admitted to the bar. The offer was accepted and he began his duties
as law clerk. A week later he was taken seriously sick, and at
the end of his long illness the doctors advised him to return home.
He rejected the advice and in October took passage on a canal boat
for Portsmouth, on the Ohio river, and went thence to Cincinnati.
For a week he sought employment. Unable to find it he went to
Louisville, where another week was spent in vain quest of work.
He continued his journey to St. Louis, where he landed in the late
autumn. An eminent lawyer offered him free use of his library,
but an empty purse compelled him to decline the offer and seek
immediate work. He went to Jacksonville, Illinois, arriving late
in November, and addressed himself to the pressing problem of
self-support. The remnant of his cash amount to thirty-seven cents.





Chapter II. Apprenticeship.




In those days Illinois was a frontier State with about 200,000
population, chiefly settled in its southern half. A large part of
the people were from the South and, in defiance of the law, owned
many negro slaves. The Capital was at Vandalia, although Jacksonville
and Springfield were the towns of highest promise and brightest
prospects. Chicago contained a few score of people to whom the
Indians were still uncomfortably close neighbors. Railroads and