d compare such unlike beginnings with the figure I have since made
there. I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round
by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with
shirts and stockings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for
lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I
was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch
dollar and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of
the boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on account of my
rowing, but I insisted on their taking it; a man being sometimes more
generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty,
perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.

Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the market-house
I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and inquiring
where he got it, I went immediately to the baker's he directed me to,
in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in
Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I
asked for a threepenny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not
considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater
cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me threepenny
worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I
was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my
pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm and eating the other.
Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the
door of Mr. Read, my future wife's father; when she, standing at the
door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward,
ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street and
part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and coming round
found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to
which I went for a draught of the river water; and being filled with
one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came
down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had
many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I
joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the
Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and after looking
round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor