they simply accepted them. And young Douglass grew up in
an atmosphere friendly to local self-government of an extreme type.

Stephen was nearing his fourteenth birthday, when an event occurred
which interrupted the even current of his life. His uncle, who was
commonly regarded as a confirmed old bachelor, confounded the village
gossips by bringing home a young bride. The birth of a son and heir
was the nephew's undoing. While the uncle regarded Stephen with
undiminished affection, he was now much more emphatically _in loco
parentis_. An indefinable something had come between them. The subtle
change in relationship was brought home to both when Stephen proposed
that he should go to the academy in Brandon, to prepare for college.
That he was to go to college, he seems to have taken for granted.
There was a moment of embarrassment, and then the uncle told the lad,
frankly but kindly, that he could not provide for his further
education. With considerable show of affection, he advised him to give
up the notion of going to college and to remain on the farm, where he
would have an assured competence. In after years the grown man related
this incident with a tinge of bitterness, averring that there had been
an understanding in the family that he was to attend college.[7]
Momentary disappointment he may have felt, to be sure, but he could
hardly have been led to believe that he could draw indefinitely upon
his uncle's bounty.

Piqued and somewhat resentful, Stephen made up his mind to live no
longer under his uncle's roof. He would show his spirit by proving
that he was abundantly able to take care of himself. Much against the
wishes of his mother, who knew him to be mastered by a boyish whim, he
apprenticed himself to Nahum Parker, a cabinet-maker in Middlebury.[8]
He put on his apron, went to work sawing table legs from two-inch
planks, and, delighted with the novelty of the occupation and
exhilarated by his newly found sense of freedom, believed himself on
the highway to happiness and prosperity. He found plenty of companions
with whom he spent his idle hours, young fellows who had a taste for
politics and who rapidly kindled in the newcomer a consuming
admiration for Andrew Jackson. He now began to read with avidity such
political works as came to hand. Discussion with his new friends and
with his employer, who was an ardent supporter of Adams and Clay,
whetted his appetite for more reading and study. In after years he wa