"Ah!" said Zaccheus Greeley, Horace's father, when the boy one
day, in a fit of abstraction, tried to yoke the "off" ox on the
"near" side: "Ah! that boy will never know enough to get on in the
world. He'll never know more than enough to come in when it
rains!"

Yet this boy knew so much that when at fourteen he secured a place
as printer in a newspaper office at East Poultney, Vermont, he was
looked up to by his fellow-printers as equal in learning to the
editor himself.

At first they tried to make merry at his expense, poking fun at
his odd-looking garments, his uncouth appearance, and his pale,
delicate face and almost white hair, which subsequently won for
him the nickname of "Ghost." But when they saw that Horace was too
good humored and too much in earnest with his work to be disturbed
by their teasing, they gave it up. In a short time he became a
general favorite, not only in the office, but in the town of
Poultney, whose debating and literary societies soon recognized
him as leader. Even the minister, the lawyer, and the school-
teachers looked up to the poor, retiring young printer, who was a
veritable encyclopedia of knowledge, ready at all times to speak
or to write an essay on any subject.

But the Poultney newspaper was obliged to suspend soon after
Horace had learned his trade, and, penniless,--for every cent of
his earnings beyond what furnished the bare necessaries of life
had been sent home to his parents in the wilderness,--he faced the
world once more.