For many years, although the boy disappointed the village Cassandras by living, he continued weak and delicate.  Manual labor, which began very early with the children of New Hampshire farmers, was out of the question in his case, and so Daniel was allowed to devote much of his time to play, for which he showed a decided aptitude.  It was play of the best sort, in the woods and fields, where he learned to love nature and natural objects, to wonder at floods, to watch the habits of fish and birds, and to acquire a keen taste for field sports.  His companion was an old British sailor, who carried the child on his back, rowed with him on the river, taught him the angler’s art, and, best of all, poured into his delighted ear endless stories of an adventurous life, of Admiral Byng and Lord George Germaine, of Minden and Gibraltar, of Prince Ferdinand and General Gage, of Bunker Hill, and finally of the American armies, to which the soldier-sailor had deserted.  The boy repaid this devoted friend by reading the newspapers to him; and he tells us in his autobiography that he could not remember when he did not read, so early was he taught by his mother and sisters, in true New England fashion.  At a very early age he began to go to school; sometimes in his native town, sometimes in another, as the district school moved from place to place.  The masters who taught in these schools knew nothing but the barest rudiments, and even some of those imperfectly.  One of them who lived to a great age, enlightened perhaps by subsequent events, said that Webster had great rapidity of acquisition and was the quickest boy in school.  He certainly proved himself the possessor of a very retentive memory, for when this pedagogue offered a jack-knife as a reward to the boy who should be able to recite the greatest number of verses from the Bible, Webster, on the following day, when his turn came, arose and reeled off verses until the master cried “enough,” and handed him the coveted prize.  Another of his instructors kept a small store, and from him the boy bought a handkerchief on which was printed the Constitution just adopted, and, as he read everything and remembered much, he read that famous instrument to which he was destined to give so much of his time and thought.  When Mr. Webster said that he read better than any of his masters, he was probably right.  The power of expression and of speech and readiness in reply were his greatest natural gifts, and, however much improved by cultivation, were born in him.  His talents were known in the neighborhood, and the passing teamsters, while they watered their horses, delighted to get “Webster’s boy,” with his delicate look and great dark eyes, to come out beneath the shade of the trees and read the Bible to them with all the force of his childish eloquence.  He describes his own existence at that time with perfect accuracy.  “I read what I could get to read, went to school when I could, and when not at school, was a farmer’s