THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON 373 found at his place doing his duty, and therefore, moved that candles be brought in, so that the House could proceed with its duty. There was quietness in that man's mind, the quietness of heavenly wisdom and inflexible willingness to obey present duty. Duty, then, is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things, like the old Puritan. You cannot do more, you should never wish to do less. Never let me and your mother wear one gray hair for any lack of duty on your part." THOMAS JONATHAN JACKSON* By Marion Harland (1826-1863) TN 1842 a young man from Lewis County, Va., "dropped" discouraged out of his class in West Point, after a few weeks' trial of drill and curriculum, and returned home. The story of his defeat was canvassed freely in the neighborhood smithy, the head- quarters of provincial gossip, and was under discussion one May day while Cummins Jack- son, a planter and bachelor, waited to have a liorse shod. "There's a chance for Tom Jackson ! " ob- served the blacksmith, with friendly oflficious- ness. The early life of Cummins Jackson's nephew was well known to speaker and by- standers. Left an orphan at seven years of age, he, with his brother, older than himself, and their little sister, were thrown upon the charity of uncles and aunts. " Tom " was accounted steady and indus- trious, yet there was a serious break in his record. The brothers had run away to seek their fortunes in company when Warren was fourteen, Tom but twelve years old, going down the Ohio to the Mississippi and maintaining themselves by cutting wood for passing steamboats until disabled by malarial fever. Thomas took the lead in the juvenile prodigals' return to relatives and respectability, and was kindly received by his bachelor uncle. Since then he had worked in Cum- mins Jackson's mill and upon his farm as diligently as he sought to "get an education " in the " old field school " nearest to his home. His imagination took fire at his uncle's report of the blacksmith's suggestion. Armed with a letter of introduction signed by leading citizens of the county, to the Congressman from the district, he went in person to Washington and
- Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.
