Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/155

 136 FAMOUS LIVING AMERICANS village of Hunting^n nine miles away to carry down the products of the hills or to bring back merchandise for his father's store, for in connection with their farm the father also was the village storekeeper. The road from South Worthington to Huntington winds down the mountain by the side of a brook which makes its descent over sharp declivities, around huge boulders, through quiet pools where even now the deer come down to drink, and ever under overarching trees, until the brook meets the river half way down, and the road continues along the banks of the beautiful shallow West- field until it flows through the town of Hunting^n. On one of these early journeys in the solitude of the woods, the boy was rehearsing an oration. The old horse was jogging along half asleep. He was used to these rehearsals but suddenly he heard ^^Woe unto thee, Chorazin!" He did not know before he was a Chorazin, but he had been called all sorts of things ; so an extra name or two did not matter. He did know what whoa meant; and his sudden stop brought true woe for the youthful orator, who went headlong over the dashboard, land- ing on a sharp stone. The mark of this oration he stiU carries. Now the youthful orator, who had a theatrical bee humming in his head, had to go home, have his head sewed up, and, what was far worse, own up in the village store what had happened. Village stores are good places for curing oversensitive nerves. This experience put an end to his the- atrical ambitions and taught him a lesson in effective speech. The boy had learned to play a violin, or, as it was better known in his community, a fiddle. He loved to sing, and when the first melodeons were sold in these hills, his parents, at considerable sacrifice to themselves, bought one. He learned to play. He could not foresee what this gift was going to mean to him again and again in later years. The boy felt that he must go to college, as he had decided to be a lawyer ; so from the village school he went some miles away to Wilbraham Academy, a well-known academy of the Methodist church. He could work his way through, partly by fiddling for village dances, partly by teaching music, and partly by even humbler services. At Wilbraham his interest