There the lodestone is selfishness, and with its help you can make any direction look right to you and soon--you're lost." He put his hand on my arm and said in a low tone which made me to understand that it was for my ear only.
"What I fear is that they may try to tamper with your compass.

Look out for lodestones." He was near the end of a row and went on with his reaping as he said: "I could take my body off this row any minute, but the only way to get my mind off it is to go to its end." He bound the last bundle and then we walked together toward the house, the Senator carrying his sickle.
"I shall introduce you to the President," he said as we neared our destination.

"Then perhaps you had better leave us." At home we had read much about the new President and regarded him with deep veneration.

In general I knew the grounds of it--his fight against the banks for using public funds for selfish purposes and "swapping mushrats for mink" with the government, as uncle put it, by seeking to return the same in cheapened paper money; his long battle for the extension of the right of suffrage in our state; his fiery eloquence in debate.

Often I had heard Uncle Peabody say that Van Buren had made it possible for a poor man to vote in York State and hold up his head like a man.