t it was not quite a fortnight before those
books were to be delivered. They were to be delivered at Castle Garden,
at New York; and the thought struck me that I might go to New York, try
my chance there for work, and at least see the city, which I had never
seen, and get my cyclopaedia and magazine. It was the least offer the
Public ever made to me; but just then the Public was in a collapse, and
the least was better than nothing. The plan of so long a journey was
Quixotic enough, and I hesitated about it a good deal. Finally I came to
this resolve: I would start in the morning to walk to the lock-station
at Brockport on the canal. If a boat passed that night where they would
give me my fare for any work I could do for them, I would go to Albany.
If not, I would walk back to Lockport the next day, and try my fortune
there. This gave me, for my first day's enterprise, a foot journey of
about twenty-five miles. It was out of the question, with my finances,
for me to think of compassing the train.

Every point of life is a pivot on which turns the whole action of our
after-lives; and so, indeed, of the after-lives of the whole world. But
we are so purblind that we only see this of certain special enterprises
and endeavors, which we therefore call critical. I am sure I see it of
that twenty-five miles of fresh autumnal walking. I was in tiptop
spirits. I found the air all oxygen, and everything "all right." I did
not loiter, and I did not hurry. I swung along with the feeling that
every nerve and muscle drew, as in the trades a sailor feels of every
rope and sail. And so I was not tired, not thirsty, till the brook
appeared where I was to drink; nor hungry till twelve o'clock came, when
I was to dine. I called myself as I walked "The Child of Good Fortune,"
because the sun was on my right quarter, as the sun should be when you
walk, because the rain of yesterday had laid the dust for me, and the
frost of yesterday had painted the hills for me, and the northwest wind
cooled the air for me. I came to Wilkie's Cross-Roads just in time to
meet the Claremont baker and buy my dinner loaf of him. And when my walk
was nearly done, I came out on the low bridge at Sewell's, which is a
drawbridge, just before they raised it for a passing boat, instead of
the moment after. Because I was all right I felt myself and called
myself "The Child of Good Fortune." Dear reader, in a world made by a
loving Father, we are all of us children of go