Chapter 53

THE SOLDIER SCHOOL-MASTER.

From boy to man.--The Lyceum debate.--Willard speaks for the slave.--Entrance to the State Normal School.--Reverses.--Fighting the world again.--Assistance from fair hands.--Willard meets Allen Barringer.--John Brown, and what Willard thought of him.--Principles above bribe.--Examination.--A sleepless night.--Haunted by the "ghost of possible defeat."--"Here is your certificate."--The school at Schodack Centre.--At the "Normal" again.--The Edwards School.--Thirty pupils at two dollars each.--The "soldier school-master."--Teaches at East Schodack.--The runaway ride.--Good-by mittens, robes and whip!--Close of school at East Schodack.

Although a very boy in years, young Glazier felt himself already stepping upon the boundary line of manhood and, luckily for his future welfare, comprehended the manifold dangers and mentally realized the responsibilities which attend that phase of human existence.

Upon the fifth of February, 1857, the dull routine of a teacher's duty was varied by a visit made to Edwards by Willard's uncle Joseph, and his sisters; and, after closing his school, the former went home with his visitors, and thence to a Lyceum which had been established in the Herrick School District, where a debate was in progress as to the relative importance, in a humanitarian point of view, of the bondage of the African race in the Southern States, or the decadence of the Indian tribes under the encroachments of the Whites. The "question" assumed that the Aborigines were most worthy of sympathy; and young Glazier, being invited to participate in the discussion, accepted, and spoke upon the negative side of the question.

He little dreamed upon that winter's night, when, in the small arena of a village debating-club, he stood up as the champion of the slave, that the day was not far distant when he would ride rowel-deep in carnage upon battle-fields which war's sad havoc had made sickening, fighting for the same cause in whose behalf he now so eloquently spoke.

No prophetic vision of what fate held in store for him appeared to the ardent boy, speaking for those who could not rise from the darkness of their bondage to speak for themselves. No glimpse of weary months dragged out in Confederate prisons--of hair-breadth escapes from dangers dread and manifold--of hiding in newly-dug graves made to assist the flight of the living, not to entomb the dead--of lying in jungles and cypress-swamps while fierce men and baffled hounds were panting for his blood--of vicissitudes and perils more like the wild creations of some fevered dream than the plain and unvarnished reality: nothing of all this came before him to trouble his young hopes or cloud his bright anticipations of the future.

He spoke of freedom, and had never seen a slave. He pictured the cruelty of the lash used in a Christian land on Christian woman, be she black or white. He spoke of the deeper wrong of tearing the new-born babe from its mother's breast to sell it by the pound--of dragging the woman herself from the father of her child and compelling her to mate with other men--of the fact that such wrongs were not alone the offspring of cruel hearts, nor of brutal owners, but arose from the mere operation of barbarous laws where masters, if left to themselves, would have been most kind. He spoke of such things as these, and yet he never dreamed that his words were but the precursors of deeds that would make mere words seem spiritless and tame.

Young Glazier spoke well. The little magnates of the place,--the older men, after this, talked of him as of one likely to rise, to become a man of note, and their manner grew more respectful towards the young school-master. His occupations and amusements at this period of his existence, though simple in their character, were considerably varied.

Among other entries in his journal about this date, is one that so commends itself by its brevity and comprehensiveness that I quote it _verbatim_.

"Having," he says, "received an invitation upon the twenty-fourth of December, I attended a party at the residence of Jeptha Clark, whose excellent wife received me very kindly; upon Christmas day I visited T. L. Turnbull's school at Fullerville; upon Monday last called at Mr. Austin's school in the Herrick District; Tuesday, dropped down for a moment upon the students at Gouverneur; on Wednesday, returned home; and on Thursday, for the greater part of the day, assisted uncle Joseph in hauling wood from the swamps on the Davis Place."

Thus the time slipped rapidly by and his first term of teaching drew to a close. In the spring of 1859 he again became a member of the Gouverneur Wesleyan Seminary, and in May of that year, made the following characteristic entry in his diary:

"'Order is Heaven's first law.' A time and place for everything, and everything in its time and place, was the rule of conduct I adopted some time ago. In accordance with this determination I have laid out the following routine of occupation for each day. I intend to abide by it during the present term. I will retire at ten o'clock P. M., rise each morning at five o'clock, walk and exercise until six, then return to my room, breakfast and read history until eight, then repeat what the English call a 'constitutional,' viz.: another walk until prayers, devoting the time intervening between prayers and recitation, to Algebra. After recitation, I will study Geometry for three-quarters of an hour, Latin for half an hour, and be ready for recitation again at two o'clock. This will complete my regular course of study, and, by carrying out this routine, I can dine at noon, and also have a considerable amount of time for miscellaneous reading and writing, to say nothing of my Saturdays, upon which I can review the studies of the week."

To this plan young Glazier adhered conscientiously, and hence made rapid progress and very soon found himself in a condition to take another forward step in the pathway of learning. That step was the entrance to the State Normal School at Albany. To go to West Point and receive the military training which our government benevolently bestows upon her sons at that institution, had been his pet ambition for years--the scheme towards which all his energies were bent. But failing in this, his next choice was the Normal School. Accordingly, on a certain September afternoon in 1859, he found himself in the capital city of the Empire State, knocking for admission at the doors of the Normal School. He was alone and among strangers in a great city, with a purse containing the sum of eight dollars! For a course of seven or eight months instruction this was certainly a modest estimate of expenses! In fact, young Glazier had based his financial arrangements on a miscalculation of the amount furnished by the State. He did not then know that the only provision made by the body politic was for mileage, tuition and text-books. But on Monday morning, September seventeenth, 1859, he signed his name to the Normal pledge, and at the conclusion of the examination--which continued until September twenty-third--was assigned to the Junior Class--there being at that time four classes: the Senior and sub-Senior, Junior and sub-Junior.

The next step was to find lodgings at a weekly or monthly price more suited to his means than those which he had temporarily taken at the Adams House on his arrival there the previous evening. Always frugal in regard to his personal expenditures, he knew that, in order to eke out the full term with his scanty resources, he must carry his habitual thrift to its fullest extent. He therefore scoured the town for apartments, aided by references from Professor Cochran, principal of the Normal, and finally obtained a room on Lydius street, almost within shadow of the Cathedral, and at the certainly reasonable rate of "six shillings per week." This room he shared with Alexander S. Hunter, from Schoharie County, and a member of the sub-Senior Class. For several weeks the young students boarded at this place, buying what food they required, which the landlady cooked for them free of charge. Seventy-five cents a week paid for their cooking and rent!

But even this small outlay soon exhausted the meagre resources of young Glazier and, at the end of the time mentioned, he went over into Rensselaer County, to look up a school, in order to replenish his well-nigh empty purse, and to enable him to continue in his efforts to acquire an education. It was a bright clear morning in November when he left his boarding-place on Lydius street in quest of his self-appointed work, and, crossing the Hudson on a ferry-boat, walked all the way to Nassau by the Bloomingdale Road--a distance of sixteen miles. His object was to find Allen Barringer, School Commissioner for Rensselaer County, who, as he had been told, lived somewhere near Nassau. On the way to that village he passed two or three schools, concerning which he made inquiries, with a view to engaging some one of them on his return to Albany should he be so successful as to obtain a certificate from Mr. Barringer. At about two o'clock in the afternoon of this, to him, eventful day, young Glazier had arrived at the residence of Harmon Payne, near East Schodack, or "Scott's Corners," as it was sometimes called. He had been referred to this gentleman as one likely to assist him in his endeavors to obtain a school. He had eaten nothing since morning, and, having walked a distance of nearly sixteen miles, as may be imagined, was somewhat faint and hungry. But the good wife of Mr. Payne showed herself not lacking in the kindly courtesy belonging to a gentlewoman, and, with true hospitality, placed before the young Normal student a delicious repast of bread and honey.

To this youthful wayfarer, with a purse reduced to a cypher, and struggling over the first rough places in the pathway of life, the simple meal was like manna in the wilderness. After chatting pleasantly with the family for an hour or more, he started again on his journey. But this time not alone; for Mr. Payne very kindly sent his niece with the boy teacher, in whom he had become so much interested, to show him a shorter route "across lots" to East Schodack. This village, two miles farther on, by the traveled highway, was only three-quarters of a mile distant by a pathway leading across the pasture lands of some adjoining farms. In the fading November afternoon the young lady and her _protege_ walked together to East Schodack--a walk which young Willard never forgot, and out of which afterwards grew a fairy fabric of romantic regard glittering with all the rainbow hues of boyish sentiment, and falling collapsed in the after-crash of life, like many another soap-bubble experience of first young days.

But he did not succeed, at that time, in securing the East Schodack School, as he had hoped to do. Nothing daunted, however, he trod reverses under foot and pushed on towards the residence of the School Commissioner whose _ipse dixit_ was to award him success or failure.

Allen Barringer lived one mile from the village of Nassau, in Rensselaer County, and it was nearly nightfall when, with an anxious heart and weary with the day's journey, he knocked at the door of the comfortable country residence which had been pointed out to him as the one belonging to the School Commissioner. That gentleman himself came to the door in answer to his knock, and upon Willard's inquiry for Mr. Barringer replied:

"I am Mr. Barringer, sir; what can I do for you?"

His manner was so pleasant and his face so genial that young Glazier, at once reassured, had no difficulty in making known his business.

"I have come out here from Albany," said he, "to see if I could pass examination for a certificate, to teach in your district."

"Well, come in, come in," said Mr. Barringer, cordially, "and I will see what I can do for you. You are not going back to Albany to-night?" he asked.

"No, I shall not be able to do so," replied Willard.

"Have you friends or relatives here with whom you intend to stay?"

"No, sir."

"Then I shall be glad to have you stop with us to-night. I am a young man like yourself, living at home here with my parents, as you see; I am fond of company, and will be happy to place my room at your disposal. And as there will be no hurry about the examination, we will talk more about it after supper."

Young Glazier thanked his host for the kind proffer of entertainment, and of course acquiesced in the arrangement.

Accordingly, after the physical man had been refreshed at a well-spread supper-table, Mr. Barringer conducted his young guest to his own apartments, where they drew their easy-chairs before a comfortable fire, and entered into conversation.

"I am considerably interested in politics just now," said Mr. Barringer, and then he asked abruptly, "what is your opinion of John Brown?"

At this time the first red flash of the war that swiftly followed, had glowered athwart the political horizon, in the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry, and against this lurid background the figure of the stern old man stood out in strong relief. It was at the period when, shut up in prison, he was writing those heroic words to his wife, those loving words of farewell to his children; when petitions poured in pleading for his life--though they were petitions all in vain--and when, naturally, partisan feeling on the subject was at its height. Willard felt that in expressing his candid convictions he might be treading on dangerous ground, and perhaps endangering his chances for success, yet he held principle so high, and honest sentiment so far above bribe, that if his certificate had depended on it he would not have hesitated to express his admiration for the brave old man who laid down his life for the slave, and whose name has since been crowned with the immortelles of fame. Therefore Willard replied with a frankness worthy of emulation that he looked upon John Brown as a conscientious, earnest, devoted man--a man whose face was firmly set in the path of duty though that path led to imprisonment and the gallows; a man much in advance of his time--one of the pioneers of free thought, suffering for the sacred cause, as pioneers in all great movements always suffer. He spoke with a modest fearlessness known sometimes to youth and to few men. Mr. Barringer replied that, though he held different views, he could not but admire Willard's frankness in avowing his own political convictions, and that this independence in principle would in nowise detract from his previously formed good opinion of him. Afterwards, Mr. Barringer examined him in the common English branches of study, besides astronomy, philosophy and algebra--studies usually taught in the public schools of Rensselaer County. In this way, with much pleasant talk dropped at intervals through the official business of examination, interspersed with politics and concluded with social chat, an agreeable evening passed.

Mr. Barringer at last said good-night to the young Normal student, with the remark that he would see what could be done for him in the morning.

Not much sleep visited Willard's eyes that night, with the ghost of possible defeat haunting his wakeful senses, stretched to their utmost tension of anxiety.

Would he, or would he not, receive in the morning the certificate he sought? This was the thought tossed continually up on the topmost wave of his consciousness all the night long. Morning dawned at last, much to his relief. When Mr. Barringer came to his door to announce breakfast, he handed Willard the coveted piece of paper.

"Now then," said he, cheerily, "here is your certificate, and as I am going to drive over to Albany after breakfast, if you have no particular school in view, I shall be glad to have you ride with me as far as Schodack Centre, where I have some very good friends, and will introduce you to the trustees of the district, Messrs. Brockway, Hover and Knickerbocker."

Accordingly they drove over to the residence of Milton Knickerbocker, school trustee of District No. 7, of the town of Schodack.

That gentleman thanked the School Commissioner for bringing the young teacher over, said that he would be pleased to engage him, and that it was only necessary to see another trustee, George Brockway, to make the engagement final. Mr. Knickerbocker then accompanied young Glazier to the residence of Mr. Brockway, where arrangements were made for him to teach the school at Schodack Centre. He then walked back to Albany.

Willard had said nothing to his landlady, on Lydius street, concerning his intended absence, fearing he might have to report the failure of his project, and on the evening of his return to Albany--having been away for thirty-six hours--was surprised to find that the family were just about to advertise him in the city papers, thinking some strange fate had befallen him,--that he had perhaps committed suicide.

In just one week from the time Glazier engaged his school at Schodack Centre, he returned to that place, and taught the young Schodackers successfully through the specified term, after which he went to Albany and passed the next Normal School term. On the twelfth of July following, he left Albany for the home farm, where he worked until the first of September. He then went on a prospecting tour out to Edwards, near the field of his former efforts, and canvassed for scholars at two dollars each, for a term of eight weeks. His object was to teach during the fall and winter months and return to Albany in the spring. This energetic youth of eighteen succeeded in obtaining about thirty pupils, among whom were six teachers--one of them having taught four terms.

Among the incidents of his school experience at this time may be mentioned the fact of a series of drill tactics, originated by himself, with which he practised his pupils so thoroughly that they were enabled to go through all the regular evolutions set down in Hardee. Yet he had never seen the drill-book.

It may be regarded as one of those outcroppings of his natural bent towards the military art which he displayed from his very infancy; for true military genius, like true poetical genius, is born, not made. Of course our young tactician soon made himself known, and throughout the district he was distinguished by the title of the "Soldier-Schoolmaster."

It was an involuntary tribute yielded by public sentiment to the boy who afterwards became the "Soldier-Author."

This boy-teacher, young as he was, marshaled all his pupils into disciplined order, like the rank and file of the army, and somehow held natural words of command at his disposal whereby he wielded the human material given into his charge, as a general might wield the forces under his command. The school was his miniature world and he was its master--his diminutive kingdom wherein he was king; and within the boundary of this chosen realm his sway was absolute.

First the "Soldier-Schoolmaster," drilling his boy-pupils; then the Soldier of the Saddle, riding through shot and shell and war's fierce din on Virginia's historic fields; and last, but perhaps not least, the "Soldier-Author," winning golden opinions from press and people; through all these changes of his life, from boy to man, one characteristic shows plain and clear--his military bent. It is like the one bright stripe through a neutral ground, the one vein of ore deposit through the various stratifications of its native rock.

The Edwards Select School was continued until the first of November, when Glazier left home once more, this time in company with his sister Marjorie, bound for Troy. On arriving at that city he left his sister at the house of an old friend, Alexander McCoy, and went down into Rensselaer County a second time in search of a school, or rather two schools--one for his sister as well as one for himself. He succeeded in obtaining both of them on the same day, and went back to Troy that night. His own district was East Schodack, near Schodack Centre, where he had previously taught, and his sister secured the school two miles north of the village of Castleton and six miles distant from Albany.

The little school-house near Castleton, where his sister taught, was located in a lovely spot on a height overlooking the Hudson and commanding a fine view of the river and the surrounding scenery.

During the school term in their respective districts, it was Willard Glazier's habit to visit his sister once a week, on Saturday or Sunday, and on several occasions a gentleman living at East Schodack, William Westfall by name, who owned a fine horse and sleigh, loaned him the use of his conveyance to drive to Castleton and return. The sleigh was provided with warm robes of fur and the horse was beyond doubt spirited, and a handsome specimen of the genus horse. But as we cannot look for absolute perfection in anything pertaining to earth, it may be stated that this animal was no exception to the universal rule. He had his fault, as young Glazier discovered--a disagreeable habit of running away every time he saw a train of cars. Perhaps the horse couldn't help it; it was no doubt an inherited disposition, descended to him through long lines of fractious ancestors, and therefore it need not be set down against him in the catalogue of wilful sins. But whether so or otherwise, this little unpleasantness in his disposition was an established fact, and unfortunately there were two railroads to cross between East Schodack and Castleton. On Glazier's first ride to Castleton with the Westfall horse and sleigh, he had just crossed the Boston and Albany Railroad when a freight-train rolled heavily by, which put the horse under excellent headway, and on reaching the Hudson River Railroad--the two tracks running very near each other--a passenger train came up behind him. This completed the aggregation of causes, and away flew the horse down the road to Castleton at break-neck speed. Fences disappeared like gray streaks in the distance; roadside cottages came in view and were swiftly left behind in the track of the foam-flecked animal. All that Glazier could do was to keep him in the road, until at length an old shed by the roadside served his purpose, and running him into it, the horse, puffing and snorting, was obliged to stop. On his return to East Schodack, Mr. Westfall asked him how he liked the horse. He replied that he thought the animal a splendid traveler. He _did_ think so, beyond question.

The next Sunday young Glazier was driving again to Castleton with the same stylish turn-out; this time with his sister Marjorie in the sleigh. She had come up to East Schodack the evening before, and he was taking her back to her school. The sleighing was excellent, the day fine, and all went merry as a marriage bell until they reached the railroad. There the inevitable train of cars loomed in view, and the puff, puff of the engine, sending out great volumes of steam and its wild screech at the crossing, completely upset what few ideas of propriety and steady travel this horse may have had in his poor, bewildered head, and, with a leap and a jerk, he was once more running away on the Castleton Road as if the entire host of the nether regions were let loose after him.

For a little while he made things around them as lively as a pot of yeast. Away went whip, robes, mittens and everything else lying loose in the bottom of the sleigh at all calculated to yield to the velocity of a whirlwind or a runaway. But Glazier proved himself master of the situation in this as in many another event of his life, and with one hand holding his frightened sister from jumping out of the sleigh, with the other he twisted the lines firmly around his wrist and kept the horse in the road, until, at the distance of three-quarters of a mile beyond Castleton, he brought the infuriated animal to a stand-still by running him against the side of a barn. Afterwards he drove leisurely back and picked up the robes, and whip and articles spilled during the wild runaway ride.

A broken shaft was the only result of this last adventure, which Glazier of course, put in repair before his return to East Schodack. Mr. Westfall never knew until after the close of the school term that his horse had afforded the young teacher an opportunity to tell what he knew about runaways.

The school at East Schodack closed with an exhibition exceedingly creditable to the efforts of the teacher, at which Mr. Allen Barringer was present, and in a speech before the school complimented young Glazier in the highest terms. The programme of exercises was an excellent one, and was made up of original addresses, declamations, recitations and music. After the close of the school, Mr. Barringer presented Glazier with a certificate which entitled him to teach for three years, and also gave him in addition the following letter of recommendation--a tribute of which any young teacher might be justly proud, and which he carefully preserved:

"To Whom it May Concern:

"This is to certify, that I am well acquainted with Willard Glazier, he having taught school during the winters of 1859 and '60 in my Commission District. I consider him one of the most promising young teachers of my acquaintance. The school that has the good fortune to secure his services will find him one of the most capable and efficient teachers of the day.

"Allen Barringer,

"School Commissioner, Rensselaer County.

"Schodack, New York, 1860."

Early in the year 1860 he resumed his studies at the State Normal School, and remained at that institution until the guns of Sumter sounded their war-cry through the land.

This period was the great turning-point in Willard Glazier's life, and hereafter we encounter him in a far different _role_.