XIX. THE STRIPES AND THE STARS. EDNA DEAN PROCTOR. 1. O Star Spangled Banner! the flag of our pride! Though trampled by traitors, and basely defied, Fling out to the glad winds your Red, White, and Blue, For the heart of the North-land is beating for you! And her strong arm is nerving, to strike with a will, Till the foe and his boastings are humble and still! Here's welcome to wounding and combat and scars, And the glory of death-for the Stripes and the Stars! 2. From the prairie, O, plowman! speed boldly away,There's seed to be sown in God's furrows to-day; Row landward, lone fisher! Stout woodman, come home! Let smith leave his anvil, and weaver his loom; And hamlet and city ring loud with the cry, "For God and our country we'll fight till we die!" Here's welcome to wounding and combat and scars, And the glory of death-for the Stripes and the Stars! 3. Invincible banner! the flag of the free! Then forward! the fame of our standard to share! 4. O, God of our fathers! this banner must shine O lead us till wide from the gulf to the sea, The land shall be sacred to Freedom and Thee! XX.-ELI WHITNEY. HORACE GREELEY. 1. Eli Whitney, a native of Westborough, Worcester county, Massachusetts, born December 8, 1765, was descended, on both sides, from ancestors of English stock, who dated their immigration from the old country, nearly back to the memorable voyage of the Mayflower! They were generally farmers, and, like most farmers of those days, in very moderate circumstances. Eli's father, poor, industrious, and ingenious, had a workshop, wherein he devoted the inclement season to the making of wheels and chairs. Here the son early developed a remarkable ingenuity and mechanical skill; establishing, when only fifteen years of age, the manufacture by hand of wrought nails, for which there was, in those later years of our revolutionary struggle, a demand at high prices. 2. Though he had had no instruction in nail-making, and his few implements were of the rudest description, he pursued his business through two winters with profit to his father, devoting the summers, as before and afterward, to the labors. of the farm. After the close of the war, his nails being no longer in demand, he engaged in the manufacture of the pins then in fashion for fastening ladies' bonnets, and nearly monopolized the market, through the excellence of his product. Walking canes were also among his winter manufactures, and were esteemed peculiarly well made and handsome. Meantime he continued the devotion of his summers to the labors of the farm, attending the common school of his district through its winter session, and being therein noted for devotion to, and eminent skill in, arithmetic. 3. At fourteen he resolved to obtain a liberal education, but it was not until he had reached the mature age of twentythree that he was enabled to enter college. By turns laboring with his hands and teaching school, he obtained the means of prosecuting his studies in Yale, which he entered in May, 1789. He borrowed some money to aid him in his progress, giving his note therefor, and paying it as soon as he could. On the decease of his father, some years afterward, he took an active part in settling the estate, but relinquished his portion to his co-heirs. It is scarcely probable that the amount he thus sacrificed was large, but the generous spirit he evinced is not thereby obscured. 4. While in college, his natural superiority in mechanism, and proclivity to invention, were frequently manifested. On one occasion, a tutor regretted to his pupils that he could not exhibit a desired philosophical experiment, because the apparatus was out of order, and could only be repaired in Europe. Young Whitney thereupon proposed to undertake the repair, and made it to perfect satisfaction. At another time he asked permission to use, at intervals, the tools of a carpenter who worked near his boarding place; but the careful mechanic declined to trust them in the hands of a student, unless the gentleman with whom Mr. W. boarded would become responsible for their safe return. The guarantee was given, and Mr. Whitney took the tools in hand, when the carpenter, surprised at his dexterity, exclaimed, "There was one good mechanic spoiled when you went to college." 5. Mr. Whitney graduated in the fall of 1792, and directly engaged with Mr. B., from Georgia, to proceed to that state, and reside in his employer's family as a private teacher. On his way thither, he had, as a traveling companion, Mrs. Greene, widow of the eminent Revolutionary general, Nathaniel Greene, who was returning with her family to Savannah, after spending the summer at the north. His health being infirm, on his arrival at Savannah, Mrs. Greene kindly invited him to the hospitalities of her residence, until he should become fully restored. Short of money and in a land of strangers, he was coolly informed by his employer that his services were not required, he (B.) having employed another teacher in his stead. Mrs. Greene hereupon urged him to make her house his home, so long as that should be desirable, and pursue, under her roof, the study of the law, which he then contemplated. He gratefully accepted the offer, and commenced the study accordingly. 6 Mrs. Greene happened to be engaged in embroidering on a peculiar frame, known as a tambour. It was badly constructed, so that it injured the fabric while it impeded its production. Mr. Whitney eagerly volunteered to make her a better, and did so, on a plan wholly new, to her great delight and that of her children. 7. A large party of Georgians, from Augusta and the plantations above, soon after paid Mrs. G. a visit, several of them being officers who had served under her husband in the Revolutionary war. Among the topics discussed by them around her fireside was the depressed state of agriculture, and the impossibility of profitably extending the culture of the greenseed cotton, because of the trouble and expense incurred in separating the seed from the fiber. These representations impelled Mrs. Greene to say, "Gentlemen, apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney; he can make anything." She thereupon took them into an adjacent room, where she showed them her tambour-frame, and several ingenious toys which Mr. W. had made for the gratification of her children. She then introduced them to Whitney himself, extolling his genius and commending him to their confidence and friendship. In the conversation which ensued, he observed that he had never seen cotton nor cotton-seed in his life. 8. Mr. Whitney promised nothing and gave little encourage ment, but went to work. No cotton in the seed being at hand, he went to Savannah and searched there among ware-houses and boats, until he found a small parcel. This he carried home, and secluded with himself in a basement room, where he set himself at work to devise and construct the implement required. Tools being few and rude, he was constrained to make better, drawing his own wire, because none could, at that time, be bought in the city of Savannah. Mrs. Greene and her next friend, Mr. Miller, whom she soon after married. were the only persons, beside himself, who were allowed the entree of his workshop,—in fact, the only ones who clearly knew what he was about. His mysterious hammering and tinkering in that solitary cell were subjects of infinite curiosity, marvel, and ridicule among the younger members of the family. But he did not interfere with their merriment, nor allow them to interfere with his enterprise; and, before the close of the winter, his machine was so nearly perfected that its success was no longer doubtful. 9. Mrs. Greene, too eager to realize and enjoy her friend's triumph, in view of the existing stagnation of Georgian industry, invited an assemblage, to her house, of leading gentlemen from various parts of the state, and, on the first day after their meeting, conducted them to a temporary building, erected for the machine, in which they saw, with astonishment and delight, that one man with Whitney's invention could separate more cotton from the seed, in a single day, than he could without it by the labor of months. |