and the thought of walking the streets
where Garrison was mobbed and standing in the hall which Webster had
hallowed with his voice gave me a profound anticipatory stir of delight.

As first assistant to a quaint and dirty old carpenter, I was now
earning two dollars per day, and saving it. There was no occasion in
those days for anyone to give me instructions concerning the care of
money. I knew how every dollar came and I was equally careful to know
where every nickel went. Travel cost three cents per mile, and the
number of cities to be visited depended upon the number of dimes I
should save.

With my plan of campaign mapped out to include a stop at Niagara Falls
and fourth of July on Boston Common I wrote to my brother at Valparaiso,
Indiana, inviting him to join me in my adventure. "If we run out of
money and of course we shall, for I have only about thirty dollars,
we'll flee to the country. One of my friends here says we can easily
find work in the meadows near Concord."

The audacity of my design appealed to my brother's imagination. "I'm
your huckleberry!" he replied. "School ends the last week in June. I'll
meet you at the Atlantic House in Chicago on the first. Have about
twenty dollars myself."

At last the day came for my start. With all my pay in my pocket and my
trunk checked I took the train for Chicago. I shall never forget the
feeling of dismay with which, an hour later, I perceived from the car
window a huge smoke-cloud which embraced the whole eastern horizon, for
this, I was told was the soaring banner of the great and gloomy inland
metropolis, whose dens of vice and houses of greed had been so often
reported to me by wandering hired men. It was in truth only a huge
flimsy country town in those days, but to me it was august as well as
terrible.

Up to this moment Rockford was the largest town I had ever seen, and the
mere thought of a million people stunned my imagination. "How can so
many people find a living in one place?" Naturally I believed most of
them to be robbers. "If the city is miles across, how am I to get from
the railway station to my hotel without being assaulted?" Had it not
been for the fear of ridicule, I think I should have turned back at the
next stop. The shining lands beyond seemed hardly worth a struggle
against the dragon's brood with which the dreadful city was a-swarm.
Nevertheless I kept my seat and was carried swiftly on.

Soon the straggling farm-houses thickened