night of consultation
with his brother, urged the old man to send Ezekiel to college also.
The fond and generous father replied, that he had but little property,
and it would take all that little to carry another son through college
to a profession; but he lived only for his children, and, for his own
part, he was willing to run the risk; but there was the mother and two
unmarried sisters, to whom the risk was far more serious. If they
consented, he was willing. The mother said:

"I have lived long in the world, and have been happy in my
children. If Daniel and Ezekiel will promise to take care of
me in my old age, I will consent to the sale of all our
property at once, and they may enjoy the benefit of that
which remains after our debts are paid."

Upon hearing this, all the family, we are told, were dissolved in
tears, and the old man gave his assent. This seems hard,--two stout
and vigorous young men willing to risk their aged parents' home and
dignity for such a purpose, or for any purpose! In the early days,
however, there was a singular unity of feeling and interest in a good
New England family, and there were opportunities for professional men
which rendered the success of two such lads as these nearly certain,
if they lived to establish themselves. Nevertheless, it was too much
to ask, and more than Daniel Webster would have asked if he had been
properly alive to the rights of others. Ezekiel shouldered his bundle,
trudged off to school, where he lived and studied at the cost of one
dollar a week, worked his way to the position of the second lawyer in
New Hampshire, and would early have gone to Congress but for his
stanch, inflexible Federalism.

Daniel Webster, schoolmaster and law-student, was assuredly one of the
most interesting of characters. Pinched by poverty, as he tells us,
till his very bones ached, eking out his income by a kind of labor
that he always loathed (copying deeds), his shoes letting in, not
water merely, but "pebbles and stones,"--father, brother, and himself
sometimes all moneyless together, all dunned at the same time, and
writing to one another for aid,--he was nevertheless as jovial a young
fellow as any in New England. How merry and affectionate his letters
to his young friends! He writes to one, soon after leaving college:

"You will naturally inquire how I prosper in the article of
cash; finely, finely! I came here in January with a horse,