The Child's Book of American Biography by Mary Stoyell Stimpson (10 best books of all time TXT) 📕

to earn his title of Prescott, the brave. He did not complain, he did not say: "Well, of course, I shall never try to do anything now that I have only one eye to use." Instead, he kept up his spirits and finished his course at Harvard gayly. Everybody talked of his pluck. He was asked to be orator of his class, and he wrote for graduation day a Latin poem on Hope, which he recited with such a happy face and manner that the people clapped their hands and cheered. His parents were so pleased that William could finish his college work, in spite of his accident, and that he could keep right on being a rollicking, laughing boy, that they spread a great tent on the college grounds and feasted five hundred friends who had come to see William graduate.

Then William went on a wonderful visit to the Azores. His mother's brother, Thomas Hickling, was United States Consul at St. Michael. This uncle had married a Portuguese lady, and there was a large family of cousins to entertain the New England boy. Mr. Hickling had a big country house and a lot of spirited horses. As William drove over the lovely island, he used to laugh at the funny little burros the working people rode and the strange costumes they wore. Of course, he found St. Michael a different looking place from Boston, with its brick, or sober-colored houses. At the Azores, you know, everything is bright and gay. A salmon-pink castle stands next a square, box-like house, painted yellow; a blue villa and a buff villa probably adjoin dainty green and lavender cottages, and occasionally a fancy little dwelling, all towers and balconies, will be painted cherry red. Then the mountain peaks behind all these houses are vivid green. So William felt almost as if he were in fairyland.

When he had been looking at these beautiful things about six weeks, he found suddenly, one morning, that they had turned black. He could not see a bit with his well eye! A doctor was sent for and he said: "A perfectly dark room for you, William Prescott, for three months, and only enough food to keep you alive!" In all the ninety-five days the doctor kept him shut in, William was never heard to utter one word of complaint. His cousins sat with him a good deal (thankful that he could not see them cry), and he told them funny stories, sang songs, and paced back and forth for exercise, with his elbows held way out at his sides to avoid running into the furniture. He finally saw again but had to be very careful of that one useful eye all the rest of his life. The minute he used it too much, the blindness would come on again.

As studying law was out of the question for him, he thought he would write histories. He had already learned a good deal about the different countries but knew most about Spain. So he set about learning all he could of that country as far back as the days of Christopher Columbus. Of course, this brought in King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (you remember she offered to sell her jewels to help Columbus) and stories of Peru and Mexico, so that William Prescott spent most of his life gathering facts together about the Spanish people. And the histories of them he wrote (eight large books) sound almost like story books; when you read them you seem to see the banquet halls, the queens followed by their pages and ladies-in-waiting, the priests chanting hymns in their monasteries, and the Mexican generals in their showy uniforms.

Think how hard it was for William Prescott to make these histories. He dared use his eye but a few hours a week. So he hired people to read to him, to go to libraries to look at old papers and letters, and to copy the notes he made on a queer machine. You can see this instrument that he contrived at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Some pieces of wood held sheets of paper in place; other strips of wood kept the pencil going in fairly straight lines. But sometimes when he used this at night, or when his eye was bandaged, he would forget to put in a fresh sheet of paper and would scribble ahead for a long time, writing the same lines over and across until his secretaries would have a hard time to find out what he meant. He did not want to waste time by asking to have the same thing read twice to him, so he trained his memory until he could carry the exact words on a page in his mind, and after a while he could repeat whole chapters without a mistake. But it was slow work making books this way. He was ten years getting his first one, the history of Ferdinand and Isabella, ready for the publisher.

Prescott did not talk about this work. No one but his parents and the secretaries knew that he was busy at all, because in his resting hours he was often seen at balls and parties, laughing and chatting in his own lively way. And one day one of his relatives drew him aside (this was when he had been grinding away in his library for eight years) and said: "William, it seems to me you are wasting your time sadly. Why don't you stop being so idle and try some kind of work?"

This same relation and all Prescott's friends were astonished and proud enough when, two years later, three big volumes of Spanish history were for sale in the book-stores, with William Hickling Prescott's name given as the author. That season every one who could afford it gave their friends a Christmas present of the Prescott books. He had compliments enough to turn his head, but he was too sensible to be vain. He wrote several other books and soon became famous. When he was in London, he had many honors shown him.

Prescott was fond of children and always kept a stock of candy and sweets on hand for small people. His servants adored him and so did his secretaries. They used to tell how he would frolic, even at his work. Sometimes when he had got to a place in one of the books where he must describe a battle scene, he would dash about the room, singing at the top of his lungs some stirring ballad like: "Oh, give me but my Arab steed!" And then when he felt he really "had his steam up" he would begin to write. He was kind and generous and showed so much courtesy to rich and poor alike that he has been called the finest gentleman of his time. No doubt he was, but it is true, too, that he was Prescott, the Brave!

 

PHILLIPS BROOKS

One of the greatest preachers in America was a Boston boy. His name was Phillips Brooks, and there is a fine statue of him near Trinity Church, where he was rector for twenty-two years.

When Phillips was a little boy, he and his five brothers made quite a long row, or circle, when they sat at the big library table learning their lessons for the next day's school, while their happy-faced mother sat near with her sewing, and their father read.

The Brooks boys had all the newest story-books, games, music, and parties, so they were a very jolly lot, but it is Phillips I want to tell you the most about.

Phillips liked books better than play and was such a bright pupil that his teachers were always praising him. In fact, he was a favorite everywhere. It did not make much difference whether he was spending his vacation in Andover with his Grandma Phillips, walking across Boston Common with his mother, or hurrying in the morning sunshine to the Boston Latin School, people who looked at his handsome face and his big brown eyes said to themselves: "There goes a boy to be proud of!"

It was just the same when he went to Harvard College. He was such a likeable chap that he was asked to join all the clubs and invited to the merry-makings of the students. But he was rather shy. Perhaps he had grown too fast, for he was only fifteen years old and six feet, three inches tall--think of it! He stayed in his own room a good deal, writing and trying for prizes. He won several. He did not like arithmetic or figures of any kind, but anything about the different countries or the lives of men and women would keep him bending over a book half the night.

Things had gone pretty easily for Phillips up to the time he graduated from Harvard. He had always found faces and voices pleasant. So you can see how hurt he must have been when the very first time he tried to teach school the pupils were ugly and rude to him. It almost broke his heart that they did not want to mind him. The smaller boys loved him and took pride in learning their lessons, but the older ones hardly opened their books. Instead of that they spent their time making the young teacher's life miserable. He was only nineteen! Poor fellow, he must have wished many a day that he was at the North Pole or the South Seas instead of in Boston. These rowdies threw heads of matches on the floor and grinned when they exploded; they piled wood in the stoves until every one gasped for breath; they fired wads of paper at each other; and once they threw shot in Phillips's face.

The principal of the school beat his boys when they did not behave, and he had no patience with Phillips for not doing the same. But Phillips could not do that. He finally said he would resign. Some principals would have said to the young teacher: "Now, don't mind it if you have not done very well at teaching; there are, no doubt, other things that you will find you can do better than this. Good luck to you--my lad. Remember you have always a friend in me!" But Phillips's principal glared at him and declared: "Well, if you have failed to make a good teacher, you will fail in everything else."

Just then Phillips did not think of much else but his own disappointment. His father and his five brothers were very successful at their work and it shamed him to think he was not.

Phillips's brown eyes were very serious in those days. The same ones who had once sighed: "There's a boy to be proud of," now showed no pity in their looks, and often hurried down a side street to avoid bowing to him. Dear me--and it was the very same boy they had praised when he was taking prizes!

Phillips began to feel that he would like to help the people in the world who had the heartache. There seemed to be plenty to help the happy, rich folks, but there were many others who he was sure needed a friendly word and hand-clasp to give them new courage. His pastor advised him