Under Many Flags

Several years later Cyrus thought earnestly about another problem. He and his brother had all they could do to keep the farm going. There was no money to buy new farm implements, no money even to keep them in order. Gradually they wore out, and after a while the yoke for the oxen went to pieces. The making of an ox-yoke is a very difficult matter for a grown man and almost impossible for two boys thirteen and fifteen years old. But Cyrus and his brother examined the old yoke and looked at each other and then back at the yoke.

"We can't buy one," said the brother.

"We'll make one!" said Cyrus.

They cut down a birch tree and set to work. They did not have the proper tools, but they borrowed them—and you may be sure they returned them in good shape,—and they put in all their spare time for days. By and by the yoke was hewn out, and they scraped it with glass and polished it with a dry stick. But alas, when they bored the holes for the bows to fit into, they put them in the wrong place!

Did this discourage them? Only for a minute. They knit their brows, they looked at each other and then at the ruined yoke, and they went and cut down another tree. This time they succeeded in making a perfect yoke, and when it was painted a bright red, they were the happiest boys in Maine.

Still another time Cyrus set his mind on an interesting problem. He was now almost a man; he had determined to be a missionary, and he was studying in the Academy six miles from home. Every other Saturday he walked home around Bear Pond and across Hawk Mountain. He carried his gun with him, and as he went along, he sometimes shot game to take to his mother. Once he met a bear, but the bear got away.

The view from the top of the mountain was wonderful, and Cyrus had an eye for beauty. One day as he turned from a look at the distant woods and fields, his eye fell upon an object near at hand. At his feet the precipice dropped suddenly a hundred feet and on the very edge hung a large boulder.

He looked at this boulder with interest. One Fourth of July the young men in the neighborhood had gathered to see whether they could push it over, but had failed. Cyrus suddenly forgot everything but this rock. Could anything in the world be more delightful than to shove the great thing off and hear it go crashing down? It couldn't do any harm, and it would be better than any Fourth of July celebration ever staged.

He not only stared at the rock, he examined it carefully, and then he thought again. The boulder rested on gravel, and if that could be cut out, down it would fly. He hurried home to tell his brother.

The next Saturday the two Hamlins and a friend met on the mountain and dug away at the sandy bed on which the rock lay, but it did not move. The next Saturday they came again. At supper time it seemed as though they would have to give up all hope of finishing that day, and they were dreadfully afraid that some one would come and complete the work and get the credit.

"Let supper wait!" said they.

Again they set to work, and presently one of them shouted, "It's moving!"

With a wild leap the boys got out of the way. The rock moved slowly at first, then faster and faster and in the end it plunged down, striking sheets of fire as it flew. Bang! it struck the granite cliff and burst into three great fragments. Swish! it rushed down on its way to an open field below.

Never were there three happier boys. They went home to supper in the twilight, hearing the echo of the terrific crash and knowing that the great boulder had had to yield to their strength and persistence.

But the time came when Cyrus Hamlin faced problems a thousand times more serious than making an ox-yoke or moving a boulder. He became a missionary as he had intended and was sent to Constantinople. There he taught Armenian boys in Bebek Seminary, and it became the dream of his life to build a college.

"Education is the way to peace and enlightenment," he would say. "If we could found Christian institutions where we could train young men in all professions, then they could go out to set an example to their fellow countrymen and be their leaders."

He never walked through the narrow streets or crossed the Golden Horn without looking all round for a suitable location, and he had already about twenty in mind. But his dream did not come true. In the first place, there was no money. In the second place, he had to fill with other work all the time he might have spent planning for a college. He had to be textbook as well as teacher, and he had to make all his own apparatus.

When he moved into a house, he had to repair it; when his poor Armenian students and their families were without clothes, he had to find a way to cover them. When they were refused work by the cruel Turks, he had to find work for them. He taught them how to make and sell stoves and stove-pipes and various useful articles.

One poor man became insane when he had no way of supporting himself and his family and believed that he was turned to stone. Just as soon as Dr. Hamlin gave him work, he was cured. Dr. Hamlin suggested to him that it was best to make an article for which there was a demand.

Robert College, Constantinople

This picture taken in Turkey in Asia looks across the Bosphorus, a mile wide at this point, to Turkey in Europe and the site chosen by Cyrus Hamlin for his college. The modern buildings "rub elbows" with towers six hundred years old.]

"If there are thirteen hundred thousand inhabitants in Constantinople, there are thirteen hundred million rats," said he. "Make rat traps! I'll show you how!"

Soon the man had to have assistants to sell his traps.

Still more Armenians came for help, and Dr. Hamlin had to stop dreaming about his college and plan how he could feed them. An idea had occurred to him vaguely; now it grew into a well-developed scheme. He would teach them to make bread. Everybody needed bread, and in Constantinople the bread was not good and all the work was done by horse-power. He would bake by steam.

The fact that he had never made bread did not trouble him in the least. He had never made an ox-yoke, or rolled a boulder down a mountain until he tried.

His fellow-missionaries laughed at him, but they couldn't laugh him out of his plans, and he ordered his machinery from America. The difficulties were many, some were serious and some funny; but in the end the engine and the boiler were set up and everything was in order. The dough was mixed, the oven heated, the loaves were moulded; but alas, the bread was sour and could not be eaten. Dr. Hamlin experimented again and again until one morning he had delicious loaves of bread to sell.

Now he smoothed out his forehead. The bakery was successful, the poor Armenian Christians had work; again he could devote his time to his teaching and could think of his college.

But he was mistaken. England and Russia went to war, and to Scutari on the other side of the Bosphorus were brought the wounded English soldiers. Dr. Hamlin looked across the water and thought of the suffering boys and hated war. He did not think of any effect upon himself. But he was to be seriously affected.

One day an orderly came to the door of the Seminary and asked him to come to the hospital at the invitation of the chief physician, Dr. Mapleton.

"And what does he want with me?" asked Dr. Hamlin. "I'm very busy."