its members saw the
unexpected and unaccountable darkness coming on, they shared in the
general awe and terror. It was supposed by many that the last day--the
day of judgment--had come. Someone, in the consternation of the hour,
moved an adjournment. Then there arose an old Puritan legislator,
Davenport, of Stamford, and said that, if the last day had come, he
desired to be 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[12]

By MARION HARLAND

(1826-1863)

[Footnote 12: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

[Illustration: Thomas Jackson. [TN]]

In 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 Jackson, a planter and bachelor,
waited to have a horse shod.

"There's a chance for Tom Jackson!" observed the blacksmith, with
friendly officiousness.

The early life of Cummins Jackson's nephew was well known to speaker
and bystanders. 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
industrious, 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
Cummins 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 repor