After working in different small towns wherever he could get a
"job," reading, studying, enlarging his knowledge all the time
when not in the office, he made up his mind to go to New York, "to
be somebody," as he put it.

When he stepped off the towboat at Whitehall, near the Battery,
that sunny morning in August, 1831, with only the experience of a
score of years in life, a stout heart, quick brain, nimble
fingers, and an abiding faith in God as his capital, his prospects
certainly were not very alluring.

"An overgrown, awkward, white-headed, forlorn-looking boy; a pack
suspended on a staff over his right shoulder; his dress unrivaled
in sylvan simplicity since the primitive fig leaves of Eden; the
expression of his face presenting a strange union of wonder and
apathy: his whole appearance gave you the impression of a runaway
apprentice in desperate search of employment. Ignorant alike of
the world and its ways, he seemed to the denizens of the city
almost like a wanderer from another planet."

Such was the impression Horace Greeley made on a New Yorker on his
first arrival in that city which was to be the scene of his future
work and triumphs.

He tramped the streets all that day, Friday, and the next, looking
for work, everywhere getting the same discouraging reply, "No, we
don't want any one."

At last, when weary and disheartened, his ten dollars almost gone,