—scanty, indeed, when
we consider that the essential requisite
for a bird's nest is warmth and security—
for a few pieces of dried grass and a
feather or two, just to keep the eggs from
falling out or rolling off the rocks,
seems to he, in their case, all that is neces-
sary, while for security they, with all
their species, have the ‘singular faculty
of ejecting an oily substance upon any
intruder, suddenly blinding them, if
they molest their nests or otherwise an-
noy them. .
In fact, the quantity of this oi! is so
great, that In many of the islands where
they build their nests the inhahitants
make rush-lights of ‘these poor birds,
with no other preparation but that of
drawing a wick through the entire
length ot the body.
»yherever we turn, we see that Al-
mighty wisdom has made every crea-
ture for some service, and not the least
among them is the “Stormy Petrel.”
ao
HOW BEES TALK,
According to Sir John Lubbock, bees
and other insects can express themselves
by means of their wings. A tired bee
vibrates its wings only about 330 times
Inasecond, The same bee, in pursuit
of honey, hums continuously 440 strokes
asecond. If excited, it will increase the
vibrations many times. Should it pass
another bee, the number of vibrations
nerease,
“Thus,” concludes Sir Jobn, “the
sounds of insects do not merely serve to
bring the sexes together; they are not
merely ‘love songs,” but also serve, like
inet? Janguage, to express their feel-
rr
country where they are known, soine
—A good temper generall comes from
thorough breaking and disapline. .
~