not to be anticipated, even in the dangerous atmosphere of elevated rank,
whither he seems destined to ascend.

There is little else that it is worth while to relate as regards his
college course, unless it be that, during one of his winter vacations,
Pierce taught a country school. So many of the statesmen of New England
have performed their first public service in the character of pedagogue,
that it seems almost a necessary step on the ladder of advancement.




CHAPTER II.

HIS SERVICES IN THE STATE AND NATIONAL LEGISLATURES.


After leaving college, in the year 1824, Franklin Pierce returned to
Hillsborough. His father, now in a green old age, continued to take a
prominent part in the affairs of the day, but likewise made his declining
years rich and picturesque with recollections of the heroic times through
which he had lived. On the 26th of December, 1825, it being his
sixty-seventh birthday, General Benjamin Pierce prepared a festival for
his comrades in arms, the survivors of the Revolution, eighteen of whom,
all inhabitants of Hillsborough, assembled at his house. The ages of
these veterans ranged from fifty-nine up to the patriarchal venerableness
of nearly ninety. They spent the day in festivity, in calling up
reminiscences of the great men whom they had known and the great deeds
which they had helped to do, and in reviving the old sentiments of the
era of 'seventy-six. At nightfall, after a manly and pathetic farewell