GOOD STORIES
FOR GREAT BIRTHDAYS

GOOD STORIES
FOR GREAT BIRTHDAYS

ARRANGED FOR STORY-TELLING AND READING
ALOUD AND FOR THE CHILDREN’S
OWN READING

BY

FRANCES JENKINS OLCOTT

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

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BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge


COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY FRANCES JENKINS OLCOTT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.


GRATEFULLY DEDICATED

TO

FRANCES MARY JENKINS OLCOTT
January 25

FOREWORD

So most of the tales presented here are ones of personality, human and alive. They are full of action. Many of them relate deeds of courage, kindness, self-sacrifice, and perseverance. They are of just the right length to read aloud or tell without fatiguing the children. They deal scarcely at all with battle, murder, or sudden death. They stress the intimate, human side of our Patriots, the side not often found in textbooks.

SOME OF OUR HEROES

Here are stories of Washington, Hamilton, John Adams, and John Marshall showing them not cold and wooden, but warm and vital; also tales of great-hearted Lincoln, and of America’s very human hero, Roosevelt.

And exceedingly human, too, are Light Horse Harry, the Sage of Monticello, Old Hickory, Brother Jonathan, Old Put, and the Great Commoner, who, with words as powerful as sword-strokes, fought America’s battles.

Among the women, the mothers and wives helping to win the Wars for Independence in both North and South America, are Mary and Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, Andrew Jackson’s mother, the mother of John Marshall, and the wife of San Martin.

And the children of our foreign born, with how much greater pride may they say, “We are Americans!” when they read about Lafayette, Kosciuszko, Steuben, Haym Salomon, Pulaski, De Kalb, and Irish Moll Pitcher. Then, of course, Columbus the Italian is here, sailing under the gold and crimson banner of Spain.

Our school children, too, may be surprised to learn, that there are 20 robust American Republics to the south of us, with aspirations like our own, and having devoted Patriots. Among their national heroes, are Miranda “the Flaming Son of Liberty,” San Martin the great and good, Bolivar the brilliant and victorious, O’Higgins the soldier-citizen, and Brazil’s patriot Emperor, Dom Pedro the magnanimous.

All Spanish accents have been omitted—as is sometimes done in English books—so that the names of South American Patriots may not seem strange and foreign to our school children.

NO HISTORICAL FICTION

There is no historical fiction here. The larger number of the stories are original, written purposely for this volume. Every detail is historical, and every conversation is based on an authority.

A partial list of the histories and biographies consulted while writing the stories, may be found on page xiv. When historians have not agreed as to dates and facts, the most reliable sources have been followed.

Of the stories attributed to authors, some have been recast to meet the requirements of storytelling; others are given verbatim. This provides a selection of tales varied both in style and in treatment. Some of the tales are for children, and some for young people. The book may be useful in all Grades.

No living Americans are celebrated. Those whose birthdays are kept, have passed into history. And since one small volume cannot hold stories about all of our Patriots, a careful selection has been made of tales about Americans whose contributions to the founding of free Government are of vital importance. It is deeply regretted that lack of space precludes the use of other birthdays. Because of copyright restrictions, the Roosevelt section is somewhat limited.

A number of well-known tales which are omitted, may be found in Good Stories for Great Holidays.

TEACHING AMERICAN SOLIDARITY

In as far as possible, all tales of sectional differences, of political animosities, and of civil strife, have been avoided. The emphasis in this book is upon American Solidarity.

Pioneers of progress inevitably arouse bitter antagonists. It would require a large volume indeed, to treat of the derogatory statements and written attacks which have been levelled at most of the men whose birthdays we are celebrating. We know that Columbus suffered severely from attacks by enemies, that Washington was one of the “most vilified of men,” and that Lincoln’s detractors were merciless. To-day we may perceive the process of vilification still going on around us. Happily, time has shown that much of the detraction of the past was public slander and clamour, and has consigned it to the rubbish heap of history. In a book of this kind, detractions have little or no place; and it is against the good sense of the best educational principles, to impress the children’s plastic minds with such matters. When the children are older, they will be better able to judge of them intelligently.

HELPFUL TO TEACHERS

May it be said right here, with emphasis, that this book is not intended to take the place of suitable biographies of the men whose birthdays we are celebrating. Entertaining, lively tales should, on the contrary, lead boys and girls to want to know more about their favourite heroes. And the teacher may use these short stories not merely to illustrate American history textbooks, but to strengthen the children’s love of Country, to teach them the meaning of American Unity, and to give them a more intelligent reverence for the Constitution.

To aid the teacher and story-teller there is appended on pages 465-483 a Subject Index, by means of which any story on a given topic may be quickly found. The Study Programmes, on pages 451-462, are chronologically arranged to illustrate the day’s lesson.

FOR MOTHERS, ALSO

But above all else, may this book, day by day, help mothers and educators to bring to the children’s remembrance on these great birthdays, something of the devotion, the patience, the sufferings, and the personal sacrifice of the noble men, who, under the good hand of God, laid the foundations of American Liberty and Self-Government.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgments are due the following Publishers and Authors, for material from their books:—

To Houghton Mifflin Company for material from books by Edward Arber, Albert J. Beveridge, John Fiske, Henry Cabot Lodge, John T. Morse, James Parton, James B. Thayer, William Roscoe Thayer, and John Greenleaf Whittier.

To the New York Evening Post for stories written for its columns by the author of this book.

To the New York Times for “A Lock of Washington’s Hair,” by T. R. Ybarra.

To D. Appleton and Company for extracts from the Poems of William Cullen Bryant, and material from William Spence Robertson’s Rise of the Spanish-American Republics.

To Charles Scribner’s Sons for material from Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography.

To Harr Wagner Publishing Company, San Francisco, California, publishers of the complete works of Joaquin Miller, for permission to use his Columbus.

To J. B. Lippincott Company for material from Charles Morris’s Heroes of Progress.

To Lothrop, Lee, and Shepard Company for “Nellie and Little Washington,” from Harriet Taylor Upton’s Our Early Presidents, their Wives and Children.

To the Missionary Education Movement for “Dom Pedro,” from Margarette Daniels’s Makers of South America.

To the Macmillan Company for material from James Morgan’s Theodore Roosevelt, the Boy and the Man.

To Dr. Sherman Williams for “The Boy of the Hurricane,” from his New York’s Part in History, published by D. Appleton and Company.

To Mr. Wayne Whipple for “The Little Girl and the Red Coats,” from his Story-Life of Washington, published by John C. Winston Company.

To the Brooklyn Public Library, Montague Branch, for the use of its remarkably fine collection of volumes on early American history, many of which are rare and out of print.

To the Staff of the Brooklyn Public Library, Montague Branch, for most helpful co-operation.

. . . . . . . . . .

As this book of Great Birthdays was several years in the making, it is not possible to cite the many authorities, histories, and biographies which have been consulted. The following titles may give some idea of the kind of research work done, in order to make Great Birthdays of value in teaching American History:—

Fiske, American Revolution; Garden, Ancedotes of the Revolutionary War; Green, Short History of the English People; Journals of the Continental Congress; Lossing, Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution; Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution; Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, with other Original Documents (Hakluyt Society); Memorials of Columbus ... translated from the Spanish and Italian; Lives of Columbus by Irving, Lamartine, and Winsor; Story of the Pilgrim Fathers (Arber Reprint); Mourt’s Relation; Old South Leaflets; George Washington, Journal of my Journey over the Mountains, also his Writings; Ford, Washington and the Theatre; George Washington Parke Custis, Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington, by his Adopted Son; Headley, Illustrated Life of George Washington; Irving, Life of Washington; Lossing, Mary and Martha, the Mother and the Wife of George Washington; Lodge, George Washington, (American Statesmen Series); John Paul Jones’s Letters, also lives of him by De Koven, Headley, and Mackenzie; Lives of William Penn, by Dixon, Hodges, Janney, Stoughton; Lives of John Marshall, and addresses in his memory, by Beveridge, Binney, Flanders, Rawle, Sallie E. Marshal Hardy (in The Green Bag), Justice Story, and Chief Justice Waite; Peters, Haym Salomon; Franklin’s Autobiography; Humphreys, Life of the Honourable Major General Israel Putnam (material obtained largely from Putnam himself); Jonathan Trumbull, Governor of Connecticut, by his descendant Jonathan Trumbull; correspondence, diaries, and speeches of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Abigail Adams, Patrick Henry, Jefferson, Lafayette, Pitt, Lincoln, and Webster.

In writing the South American stories, the following have been most useful: Biggs, History of Don Francisco de Miranda’s Attempt to Effect a Revolution in South America; Palacio Fajardo, Outline of the Revolution in Spanish America; Encyclopedia of Latin America; Koebel, British Exploits in South America, also his South America; Captain Basil Hall, Extracts from a Journal; Larrazábal, Simón Bolivar; Mahoney, Campaigns and Cruises in Venezuela and New Grenada; Mehegan, O’Higgins of Chile; General Miller, Memoirs in the Service of the Republic of Peru; Bartolomé Mitre, Emancipation of South America; Pan-American Union, Bulletin; Petre, Simón Bolivar; Robertson, Rise of the Spanish-American Republics, also his Francisco de Miranda (American Historical Association); Smith, History of the Adventures and Sufferings of Moses Smith; also a number of volumes of travel including Lord Bryce, South America; and Winter, Argentina, and Chile.

CONTENTS