-ger than they;
and so strong was he, or read-y to knock a boy down for a real or a
fan-cied wrong, that they soon found it best to give him his own way,
and let him take his place as lead-er a-mong them; when he was at the
head all went well.

He was just nine years old when the Dec-la-ra-tion of In-de-pend-ence
was signed, and then came four years of war with Eng-land. In 1780 this
war was car-ried into the South, and on May 29th a number of Brit-ish
sol-diers un-der Colo-nel Tarle-ton killed and wounded over 200 of the
men and boys from the Wax-haw set-tle-ments. A-mong those who helped
to care for the hurt and dy-ing men were Mrs. Jack-son and her boys.
An-drew was on-ly four-teen when he fell in-to the hands of the
Brit-ish, and he, with o-ver one hun-dred sick and dy-ing men, was kept
for days in a dir-ty pen, with no beds, lit-tle to eat and on-ly stale
wa-ter to drink. To make things worse, small-pox broke out and An-drew
was one of those who had it. His brave moth-er was at last a-ble to free
him, and it was ow-ing to her lov-ing care that he did not die at this
aw-ful time.

[Illustration: ANDREW JACKSON.]

Af-ter he was well e-nough to be left, his moth-er, who was ver-y sor-ry
for the poor A-mer-ican sol-diers, went to Charles-ton to take care of
those who were sick and wound-ed here. Just as she had be-gun her no-ble
work she was ta-ken sick and died.

Soon af-ter her death came the good news of peace; and now young An-drew
be-gan to pay some heed to his books, with the hope of stud-y-ing law.
He al-so taught school for a while, though he could not have been a
ver-y good teach-er, for he nev-er learned how to spell ver-y well
him-self. Still, in 1787, we find he has learned e-nough to take up the
prac-tice of law, and he be-gan this work in Nash-ville, Ten-nes-see;
and now we see the boy who had been the lead-er in boy-ish sports, games
and fights, be-come at once a lead-er a-mong men. He was tall and quite
good look-ing, with bright blue eyes and red-dish hair, and he was
full of fun and life; he rode horse-back well, and knew how to shoot
straight; and a-bove all he was a brave man, a-fraid of noth-ing.

In 1788 he was giv-en a place in which he had to try for the State all
men who had done wrong and it need-ed, in those wild days and in that
new land, a brave man for such a work, for he would make ma-ny foes,
both a-mong the bad white men and the In-di-ans. His work took him from
Nash-ville to Jone