All these trials, temptations, and discouragements Adams met and surmounted. I attribute the failure of George L. to the fact that he trusted in himself, and the success of Adams to the fact that he went out of himself at the very outset, went to God for aid. In his case it was the moral force supplementing the will that had become well-nigh powerless which decided a contest in which character, consideration, and happiness both here and hereafter, were at stake. All the talk at present is about forces of various kinds; but if a young man would have real force of character and wage a successful contest, let him seek for it where William Adams sought and found.
A notable woman was Ma’am Price who taught school in Portland, Maine; and Polly, her daughter, was a spunky piece and was ready with an answer to anybody. The schoolroom was in Ma’am Price’s own house that stood in Turkey Lane, so called from the following circumstance: Mr.----, who lived in that locality, invited the Reverend Samuel Deane to dine with him and partake of a turkey. The parson coming according to appointment found a Cape Cod turkey on the table,--a boiled salt fish. Notwithstanding the town christened the lane Newburg Street, the name Turkey Lane clave to the spot more than forty years.
When the British destroyed the town, Turkey Lane was directly in range of the enemy’s fire; and when Ma’am Price had removed her household stuff to a place of safety, Polly resolved to save her pig. A sea-captain who had assisted her advised her to turn the animal out to shift for itself, as Mowatt had opened fire, and it was not worth while to risk life to save a pig that was not likely to be hit by a cannon-ball. Polly, however, fastened a string to the creature’s leg and undertook to drive it a long mile to Bramhall’s Hill. The pig was obstinate, Polly determined, the progress necessarily slow. Meanwhile shells were bursting and flinging the dirt on Polly. One junk of earth struck the stick from her hand, and red-hot cannon-balls were whirring around her, but Polly was determined to save the pig, and save it she did.
Ma’am Price came to Portland from one of the West India Islands. She was a woman of culture, but very decided and strict in school discipline. If a boy refused to hold his head up, she fastened a fork under his chin. No trifling with her.