The boy grows, and in a few years we find him chopping wood and tilling the little clearing in the forest, to help his mother.

Every spare hour is spent in studying the books he has borrowed, but cannot buy.

At sixteen he gladly accepts a chance to drive mules on a canal towpath.

Soon he applies for a chance to sweep floors and ring the bell of an academy, to pay his way while studying there.
His first term at Geauga Seminary cost him but seventeen dollars.

When he returned the next term he had but a sixpence in his pocket, and this he put into the contribution box at church the next day.