AGRICULTURAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 95 



built in a hurry for a political convention, at a vil- 

 lage some five miles away. In ten minutes I was 

 astride of old Nance, and that day I got a job. 



I must have worked at least four weeks when 

 my employer asked what wages I thought I ought 

 to have. As I hesitated a good fellow, a half- 

 fledged workman who had worked alongside me, 

 said: "Well, the boy has earned as much as I 

 have." That settled it I got $1.25 per day and 

 board very good wages at that time. I can 

 scarcely describe with what pride I came home 

 with the biggest roll of bills I had ever possessed 

 in my pocket; nor my joy in filling the old family 

 carpet-bag with little love tokens, for our unsus- 

 pecting relatives in New Jersey. Of all my travel- 

 ling experiences that first one was the most exciting 

 probably because it was the first. 



But the journey was planned with many mis- 

 givings, for up to this time I had seen nothing of 

 the outside world. I had been to Seneca Falls, 

 eleven miles away; and to Ovid, eight miles away; 

 across the Lake to Aurora four miles and 

 greatest of all, I had once driven the school teacher 

 to Sodus Bay thirty miles. Now I was about 

 to take a " truly " journey on the steam cars, into 

 the very crater of what I then supposed was the 



