Part 11

is ears for being a "cry-baby brat." Back in this boy's ancestry, somewhere, there must have been a stream of gentle blood. He was a song-bird in a cuckoo's nest. When the military band played, his spirit was so moved that he shed tears. But when his mother died, and her body was placed in a new board coffin made by a neighbor who worked in the shipyard, he admired the coffin, but could not cry even when the priest pinched him and called him hard-hearted. He could not cry, even with his twisted eye. His mother, as a lovable being, had gone out of his life, even before she died. He could only think what a beautiful coffin she had and what a great man it was who made it. And this man who made the coffin gave him a penny--perhaps because the boy so appreciated his handiwork. Stephen, unconsciously, won him on the side of art. It's a terrible thing to kill love in the heart of a child. That popular belief that we are "born in sin and conceived in iniquity," Girard once said was true in his case, at least. Yet so wondrous are the works of God, the hate and brutality visited upon their child went into the making of his strong and self-reliant character. He never said, "My mother's religion is good enough for me." He despised her religion, and that of the Friars Gray who punished boys to make them good. His mind turned inward--he became silent, secretive, self-centered, and his repulsive exterior served him well as a tough husk to hide his finer emotions. In a few months--or was it a few weeks--after his mother's death, the father married again. The stepmother was no improvement on the mother. She had lofty ideas of discipline and being "minded." No doubt that little Stephen, crooked in eyes, crooked in body, short and swart, with brown, bare legs, was stubborn and wilful. He looked the part all right. His brown, bare legs were a temptation for the stepmother's willow switch. He decided to relieve everybody of the temptation to switch his legs by running away to sea and taking his brown, bare legs with him. There was a ship at the docks about to sail for the West Indies. He could secrete himself among the bales and barrels, and once the ship was out of port he would come out and take chances on being accepted as cabin-boy. They could do no more than throw him overboard, anyway! He told his little sisters of his intention. They cried, but he didn't. He hadn't cried since he was eight years old, and his cheerful biographer says he never shed a tear afterward, and I guess that is so. At two o'clock in the morning, he whispered good-by to his little sleeping sisters. He did not kiss them--he never kissed anybody in his whole life, his biographer says, and I guess that may be so, too. He stole downstairs and out into the moonlight. The dock was only a quarter of a mile away. The ship was to sail at daylight, on the turn of the tide. There was much commotion going on around the boat, battening down hatches and doing the last few necessary things before braving the reeling deep. Little Stephen was watching his chance to get aboard. He was going as a stowaway. A man came up to him. It was the captain, and before the lad could escape the man said, "Here, I want a cabin-boy--will you go?" The boy thanked God that it was night, so the captain could not see his crooked eye, and gasped, "Yes--yes!" The cook was making coffee in the galley for the stevedores, who had just finished loading the ship. The captain took the boy by the hand and leading him up the plank to the galley told the cook to give him a cup of coffee and a biscuit. The ship pushed off and hoisted sail just at daylight, on the turn of the tide. The tide, too, had turned for Stephen Girard. * * * * * A very little observation will show that physical defects, when backed up by mental worth, transform themselves into "beauty-spots." To be sure, no one was ever so bold as to speak of Girard's blemishes as beauty-spots, but the fact is that his homely face and ungraceful body were strong factors in making him a favorite of fortune. Handsome is that handsome does. Disadvantages are often advantages--they serve as stimulus and bring out the best. Young Girard had long arms and short legs, and could climb fast and high. And he could see more with his one eye than most men could with two. He expected no favor on account of his family or his good looks, and so made himself necessary to the captain of the craft as a matter of self-preservation. Not all sea-captains are brutal, nor do all sailors talk in a hoarse guttural, shift their quids, hitch their trousers, and preface their remarks with, "Shiver my timbers." That first captain with whom Stephen Girard sailed was young--twenty-six, a mere youth, with a first mate twice his years. He was mild-mannered, gentle-voiced and owned a copy of Voltaire's "Philosophical Dictionary." His name is lost to us; even the name of his ship has foundered in the fog; but that he was young, gentle, and read Voltaire, are facts recorded in the crooked and twisted handwriting of Stephen Girard, facts which even his blackguard biographer admitted. The new cabin-boy was astonished that one so young could be captain of a ship; he was also astonished that a person who gave orders in a gentle voice could have them executed. Later, he learned that the men whose orders are always obeyed do not talk loudly nor in guttural. This first boyish captain taught Girard a splendid lesson--to moderate both manner and voice and be effective. Of that first voyage, about all we know is that the boy slept on a pile of gunny-sacks; that the captain let him read from the "Philosophical Dictionary"; that he polished the bright work until it served as a mirror; that the captain smiled his approval, and that the boy, short and swart, with bullet head, followed him with one eye and worshiped him as deity. Men do not succeed by chance. Chance may toss you into a position of power, but if you do not possess capacity, you can never hold the place. Young Girard gravitated from the position of cabin-boy to clerk. From this to mate came by easy stages, and so much as a matter of course that it isn't worth while to mention how. By the law of France no man under twenty-five could be captain of a ship, but when Girard was twenty-two we find a shipowner falsifying the record and putting the boy down as twenty-five, on the obliging oath of the boy's father, who we hope was duly paid for his pains. At twenty-four, Captain Stephen Girard sailed his sloop, "L'Amiable Louise," around Sandy Hook and up New York Bay. Ship-captains then were merchants, with power to sell, trade and buy. The venture was a success, and young Girard took the liberty of picking up a cargo and sailing for New Orleans--his knowledge of French being a valuable asset for that particular destination. Matters were prosperous, and Girard was twenty-six, just the age of that heroic captain under whose care he first set sail, and the age of the Corsican when he conquered Italy. Girard had ceased to wonder about boys braving waves and going upon the stormy sea in ships. It was in July, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-six,--call it July Fourth--that Captain Stephen Girard was skirting the coast of the Atlantic, feeling his way through a fog toward New York. He was not sure of his course and was sailing by dead-reckoning. Suddenly the fog lifted. The sun stood out, a great golden ball in the sky. The young captain swung his glass along the horizon and with his one good eye saw a sail--it was bearing down upon him. It was coming closer. In an hour it was a mile away. He realized that he was the objective point. It was a British cruiser, and he realized that he was to be forced upon the beach or captured. Girard was not a praying man, but he prayed now for a friendly cove or bay, or the mouth of a river. The fog rolled away to the west, the shore-line showed sharp and clear--and there a half-mile away was the inviting mouth of Chesapeake Bay. At least Girard thought it was, but it proved to be the mouth of the Delaware. Girard crowded on all sail--the cruiser did the same. Night settled down. Before morning Girard's little craft was safe under the frowning forts of the Delaware, and the cruiser had turned back seeking fresh prey. * * * * * On one of his trips to the West Indies, the ship of which Stephen Girard was mate stopped at the Isle of Martinique. The captain and mate went ashore, and were invited to dine at the house of a merchant and planter up on the hillside overlooking the sea. The sugar with which the ship was loaded belonged to this planter, hence the courtesies to the seafaring men. Of that seemingly uneventful day one incident stood out in the mind of Girard to the day of his death. It seems the merchant and planter had a niece who lived in his household. This girl sat at the table next to Girard. She was only a child, about twelve years of age. But women mature young in that climate, and her presence caused the little first mate to lose all appetite. However, nothing worse happened than the spilling of a dish of soup in his lap when the girl tried to pass the plate to him, which was surely more polite than to spill it in hers. After dinner the young lady accompanied the party to the wharf. Going down the hill she talked a good deal, but Girard could only say it was a fine day and looked as if there was going to be a storm. The girl was tall, angular and strong. She climbed the rigging to the lookout, and then was scolded by her uncle, who was really proud of her and chuckled at her performance. Her features were rather coarse, but her lustrous eyes and bubbling vitality caused the one sound peeper of Girard to follow her in awe and reverence. She came into the cabin and looked at his books; this pleased Girard. He asked her if she could read, and she loftily wrote her name for him, thus: Marie Josephine Rose Tascher de la Pagerie. She handed him the slip of paper and remarked, "You could never remember my name, so I write it out for you like this." In a few minutes the order was given, "All ashore who are going ashore!" Girard kept that slip of paper, and a few years afterward, in a generous mood, sent the girl a present of a blue shawl. She wrote in acknowledgment, and incidentally said she was soon to sail for France "to get an education." Girard was surprised that any woman would want an education, and still more amazed at the probability that she could acquire one. In fact, when the girl had written her name for him, he kept the slip of paper more as a curiosity than anything else--it was the handwriting of a woman! Girard never received but that one letter from the young lady, but from his shipping agent in Martinique word came that Marie Josephine Rose had married, when sixteen, the Vicomte Beauharnais. Some years after, Girard heard from the same source that she was a widow. Later, he learned she had married a Corsican by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. * * * * * Girard used to say that he did not come to Philadelphia of his own accord, but having been sent there by Providence, he made the best of it. War was on, and all American ports were blockaded. How long this war would last, no one knew. Girard's sympathies were with the Colonies, and the cause of liberty was strong in his heart. He was glad that France--his La Belle France--had loaned us money wherewith to fight England. Yet all his instincts were opposed to violence, and the pomps of army life for him had no lure. He unloaded his ship, put the craft at safe anchorage and settled down, trying to be patient. He could have sold his car