The solitude of the wilderness
may be congenial for meditation; but it is in the moving whirl of
humanity that ideas are brightened. Fernando was promised that if he
would master the common school studies taught in their log schoolhouse,
he should be sent to one of the eastern cities to have his education
completed. Albert Stevens, the lad's father, was becoming one of the
most prosperous farmers of the west. He had purchased several tracts of
land which rapidly increased in value, and his flocks and herds
multiplied marvelously. He was in fact regarded as "rich" in those days
of simplicity. He had sent several flatboats loaded with grain down the
Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans and sold the cargoes at great
profit, so that, in addition to his fields, his stock and houses, he
had between three and four thousand dollars in money.
Fernando grew to be a tall, slender youth, and in 1806 having finished
his education, so far as the west could afford, his father determined to
send him to the East, where it was hoped he would develop into a lawyer
or a preacher. The mother hoped the latter. His brother and sister had
grown up, married and were settled on farms in the neighborhood, taking
on the same existence of their parents; living honest, peaceful and
unambitious lives.
The youth Fernando was more inclined to mental than physical activity,
and his parents, possessing an abundance of common sense, decided not to
force him to engage in an occupation distasteful to him.
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