was either ill managed or else the seasons were unfavorable. He gave up the hop-farm, poorer than ever. He removed back to his old home in Amherst. A little legal maneuvering or rascality on the part of a creditor, gave the finishing blow to his fortunes; and, in the winter of 1821, he gave up the effort to recover himself, became a bankrupt, was sold out of house, land, and household goods by the sheriff, and fled from the State to avoid arrest, leaving his family behind. Horace was nearly ten years old. Some of the debts then left unpaid, he discharged in part thirty years after.

Mr. Greeley had to begin the world anew, and the world was all before him, where to choose, excepting only that portion of it which is included within the boundaries of New Hampshire. He made his way, after some wandering, to the town of Westhaven, in Rutland county, Vermont, about a hundred and twenty miles northwest of his former residence. There he found a large landed proprietor, who had made one fortune in Boston as a merchant, and married another in Westhaven, the latter consisting of an extensive tract of land. He had now retired from business, had set up for a country gentleman, was clearing his lands, and when they were cleared he rented them out in farms. This attempt to "found an estate,' in the European style, signally failed. The "mansion house" has been disseminated over the neighborhood, one wing here, another wing there; the "lawn" is untrimmed; the attempt at a park-gate Las lost enough of the paint that made it tawdry once, to look shabby now. But this gentleman was useful to Zaccheus Greeley in the day of his poverty. He gave him work, rented him a small house nearly opposite the park-gate just mentioned, and thus enabled him in a few weeks to transport his family to a new home.

It was in the depth of winter when they made the journey. The teamster that drove them still lives to tell how 'old Zac Greeley came to him, and wanted he should take his sleigh and horses, and go over with him to New Hampshire State, and bring his family back; and how, when they had got a few miles on the way, he said to Zac, said he, that he (Zac) was a stranger to him, and he did n't feel like going so far without enough to secure him; and so Zao gave him enough to secure him, and away they drove to New Hampshire State. One sleigh was sufficient to convey all the little property the law had left the family, and the load could not have

been a heavy one, for the distance was accomplished in a little less than three days. The sleighing, however, was good, and the Connecticut river was crossed on the ice. The teamster remembers well the intelligent, white-headed boy who was so pressing with his questions, as they rode along over the snow, and who soon exhausted the man's knowledge of the geography of the region in which he had lived all his days. "He asked me," says he, "a great dea about Lake Champlain, and how far it was from Plattsburgh to this, that, and t' other place; but, Lord! he told me a d—-d sight more than i could tell him." The passengers in the sleigh were Horace, his parents, his brother, and two sisters, and all arrived safely at the little house in Westhaven,-safely, but very, very poor. They pos sessed the clothes they wore on their journey, a bed or two, a few -very few-domestic utensils, an antique chest, and one or two other small relics of their former state; and they possessed nothing

more.

A lady, who was then a little girl, and, as little girls in the country will, used to run in and out of the neighbors' houses at all hours without ceremony, tells me that, many times, during that winter she saw the newly-arrived family taking sustenance in the follow ing manner :-A five-quart milk-pan filled with bean porridge an hereditary dish among the Scotch-Irish-was placed upon the floor, the children clustering around it. Each child was provided with a spoon, and dipped into the porridge, the spoon going directly from the common dish to the particular mouth, without an intermediate landing upon a plate, the meal consisting of porridge, and porridge only. The parents sat at a table, and enjoyed the dignity of a separate dish. This was a homely way of dining; but, adds my kind informant, "they seemed so happy over their meal, that many a time, as I looked upon the group, I wished our mother would let us eat in that way-it seemed so much better than sitting at a table and using knives, and forks, and plates.” There was no repining in the family over their altered circumstances, nor any attempt to conceal the scantiness of their furniture. To what the world calls "appearances" they seemed constitutionally insensible.

CHAPTER III.

AT WESTHAVEN, VERMONT.

Description of the country-Clearing up Land--All the family assist à la Swiss-Fam ily-Robinson-Primitive costume of Horace-His early indifference to dress-His manner and attitude in school-A Peacemaker among the boys-Gets into a scrape, and out of it-Assists his school-fellows in their studies--An evening scene at home-Horace knows too much-Disconcerts his teachers by his questions-Leaves school-The pine knots still blaze on the hearth-Reads incessantly--Becomes a great draught player-Bee-hunting-Reads at the Mansion House-Taken for an Idiot-And for a possible President-Reads Mrs. Hemans with rapture-A Wolf Story-A Pedestrian Journey-Horace and the horseman-Yoking the OxenScene with an old Soaker-Rum in Westhaven-Horace's First Pledge-Narrow escape from drowning-His religious doubts-Becomes a Universalist-Discovers the humbug of "Democracy "-Impatient to begin his apprenticeship.

THE family were gainers in some important particulars, by their change of residence. The land was better. The settlement was more recent. There was a better chance for a poor man to acquire property. And what is well worth mention for its effect upon the opening mind of Horace, the scenery was grander and more various. That part of Rutland county is in nature's large manner. Long ranges of hills, with bases not too steep for cultivation, but rising into lofty, precipitous and fantastic summits, stretch away in every direction. The low-lands are level and fertile. Brooks and rivers come out from among the hills, where they have been officiating as water-power, and flow down through valleys that open and expand to receive them, fertilizing the soil. Roaming among these hills, the boy must have come frequently upon little lakes locked in on every side, without apparent outlet or inlet, as smooth as a mirror, as silent as the grave. Six miles from his father's house was the great Lake Champlain. He could not see it from his father's door, but he could see the blue mist that rose from its surface every morning and evening, › nd hung over it, a cloud veiling a Mystery. And he could see the long line of green knoll-like hills that formed its opposite shore. And he could go down on Sundays to the shore itself, and stand in the immediate presence of the lake.

Nor is it a slight thing for a boy to see a great natural object which he has been learning about in his school books; nor is it an uninfluential circumstance for him to live where he can see it frequentiy. It was a superb country for a boy to grow up in, whether his tendencies were industrial, or sportive, or artistic, or poetical. There was rough work enough to do on the land. Fish were abundant in the lakes and streams. Game abounded in the woods. Wild grapes and wild honey were to be had for the search after them. Much of the surrounding scenery is sublime, and what is not sublime is beautiful. Moreover, Lake Champlain is a stage on the route of northern and southern travel, and living upon its shores brought the boy nearer to that world in which he was destined to move, and which he had to know before he could work in it to advantage. At Westhaven, Horace passed the next five years of his life. He was now rather tall for his age; his mind was far in advance of it. Many of the opinions for which he has since done battle, were distinctly formed during that important period of his life to which the present chapter is devoted.

At Westhaven, Mr. Greeley, as they say in the country, 'took jobs;' and the jobs which he took were of various kinds. He would contract to get in a harvest, to prepare the ground for a new one, to 'tend' a saw-mill; but his principal employment was clearing up land; that is, piling up and burning the trees after they had been felled. After a time he kept sheep and cattle. In most of his undertakings he prospered. By incessant labor and by reducing his expenditures to the lowest possible point, he saved money, slowly but continuously.

In whatever he engaged, whether it was haying, harvesting, sawing, or land-clearing, he was assisted by all his family. There was little work to do at home, and after breakfast, the house was left to take care of itself, and away went the family, father, mother, boys, girls, and oxen, to work together. Clearing land offers an excellent field for family labor, as it affords work adapted to all degrees of strength. The father chopped the larger logs, and directed the labor of all the company. Horace drove the oxen, and drove them none too well, say the neighbors, and was gradually supplanted in the office of driver by his younger brother. Botb the boys could chop the smaller trees. Their mother and sisters

gathered together the light wood into heaps. And when the great logs had to be rolled upon one another, there was scope for the combined skill and strength of the whole party. Many happy and merry days the family spent together in this employment. The mother's spirit never flagged. Her voice rose in song and laughter from the tangled brush-wood in which she was often buried; and no word, discordant or unkind, was ever known to break the perfect harmony, to interrupt the perfect good humor that prevailed in the family. At night, they went home to the most primitive of suppers, and partook of it in the picturesque and labor-saving style in which the dinner before alluded to was consumed. The neighbors still point out a tract of fifty acres which was cleared in this sportive and Swiss-Family-Robinson-like manner. They show the spring on the side of the road where the family used to stop and drink on their way; and they show a hemlock-tree, growing from the rocks above the spring, which used to furnish the brooms, weekly renewed, which swept the little house in which the little family lived. To complete the picture, imagine them all clad in the same material, the coarsest kind of linen or linsey-woolsey, home-spun, dyed with butternut bark, and the different garments made in the roughest and simplest manner by the mother.

More than three garments at the same time, Horace seldom wore in the summer, and these were—a straw hat, generally in a state of dilapidation, a tow-shirt, never buttoned, a pair of trousers made of the family material, and having the peculiarity of being very short in both legs, but shorter in one than the other. In the winter he added a pair of shoes and a jacket. During the five years of his life at Westhaven, probably is clothes did not cost three dollars a year; and, I believe, that during the whole period of his childhood, up to the time when he came of age, not fifty dollars in all were expended upon his dress. He never manifested, on any occasion, in any company, nor at any part of his ea. 'v life, the slightest interest in his attire, nor the least care for its effect upon others. That amiable trait in human nature which inches us to decoration, which make us desirous to present an agtable figure to others, ard to abhor peculiarity in our appearance, is a trait which Horace never gave the smallest evidence of possessing.