The father was absent from home, also, on more important errands. When the news of the battle of Bunker Hill thrilled the colonies, Captain Webster, who had won his title in the earlier wars, raised a company, and at once started for the scene of action. He fought at Bennington under Stark, being the first to scale the Tory breastworks, at White Plains, and was at West Point when Arnold attempted to surrender it to the British. He stood guard before General Washington's headquarters, the night of Arnold's treason. No wonder, when Washington looked upon the robust form nearly six feet high, with black hair and eyes, and firm decisive manner, he said, "Captain Webster, I believe I can trust _you_." And so thought the people of New Hampshire, for they made him a member of both Houses of the State Legislature at various times, and a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in his own county. The delicate boy Daniel was unable to work on the farm like his brother Ezekiel, two years older, but found his pleasure and pastime in reading, and in studying nature. The home, "Elms Farm," as it was called later, from the elms about it, was in a valley at a bend of the Merrimac. From here the boy gazed upon Mount Kearsarge, and Mount Washington, the king of the White Mountain peaks, and if he did not dream of what the future had in store for him, he grew broad in soul from such surroundings. Great mountains, great reaches of sea or plain, usually bring great thoughts and plans to those who view them with a loving heart. Daniel had little opportunity for schooling in those early years. He says, in his autobiography, "I do not remember when or by whom I was taught to read, because I cannot, and never could, recollect a time when I could not read the Bible. I suppose I was taught by my mother, or by my elder sisters. My father seemed to have no higher object in the world than to educate his children to the full extent of his very limited ability. No means were within his reach, generally speaking, but the small town-schools. These were kept by teachers, sufficiently indifferent, in the several neighborhoods of the township, each a small part of the year. To these I was sent with the other children.... In these schools nothing was taught but reading and writing; and as to these, the first I generally could perform better than the teacher, and the last a good master could hardly instruct me in; writing was so laborious, irksome, and repulsive an occupation to me always."