details drawn from environment. Stephen fell heir to a wealth of
inspiring local traditions. The fresh mountain breezes had also once
blown full upon the anxious faces of heroes and patriots; the quiet
valleys had once echoed with the noise of battle; this land of the
Green Mountains was the Wilderness of colonial days, the frontier for
restless New Englanders, where with good axe and stout heart they had
carved their home plots out of the virgin forest. Many a legend of
adventure, of border warfare, and of personal heroism, was still
current among the Green Mountain folk. Where was the Vermont lad who
did not fight over again the battles of Bennington, Ticonderoga, and
Plattsburg?

Other influences were scarcely less formative in the life of the
growing boy. Vermont was also the land of the town meeting. Whatever
may be said of the efficiency of town government, it was and is a
school of democracy. In Vermont it was the natural political
expression of social forces. How else, indeed, could the general will
find fit expression, except through the attrition of many minds? And
who could know better the needs of the community than the commonalty?
Not that men reasoned about the philosophy of their political
institutions: they simply accepted them. And young Douglass grew up in
an atmosphere friendly to local self-government of an extreme type.

Stephen was nearing his fourteenth birthday, when an event occurred
which interrupted the even current of his life. His uncle, who was
commonly regarded as a confirmed old bachelor, confounded the village
gossips by bringing home a young bride. The birth of a son and heir
was the nephew's undoing. While the uncle regarded Stephen with
undiminished affection, he was now much more emphatically _in loco
parentis_. An indefinable something had come between them. The subtle