more only the farmer said he was a greenhorn and
couldn't speak English. Jamie inwardly resented and denied both
accusations, but kept silent for fear he might lose his job. His only
sorrow was that he could see his mother only once a week. His chief care
was as to what he should do with his money.

* * * * *

In the Fall of Eighteen Hundred Thirty-six, there were several Scotch
families going from Geneva to the "Far West"--that is to say, Indiana.
The Oliver family was induced to go, too, because in Indiana the
Government was giving farms to any one who would live on them and hold
them down.

They settled first in Lagrange County, and later moved to Mishawaka,
Saint Joseph County, where Andrew Oliver had taken up his abode.
Mishawaka was a thriving little city, made so largely by the fact that
iron-ore--bog-iron--was being found thereabouts. The town was on the
Saint Joseph River, right on the line of transportation, and boats were
poled down and up, clear to Lake Michigan. It was much easier and
cheaper to pole a boat than to drive a wagon through the woods and
across the muddy prairies. Mishawaka was going to be a great
city--everybody said so.

There was a good log schoolhouse at Mishawaka, kept by a worthy man by
the name of Merrifield, who knew how to use the birch. Here James went
to school for just one Winter--that was his entire schooling, although
he was a student and a learner to the day of his death.

The elder Oliver fell sick of chills and fever. He sort of languished
for the hills of bonny Scotland. He could not adapt himself to pioneer
life, and in the Fall of Eighteen Hundred Thirty-seven, he died. This
was the end of a school education for James--he had to go to work
earning money. He became the little father of the family, which James J.
Hill says is the luckiest thing that can happen to a boy. He hired out
for six dollars a month, and at the end of every month took five dollars
home to his mother.

Jamie was fourteen, and could do a man's work at almost anything. "He
has a man's appetite at least," said the farmer's wife, for he took
dinner with the man he worked for. He soon proved he could do a man's
work, too. This man had a pole-boat on the river, and James was given a
chance to try his seamanship. He might have settled down for life as a
poleman, but he saw little chance for promotion, and he wanted to work
at something that would fit him for a better job.