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CHAPTER IX.

Linton Stephens.

HE prodigal of the parable is not the only man in history who has been possessed of an elder broth

er. Others of greater stability and less renown, who have never thought of taking their goods to far countries or wasting their substance in riotous living have suffered from the same complaint of primogeniture. To this distinguished junior class belongs Judge Linton Stephens. It can not be denied that Judge Stephens was, intellectually and morally, an exceptional man; and it may be gravely doubted if his illustrious half-brother was equipped with superior mental furnishings. Indeed, there are many who contend that Judge Stephens possessed much the larger brain. But he lacked the showy genius. Moreover, while his health was equally as frail and his life tenure much briefer, he lacked what may be termed the spectacular aspect of invalidism. He possessed the physical infirmities without the dramatic concomitants.

But advantages as well as disadvantages sometimes accrue from relatively late advents; and if Linton Stephens ever reflected upon the latter he certainly never forgot the former. Losing both parents before he was three years of age, he was first placed in the care of his

mother's people in Warren county, but later he went to live with his half-brother at Crawfordville; and he frankly declared that his intellectual awakening really dated from this change of abode. The life which he had led up to this time had been one of pathetic loneliness. He had lived in comparative isolation, growing up under the severe looks of pious but stern old people, and enjoying none of the companionships or recreations of healthy childhood. "The foundation of all my ideas of friendship," he wrote years afterward, "was laid in the school of solitude; and it came to me more as a want than as a possession.' However, things changed when Linton went to live with his half-brother; and never was orphanage shielded with wiser or tenderer care than Linton received from his brother Aleck, who became not only his guardian, but his intellectual preceptor and companion.

Before moving to Crawfordville, Linton had already acquired the educational rudiments and under the molding touch of the elder Stephens the plastic mind of the younger gradually assumed definite character and promise. Supplementing the work of the village schoolmaster Mr. Stephens not only drilled his ward in the prescribed text-books, but cultivated his literary tastes and picnicked with him in the poetic Arcadias. He never seemed to weary of the task which his guardianship imposed, and he was fully and nobly recompensed, not only by the evident appreciation, but by the unusual aptitude of his pupil; and it was not long before Linton was well prepared for college.

Entering the Freshman class at Athens in 1840, Linton became associated with such congenial spirits as J. L. M. Curry and Lafayette Lamar. He had already contracted the studious habit and fully appreciated the privileges which he was now to enjoy; but the affectionate tutelage of the elder brother was never for one moment relaxed. Scarcely a day passed without bringing the young matriculant a letter from his faithful guardian, full of wholesome advice and warm encouragement; but the responses were no less frequent or affectionate. The most trivial details of student life were discussed; and the correspondence which now began continued steadily until graduation with only the fewest interruptions. Nothing could possibly exceed the mutual attachment of the two brothers, who seemed to share each other's most secret thoughts. Under the stimulating impetus of such an incentive to exertion it is not surprising that Linton, besides excelling in the gladiatorial combats of the Phi Kappa Society, should also graduate with the highest honor of the institution, being challenged in this distinction by no immediate competitor.

Dr. Curry, speaking of him years afterwards, declared that he had never known him to fail in recitation. But he was not studious to the extent of holding himself aloof from his fellow students. He was thoroughly social and was not above an occasional escapade of mischief if it promised no harmful results and offered no serious violation of the rules.

Judge William Lundy narrates an incident which shows his genial college-boy nature, and also his readiness to help his classmates out of embarrassing situations when he needed to employ no such devices on his own behalf:

"I well remember," said he, "the practical joke which he helped to play on Prof. James Jackson. "The Major,' as he was called, was fond of anecdote and fun; and disputes with the boys, even on politics, were not without attractions. The history of the Yazoo fraud, and especially the part which his distinguished father took in procuring the repeal of the disgraceful act, was a topic on which the Major never knew when he had said enough. or heard enough.

"One evening after the bell had sounded the recitationhour, it was ascertained between the old college and the brick laboratory, where the Major's recitation-room was, that only three or four of the class had studied the lesson. To avoid the mortification of answering unprepared it was agreed to take advantage of the Major's weakness and talk against time. An irrepressible youngster from Columbia county, who had remarkably fine conversational powers, was to begin. Others were then to join in with the view to leading the Major in the direction of politics.

"Somehow the Major was restive and was not inclined to be communicative at first. Perhaps he was not entirely unsuspicious. But when Linton Stephens, with as much gravity as he could command, asked to be informed as to some facts connected with the early history of Georgia and especially with the repeal of the Yazoo Act, the old professor's countenance lighted up with smiles and he responded at length. Question after question was put, which he answered, totally oblivious of the passage of time, until the college-bell summoned all from the recitation-rooms to the chapel for vesper prayer. It was with no small pleasure that the perpetrators of the innocent joke heard the Major say: 'Young gentlemen, take the same lesson for to-morrow."."