Lives of Poor Boys Who Became FamousBolton, Sarah Knowles
History
Lives of Poor Boys Who Became Famous
Bolton, Sarah Knowles
Biography
People from the neighboring towns visited Oullins, and pointed out with
pride the noble old man at eighty-four, sitting by his garden-wall,
dressed like a workman in his long black tunic, but wearing his broad
red ribbon with his cross of honor. Illustrious travellers and statesmen
visited him whose fame was now spread through Europe and America.
Toinette, a faithful servant who had known and loved Claudine, watched
over the pure-hearted Jacquard till death came, Aug. 7, 1834. Six years
after, Lyons, which once broke his machine and nearly killed him, raised
a beautiful statue of him in the public square. The more than seventy
thousand looms in the city, employing two hundred thousand workmen, are
grander monuments even than the statue. The silk-weavers are better
housed and fed than formerly. The struggling, self-sacrificing man, who
might have been immensely rich as well as famous, was an untold blessing
to labor and to the world.
HORACE GREELEY.
Among the hills of New Hampshire, in a lonely, unpainted house, Horace
Greeley was born, Feb. 3, 1811, the third of seven children. His father
was a plain farmer, hard-working, yet not very successful, but aided by
a wife of uncommon energy and good spirits, notwithstanding her many
cares. Besides her housework, and spinning, and making the children's
clothes, she hoed in the garden, raked and loaded hay to help her
husband, laughing and singing all day long, and telling her feeble
little son, Horace, stories and legends all the evening. Her first two
children having died, this boy was especially dear. Mrs. Greeley was a
great reader of such books as she could obtain, and remembered all she
read. It requires no great discernment to see from whence Horace Greeley
derived his intense love for reading, and his boundless energy.
[Illustration: HORACE GREELEY.]
He learned to read, one can scarcely tell how. When two years old, he
would pore over the Bible, as he lay on the floor, and ask questions
about the letters; at three, he went to the "district school," often
carried through the deep snow on the shoulders of one of his aunts, or
on the back of an older boy. He soon stood at the head of his little
class in spelling and reading, "and took it so much to heart when he did
happen to lose his place, that he would cry bitterly; so that some boys,
when they had gained the right to get above him, declined the honor,
because it hurt Horace's feelings so."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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