It is a favorite theme with biographers to dwell on parental precepts, especially on those of the mother. We have no anecdotes of this period, but we may yield to a happy idea, and imagine young Williams listening to the accents of a mother's lip, with the true deference which he always paid to goodness. We may see him, among his little playmates on his father's farm, already showing those traits of character, which guided him in the path to honor: that love of truth, that physical and moral courage, which won in time the confidence of his great commander-in-chief, who had himself early shone in the same qualities. We may picture him crossing the fields, at early morning hours, to the rustic school, there to recite the simple lesson, and to be instructed in his mother tongue, which he afterwards used with the grace of a scholar. But the sunshine of his boyhood was soon clouded--his father, Joseph Williams, died, leaving but a small property to seven children; and Otho at the age of thirteen, was thrown upon his own exertions. He was placed with his brother-in-law, Mr. Ross, in the Clerk's Office of Frederick county. Here he remained several years, diligently occupied in studying the duties of the bureau, and when he was duly qualified, took charge of it himself, for a while, until removed to a similar situation in Baltimore. It was in this vocation that he acquired those habits of regularity and method, which were so signally manifested when called to situations of the highest trust. His appearance at this time, when about eighteen years of age, is thus described by his friend and fellow-soldier, Gen. Samuel Smith: "He was," says the writer, "about six feet high, elegantly formed; his whole appearance and conduct much beyond his years; his manner, such as made friends of all who knew him." Thus does he appear before us, while to use Burke's apt expression, he was yet in the gristle, and had not hardened into the bone of manhood. But he was already a man in his high sense of honor, his unsullied integrity, and the polish of his address: if he had not won laurels, he had acquired the esteem of the worthy.