Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/403

 one hand and held a book in the other. Every penny he could earn he laid by for his great object. His sister, fired with the same ambition, underwent incredible toil and privations to add to his funds. At last their combined pittances were just sufficient to get him into Exeter—the nearest good school he could find.

By this time he was noticeably older than most of his fellow students. He was noticeable also for his strong spectacles, of an unusual pattern—close study under the worst conditions having already overstrained his eyes. He was further remembered from the hard shifts to which he was reduced by his poverty. He shared a small garret with two other boys, up under the rafters of the humblest boarding-house in town. He swept the Academy floors, and, like Jared Sparks before him, he rang the Academy bell. He obtained help from a scholarship, or “went on the foundation.” The masters liked him, for when the spirit of mischief was abroad he stood for the honor and good name of the school. The boys liked him too, for he had a keen sense of fun and a big rousing laugh. He was elected a member of the famous old literary and debating society, the Golden Branch, and in 1847 became its president. Though a hard student he was not a brilliant one. He possessed, as he afterwards said of himself, “the virtues of a slow mind.” Yet in two years he had fitted for college—