PREFACE. XV 



speculating on his chances for a breakfast, 

 a farmer drove his team up to the tavern 

 door, and beckoning the young lad to him 

 got him to hold the horses while he went 

 in to his breakfast. For this service he 

 gave Eoessle a sixpence, and that money 

 was the corner-stone of a fortune. 



Arrived in Albany, he met a little girl 

 selling matches, and enquiring of her for 

 her father, was led to a dirty room in a 

 dirty street, where the girl's father, an old 

 Swiss, the wife, and several children slept 

 on straw. Eoessle obtained the privilege 

 of a night's lodging, and the next morning, 

 finding that a few inches of snow had fallen 

 through the night, he borrowed a shovel 

 of the old main and went out to earn some 

 money. He made a dollar and a half 

 that day; and the next earned a like 



