uld raise money for me; but _would_ he? He had never
wholly approved of my medical tendencies and course; and would it be
right to ask him to aid me in an undertaking which he could not
conscientiously approve?

Just at this time our own family physician wanted to sell, and offered
me his stand. His practice, he said, was worth a thousand dollars a
year. He had an old dilapidated house and a couple of acres of miserable
land, and a horse. These, he said, he would sell to me for so much. I
might ride with him as a kind of apprentice or journeyman for six
months, at the expiration of which time he would vacate the field
wholly.

The house, land, and horse were worth perhaps one-third the sum
demanded, but probably not more. However, the price with me, made very
little difference. One sum was much the same with another. For I was so
anxious to live, that I was willing to pay almost any price which might
be required by a reasonable man, and till that time, it had not entered
my heart that a good man would take any serious advantage of a fellow
being in circumstances so desperate. And then I was not only anxious to
live, but very confident I should live. So strong was my determination
to live on, and so confident was I in the belief that I should do so,
that I was willing to incur a debt, which at any other period of my life
would have discouraged me.

There was another thing that tended to revive me and restore my courage.
The more I thought of commencing business, and talked about living, the
more I found my strength increasing. That talking about dying had a
downward or down-hill tendency, I had long known; but that the tendency
of talking up-hill was exactly the reverse, I had not fully and clearly
understood.

My father tried to dissuade me from a hasty decision, but it was to no
purpose. To me, it seemed that the course I had proposed was my only
alternative. "I must do it," I said to myself, "or die;" and life to me,
as well as to others, was sweet. But although it was a course to which I
seemed shut up, and which I must pursue or die, it was a step which I
could not take unaided. I had not the pecuniary ability to purchase so
much as a horse, or, had I needed one, hardly a good dog.

It was at length proposed by my medical friend, the seller, to accept of
a long credit for the amount due for the place and appurtenances,
provided, however, I would get my father or some other good man to be my
endorser. But here