Sustained honor Part 7

Fernando grew to be a tall, slender youth, and in 1806 having finished his education, so far as the west could afford, his father determined to send him to the East, where it was hoped he would develop into a lawyer or a preacher. The mother hoped the latter. His brother and sister had grown up, married and were settled on farms in the neighborhood, taking on the same existence of their parents; living honest, peaceful and unambitious lives.

The youth Fernando was more inclined to mental than physical activity, and his parents, possessing an abundance of common sense, decided not to force him to engage in an occupation distasteful to him.

What school should he enter? was a question which the father long debated. There were Harvard and Yale, both famous seats of learning, and there were any number of academies all over the country. Captain Stevens finally decided to allow the youth to make his own selection, giving him money sufficient to take a little tour in the eastern States, before settling down.

Captain Stevens had a well-to-do neighbor, who lived across Bear Creek, by the name of Winners. Old Zeb Winners was one of those quaint products of the West. He was an easy-going man, proverbially slow of speech and movement, and certainly the last person on earth one would expect to become rich; yet he was wealthy. With all his slothfulness he was shrewd, and could drive a better bargain than many men twice as active in mind and body. One morning after it had become noised abroad that Fernando was going away to college, Mr. Winners rode up to the house on his big sorrel mare, her colt following, and, dismounting, tied the mare to the rail fence and entered the gate.

"Good mornin', cap'in, good mornin'," said the visitor.

"Come in, Mr. Winners. Glad to see you. Hope you are all well!"

"Oh, yes, middlin' like," answered the farmer entering the house without the ceremony of removing his hat. A chair was offered, and he sat for a moment with his hands spread out before the fireplace, his hat still on his head. There was no fire in the fireplace, for it was late in May; but Mr. Winners held his hands before it, from habit.

"Wall, cap'in, I do hear as how yer goin' ter send yer boy Fernando to college."

"I am."

"Wall, that air a good notion. Now I ain't got no book larnin' myself; but I don't object to n.o.body else gittin' none. I've made up my mind to send one of my boys along with 'im, ef ye've no objection."

Of course Captain Stevens had no objection. Which of his boys was he going to send?

"I kinder thought az how I'd send Sukey."

Sukey was a nickname given a tall, lazy youth named Richard Winners. Why he had been nicknamed Sukey we have never been able to ascertain; but the sobriquet, attached to him in childhood, clung to him all through life. Sukey was like his father, brave, slow, careful, but a steadfast friend and possessed of considerable dry humor. He took the world easy and thought "one man as good as another so long as he behaved himself."

It was arranged that Sukey and Fernando should start in a week for New York, from which point they might select any college or school they chose. The mail stage pa.s.sed the door of farmer Winners, crossed the big bridge and then pa.s.sed the home of Captain Stevens. Captain Stevens'

house was no longer a cabin in the wilderness. It was a large, substantial two-story farm mansion, with chimneys of brick instead of sticks and mud. The forests had shrunk back for miles, making place for vast fields, and the place had the appearance of a thrifty farm.

Fernando's trunk was packed, and he sat on the door-step in his best clothes awaiting the appearance of the stage. At last the rumbling thunder of wheels rolling over the great bridge smote his ears, and a few moments later the vehicle came up to the gate. The six prancing horses were drawn up, and the vehicle stopped, while the driver cried:

"All aboard!"

Sukey was in the stage, his dark eyes half closed. He roused himself to drawl out:

"Come on, Fernando, we're off now, for sure."

While two farm hands, a.s.sisted by the driver, placed the trunk in the boot, Fernando bade father and mother adieu. Sister had come over with her husband and the baby. His brother with his young wife were present to bid the young seekers after knowledge adieu. They followed Fernando to the stage coach and cried:

"Good bye, Sukey! take good care of Fernando!" and Sukey drawled out:

"Who'll take keer o' me?"

The last good bye's were said, and the great stage coach rolled on. The impressions of the young frontiersmen on approaching the first town were strange and indescribable. The number of houses and streets quite confused them. There seemed to be little or no order in the construction of streets, and everybody seemed in a bustle and confusion. They stopped over night at a tavern, and at early dawn the stage horn awoke them, and after a hasty breakfast they were again on their journey.

Several weeks were spent in traveling from town to town, and on September 1st, 1807, they found themselves in New York City, still undecided where they would go.

One morning Fernando went for his usual walk toward the river, when a large crowd of people at the wharf attracted his attention. Drawing near, he saw a curious-looking boat on the water, the like of which he had never seen before. It was one hundred feet long, twelve feet wide and seven feet deep. There was a staff or mast at the bow, another at the stern. From a tall chimney there issued volumes of smoke, while from a smaller pipe there came the hissing of boiling water and white steam.

Two great, naked paddle-wheels were on the boat, one on each side near the middle. Fernando thought this must be the toy of which he had heard so much, being constructed by Robert Fulton and Chancellor Livingston.

On one side of the boat was painted the name _Clermont_.

"What is that?" Fernando asked of a rollicking, fun-loving young Irishman about twenty-two or three years of age, who stood near.

"Faith, sir, it's a steamboat. We have all come to see her launched.

They call her the _Clermont_; but it's mesilf as thinks she ought to be _Fulton's Folly_, for divil a bit do I believe she'll go a cable's length."

Fernando and his new acquaintance drew nearer. The hissing of the steam and the roaring of the furnaces were fearful.

"Do you know Robert Fulton?" Fernando asked.

"Indade, I do. Would you like to see the greatest lunatic out of Bedlam?

Then it's mesilf as will point him out to yez."

"I should like to see him."

There were a number of men at work on the boat, all expressing the wildest eagerness and anxiety. They were rus.h.i.+ng forward and aft, above and below, to those ponderous engines and boilers; but no one could see what they did. At last Mr. Fulton, the great inventor, appeared. He was a large, smooth-shaved gentleman, with a long head and melancholy gray eye. On his nose was a s.m.u.t spot from the machinery. Thousands were now a.s.sembled to witness the trial voyage. Mr. Livingston gave the order to cast off, and start the vessel. The lines were loosed and the steam turned on. Loud hissed the confined monster; but the wheels did not move. What was the matter?

"Failure!" was on every tongue, and the crowd a.s.sembled already began to hoot and jeer. Mr. Fulton's face expressed the deepest anxiety. He ran below to inspect the machinery. A bolt had caught. This was removed, and then the ponderous wheels began to move. The great paddles churned the water to a ma.s.s of foam, and the boat glided forward against wind and tide at a rate of speed astonis.h.i.+ng. Fernando saw Robert Livingston standing in the stern waving his handkerchief at the crowd which was now sending up cheer after cheer. The American flag was run up on the staff, and the steamboat continued on her course up the river to Albany, making the distance of one hundred and sixty miles in thirty-six hours against wind and tide; and from that time until now, navigation by steam, travel and commerce, has been steadily increasing in volume and perfection, until such vessels may be seen on every ocean and in almost every harbor of the globe, even among the ice packs of the polar seas. This was the second of the great and beneficent achievements which distinguished American inventors at that early period of our country's struggles. The cotton-gin, invented by Eli Whitney, was the first; an implement that could do the work of a thousand persons in cleaning cotton wool of the seeds. That machine has been one of the most important aids in the acc.u.mulation of our national wealth.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Fernando Stevens stood on the wharf among the a.s.sembled thousands, watching the steamer until it disappeared far up the river. He was lost in wonder and amazement and was first aroused from his reverie by the young man at his side saying:

"Don't she bate the divil?"

It was his skeptical Irish friend.

Fernando turned to him and asked, "What do you think of it now?"

"Faith, she's a bird, so she is. Don't she cleave the water?"

From this time, the two became acquainted, and Fernando learned that the young Hibernian's name was Terrence Malone. Terrence was a true Irishman of the good old type. He was brave as a lion, full of native wit and humor, and yet an intelligent gentleman. From the first, he took a great fancy to Fernando and when he learned that he had come from the West to enter some academy or college, he informed him that he knew of the place--the very place. It was the Baltimore Academy. He was a member of the Baltimore school himself and he was sure there was not another like it in the world. In short, the das.h.i.+ng young Irishman soon persuaded Fernando to try the Baltimore school.

He went back to the tavern where he had left Sukey writing letters.

"What was all that catterwaulin' and yellin' about down at the river?"

Sukey asked.

"The new steamboat began her trial trip," answered Fernando.

"Wonder if that thing I saw with a stovepipe in it was a steamboat?"

"It was."

Sukey shook his head sagely and remarked:

"It don't look as if it would ever amount to much."

"Sukey, I have found a school for us at last."