Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln - A Book for Young Americans by James Baldwin
page 113 of 176 (64%)
page 113 of 176 (64%)
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He bade good-bye to Mr. Thompson and his little law office, and made
ready to go to his new field of labor. There were no railroads at that time, and a journey of even a few miles was a great undertaking. Daniel had bought a horse for twenty-four dollars. In one end of an old-fashioned pair of saddle-bags he put his Sunday clothes, and in the other he packed his books. He laid the saddle-bags upon the horse, then he mounted and rode off over the hills toward Fryeburg, sixty miles away. He was not yet quite twenty years old. He was very slender, and nearly six feet in height. His face was thin and dark. His eyes were black and bright and penetrating--no person who once saw them could ever forget them. Young as he was, he was very successful as a teacher during that year which he spent at Fryeburg. The trustees of the academy were so highly pleased that they wanted him to stay a second year. They promised to raise his salary to five or six hundred dollars, and to give him a house and a piece of land. He was greatly tempted to give up all further thoughts of becoming a lawyer. "What shall I do?" he said to himself. "Shall I say, 'Yes, gentlemen,' and sit down here to spend my days in a kind of comfortable privacy?" But his father was anxious that he should return to the study of the law. And so he was not long in making up his mind. |
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