mother had taken him to Quincy for a long stay with the President
during the summer. What became of the rest of the family he quite
forgot; but he distinctly remembered standing at the house door
one summer morning in a passionate outburst of rebellion against
going to school. Naturally his mother was the immediate victim of
his rage; that is what mothers are for, and boys also; but in
this case the boy had his mother at unfair disadvantage, for she
was a guest, and had no means of enforcing obedience. Henry
showed a certain tactical ability by refusing to start, and he
met all efforts at compulsion by successful, though too vehement
protest. He was in fair way to win, and was holding his own, with
sufficient energy, at the bottom of the long staircase which led
up to the door of the President's library, when the door opened,
and the old man slowly came down. Putting on his hat, he took the
boy's hand without a word, and walked with him, paralyzed by awe,
up the road to the town. After the first moments of consternation
at this interference in a domestic dispute, the boy reflected
that an old gentleman close on eighty would never trouble himself
to walk near a mile on a hot summer morning over a shadeless road
to take a boy to school, and that it would be strange if a lad
imbued with the passion of freedom could not find a corner to
dodge around, somewhere before reaching the school door. Then and
always, the boy insisted that this reasoning justified his
apparent submission; but the old man did not stop, and the boy
saw all his strategical points turned, one after another, until
he found himself seated inside the school, and obviously the
centre of curious if not malevolent criticism. Not till then did
the President release his hand and depart.

The point was that this act, contrary to the inalienable rights