813. The promising career of the young doctor was cut short
by a sudden stroke, which overtook him as he held his infant son in
his arms. The plain, little one-and-a-half story house, in which the
boy first saw the light, suggests that the young physician had been
unable to provide for more than the bare necessities of his family.[4]

Soon after the death of Dr. Douglass, his widow removed to the farm
which she and her unmarried brother had inherited from her father. The
children grew to love this bachelor uncle with almost filial
affection. Too young to take thought for the morrow, they led the
wholesome, natural life of country children. Stephen went to the
district school on the Brandon turnpike, and had no reason to bemoan
the fate which left him largely dependent upon his uncle's generosity.
An old school-mate recalls young Douglass through the haze of years,
as a robust, healthy boy, with generous instincts though tenacious of
his rights.[5] After school hours work and play alternated. The
regular farm chores were not the least part in the youngster's
education; he learned to be industrious and not to despise honest
labor.[6]

This bare outline of a commonplace boyhood must be filled in with many
details drawn from environment. Stephen fell heir to a wealth of
inspiring local traditions. The fresh mountain breezes had also once
blown full upon the anxious faces of heroes and patriots; the quiet
valleys had once echoed with the noise of battle; this land of the
Green Mountains was the Wilderness of colonial days, the frontier for
restless New Englanders, where with good axe and stout heart they had
carved their home plots out of the virgin forest. Many a legend of
adventure, of border warfare, and of personal heroism, was still
current among the Green Mountain folk. Where was the Vermont lad who
did not fight over again the battles of Bennington, Ticonderoga, and
Plattsburg?

Other influences were scarcely less formative in the life of the
growing boy. Vermont was also the land of the town meeting. Whatever
may be said of the efficiency of town government, it was and is a
school of democracy. In Vermont it was the natural political
expression of social forces. How else, indeed, could the general will
find fit expression, except through the attrition of many minds? And
who could know better the needs of the community than the commonalty?
Not that men reasoned about the philosophy of their political
institutions: