Inspired with the thought of saving his people from conquest by giving them the power of the pen, he took up his great work at the age of forty-nine, in the last year of Jefferson’s Presidency. Ceasing his labors as a silversmith, he began carving strange characters out of bark and spending hours wrapped in thought. His fellow tribesmen were unable to understand his singular behavior. They thought it but the work of madness for their great silversmith to lay aside his hammer and bellows, to quit his social circle, and of a sudden to become seclusive. Sequoyah, however, refused to reveal his secret, knowing full well the attitude of his fellow tribesmen in regard to the impossibility of discovering a supposedly supernatural power of the whites. His popularity suffered a quick decline, and his friends fell away like leaves from Autumn trees attempting to justify their actions by scoffing and sneering. Then Sequoyah began to taste in full measure the vinegar of derision and to learn that gratitude is but a lively sense of favors to come. Notwithstanding, he preserved the usual calm behavior and serenity of mind that had attended him from infancy, always turning from the storm without to the sunshine of hope within him. And after twelve years—years of persevering labor and repeated failure—years of ridicule in which his faith in his people must have been sorely tried—he perfected his remarkable invention of the Cherokee Alphabet. [Illustration: THE INVINCIBLE SEQUOIA The large fire-made cavity in the Haverford suggests the tree’s great vitality MARIPOSA GROVE Photo by H. S. Hoyt]