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a "principal" debater with the old men. evenings at the lyceum were the happiest, perhaps, in his youthful life. It was an escape for an hour or two from his hard and incessant toil. It was a place where he knew his mother was proud of him, and where even "Uncle Amos" was inclined to be more sparing of his critical suggestions than usual. It was the opening of a new life to the poor boy, and was suggestive of possible achievements which, until then, he had considered wholly beyond his reach. How many of our American statesmen can trace the beginning of their career to the lyceum in the country school-house! On the popularity of that humble and crude institution, the safety of the nation has often rested.

During his training in those evening schools of debate, he searched the neighborhood and drew upon distant relatives for books and papers. He put his soul into the work; and with an eager longing looked forward to each debate with ever increasing interest.

There was a high ledge of broken rocks in the woods, about a quarter of a mile from his home, where one large shaft of rock rose considerably above its larger neighbors. To the top of that rock James used often to climb, and from its summit deliver to the rocks and trees around his prepared addresses or impromptu harangues. The trees and stones were an audience to him, and in his imagination they listened, sighed, and applauded, as, with excited tones, he approached his peroration. He called that rock his pulpit; and never in the sacred desk or in the halls

of the national councils found he a place in which there seemed to him such necessity for dignity, for grammatical accuracy, or for stirring illustration, as on that forest rostrum among the aged maples. Where will the American country youths find another such an audience as they saw in the waving corn, the rows of potatoes, the forest trees, or the astonished herds, in those youthful days when the spirit of oratory first touched their lips with its inspiring fire?

EARLY MATURITY.

CHAPTER V.

YOUTHFUL OCCUPATIONS.

BOILING SALTS. — A MAN'S WORK AT HARVESTING.
SELF-SACRIFICES OF THOMAS.

- AMBITION TO BE A CARPENTER.
-THE NEW FRAME HOUSE AT ORANGE.-LEARNING THE TRADE.
-OUT OF WORK. CHOPPING WOOD. WISHES TO BE A SAILOR.—
VISITS A SHIP AT CLEVELAND. - ABANDONS THE IDEA OF BEING A
SAILOR. FINDS EMPLOYMENT ON THE OHIO CANAL.-A DRIVER
BOY.-FEVER AND AGUE. —A QUARREL.—AN ACCIDENT. - - GOES
HOME TO HIS MOTHER.

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THE years of 1844 and 1845 included a period of great uncertainty with James. His hard work and unusually early, had

the needs of life, felt by him given to his mind a somewhat premature development. He possessed a tough, awkward body, and features which were not very prepossessing. But his mind was bright and mature. He labored very hard. For a few months he found employment in "boiling salts," which, in that early day, was made moderately profitable by the presence of immense quantities of ashes left in the clearings. The process of leaching the ashes and extracting the salts by boiling the liquid was a very dirty and unpleasant business.

The boy was often as black with soot as the followers of the kindred trade of charcoal burning, and his clothing was heavy with ashes and smoke. In this, as in every other undertaking, he was determined to

excel, and began early in the morning and worked late at night. Another portion of that period he spent in chopping wood, being paid by the cord. In this he did a mature man's work, and received, for the first time, a man's wages. He also engaged himself in harvesting, and swung the scythe through the grass, the sickle in the grain, and the rake over the meadow, the equal of the eldest. But the work was so exhausting that he often heartily wished that he could see some other way of securing an honest living.

One day he saw a carpenter, with saw and chisel, at work framing a barn, and it occurred to him that the trade of a carpenter would suit him better than the ceaseless drudgery of a pioneer farmer's life. He had shown some adaptability for that trade in the repairs he had from time to time made on his mother's house and barn, and in the toys which he had ingeniously constructed. On consulting with his mother, he decided to learn the carpenter's trade. But no opportunity presented itself just at that time, and he worked on in his heavy labor, waiting for some way to open to the lighter occupation. Thus, at fifteen years of age, we find him an uncultured country boy, with no acquaintance with the world beyond the clearings and cabins of that new land. He appears to have had no thought or ambition. above that of being able to earn a living. He had given up attending the school in his district, in which he had made good progress, and considered his education complete, as far as school-books were con

cerned. Certainly, his prospects for a place among the learned of the nation could scarcely have been more discouraging than it was then. What had chopping wood, boiling salts, digging ditches in the meadows, and milking cows, to do with refinement and intellectual cultivation? However, the industry of the family was such that they began to accumulate a little fund, with which they purposed to purchase the materials to construct a frame house.

They began laying up pennies for that object, and to that small fund added dollars, and as the children grew older and earned more, the prospect grew brighter. At last, Thomas, whose fatherly interest in the family was truly heroic, secured a contract for clearing a large tract of land in Michigan, and chopping the wood. The profits of his labor in that undertaking were such that, after paying all his expenses. the overjoyed young man was able to come back to the home he had missed so much, and present to his mother the sum of eighty dollars. That amount having been added to the building fund, they felt able to undertake the enterprise, for which they had so long planned.

When they considered the matter of securing a carpenter, to make the frame for their new house, the opportunity for James to learn the trade seemed to present itself. It was in the construction of this little house of four rooms, near their log cabin, that James performed his first work at the carpenter's trade. The carpenter under whose tutelage James succeeded in obtaining a good practical knowledge,

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