The second year of sickness and I was affected with the rest, though it
was not generally so bad as the first year. I suffered a great deal and
felt so miserable that I began to think I had rather live on the top of
the Rocky Mountains and catch chipmuncks for a living than to live here
and be sick, and I began to have very serious thoughts of trying some
other country. In the winter of 1839 and 1840 I went to a neighboring
school for three months, where I studied reading, writing and spelling,
getting as far as Rule of Three in Daboll's arithmetic. When school was
out I chopped and split rails for Wm. Hanna till I had paid my winter's
board. After this, myself and a young man named Orrin Henry, with whom I
had become acquainted, worked awhile scoring timber to be used in
building the Michigan Central Railroad which had just then begun to be
built. They laid down the ties first (sometimes a mudsill under them)
and then put down four by eight wooden rails with a strips of band iron
half an inch thick spiked on top. I scored the timber and Henry used the
broad axe after me. It was pretty hard work and the hours as long as we
could see, our wages being $13 per month, half cash.

In thinking over our prospect it seemed more and more as if I had better
look out for my own fortune in some other place. The farm was pretty
small for all of us. There were three brothers younger than I, and only
200 acres in the whole, and as they were growing up to be men it seemed
as if it would be best for me, the oldest, to start out first and see
what could be done to make my own living. I talked to father and mother
about my plans, and they did not seriously object, but gave me some good
advice, which I remember to this day--"Weigh well every thing you do;
shun bad company; be honest and deal fair; be truthful and never fear
when you know you are right." But, said he, "Our little peach trees will
bear this year, and if you go away you must come back and help us eat