I had but a few dollars in my pocket, probably six or seven, most of
which I had earned by selling maple sugar. Father was willing I
should go, though my help was needed on the farm.

Well, I traversed the eight miles to my uncle's in good time, and
in the morning he drove me down to the turnpike to take the stage.
I remember well my anxious and agitated state of mind while waiting
at the hotel for the arrival of the stage. I had never ridden in
one, I am not sure that I had even seen one, and I did not know just
what was expected of me, or just how I should deport myself. An
untraveled farm boy at seventeen is such a vague creature anyway,
and I was, in addition, such a bundle of sensibilities, timidities,
and embarrassments as few farm boys are. I paid my fare at the
hotel at the rate of a sixpence a mile for about thirty-two miles,
and when the stage came, saw my name entered upon the "waybill,"
and got aboard with a beating heart.

Of that first ride of my life in a public conveyance, I remember
little. The stage was one of those old-fashioned rocking Concord
coaches, drawn by four horses. We soon left the snow-clad hills of
Delaware County behind, and dropped down into the milder climate of
Ulster, where no snow was to be seen. About three in the afternoon
the stage put me down at Terry's Tavern on the "plank-road" in
Olive. I inquired the way to Dr. Hull's and found the walk of about
a mile an agreeable change. The doctor and his wife welcomed me
cordially. They were old friends of my family. I spent a day with
them, riding about with the doctor on his visits to patients, and
making inquiries for a school in want of a teacher. On the third
day we heard of a vacancy in a district in the west end of the town,
seven or eight miles distant, called Tongore. Hither I walked one