Morse, M.D.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, in an English country
district, two lads romped on the same lea and chased the same
butterflies. One was a little brown-eyed boy, with red cheeks, fine
round form, and fiery temper. The other was a gentle child, tall, lithe,
and blonde. The one was the son of a man of wealth and a noble lady, and
carried his captive butterflies to a mansion-house, and kept them in a
crystal case. The other ran from the fields to a farm-house, and thought
of the lea as a grain field. It might have been the year 1606, when the
two were called in from their play-ground, and sent to school, thus to
begin life. The farmer's boy went to a common school, and his brown-eyed
play-mate entered a grammar school. From that time their paths were far
apart.
The name of the tall, blonde boy was Samuel Morse. At fifteen he left
school to help his father on the home farm. At twenty he had become
second tenant on a Wiltshire holding, and began to be a prosperous
farmer. Before he had attained the age of forty he was the father of a
large family of children, among them five sons, whose names were Samuel,
William, Robert, John, and Anthony. William, Robert, and Anthony
ultimately emigrated to America, while Samuel, Jr.
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