was Jedediah Hubbell of Chagrin Falls, and throughout a long life he was the staunch friend of his former apprentice.

The year 1846, when James was fifteen years old, was an eventful one in the life of the inexperienced boy. They had a new house and he had entered upon a new trade. Henceforth, he would be a carpenter, and his greatest pride was to be found in the drawing of the shave and pushing the plane. That was a step upward. He could earn higher wages, and it was less laborious than farming or clearing away timber. Yet, he never became such an expert at the trade as to deserve any especial praise. With the opportunities he had, with the few tools he could secure, and with employment only on the cheap farm houses and barns of that day, it is no surprise that he was an indifferent workman. His work was always carefully done, and gave the satisfaction that honest work gives to honest people. But in that trade he exhibited no striking genius, and constructed no buildings which would now be considered monuments of art or of remarkable skill.

He could not always find work as a carpenter, and was frequently, in the following years, compelled to leave the plane, and take up the hoe and shovel. Turning his hand to every kind of work that a young man could do, he found life rather hard, and his increase in knowledge and property very slow.

He had not found his level. He began to feel it severely when, after two years of toil, he found himself with but little money left with which to

open another season. At one time he became utterly discouraged, and could see nothing before him but the same poverty and the same arduous toil. To be dissatisfied with one's trade or employment is not always an evidence of a fitness for any other station, although it often leads to the accomplishment of higher tasks. James, however, was not so much dissatisfied with his trade or work as he was with the unprofitableness of it, owing to the uncertainty of remunerative employment during the entire year.

At one of these seasons of uncertainty, the old longing to be a sailor returned with its pictures of the ocean's grandeur and sublimity; and for a time the old spirit of his early boyhood was upon him. Homesick for the sea! Yearning for adventure! Wishing to visit the strange lands of which the story books had told! In this restless mood, he determined to find some way in which to secure a place as a sailor on some Atlantic ship. But the offer of a job of chopping one hundred cords of wood made to him by his uncle, Thomas Garfield, called his attention away for a while, only to make it to return with greater determination.

The woodland where he worked for his Uncle Thomas, was situated near Newberg, and not very far from Lake Erie, and often, during his stay, he walked over to look out upon the changing hues of that ocean of fresh water. Once in a while he saw stately ships enter the harbor and furl their sails, and his heart beat fast with excited ambi

tion. Yet he purposed not to be a sailor on so small a sea as Lake Erie. The mightiest oceans seemed none too large for him; and the idea of sailing on the lake, was unworthy of his ambition.

Yet it occurred to him, as he chopped and pondered, — and chopping wood is a great promoter of thought, that he could learn something of shipping by a trip on the lake and thus make more certain his employment in some Atlantic port. Hence, with a wisdom beyond his years, he resolved to try his hand at the business nearer home; and if he liked the work, to seek some seaport as an experienced hand.

When the last stroke of the axe had been given, and the wood was all firmly and evenly piled for measurement, he started secretly and alone to Cleveland to see what chance he might find to ship as a deck-hand, or common sailor. He had heard that sailors were wanted, and had no doubt of his ability to find a place. Hence, with considerable confidence the awkward wood-chopper searched along the wharves for a vessel of such dimensions as would be suitable for his purpose. At last he found one large enough and with sails enough to be called a "stately, gallant ship," and he stepped on the deck from the wharf, alongside which the vessel was moored. Several rough-looking men were at work washing the deck and splicing the rigging.

"Where is the captain of this ship?" asked he of a sailor.

The sailor made no answer, but, with a queer expression of countenance, stared at the intruder.

"Can you tell me where I can see the captain?" asked he of another. The sailor with a motion of the hand indicated that the captain was below, and spoke not a word.

"Rather strict discipline I should say," thought James, as he approached the hatchway.

Suddenly the captain appeared at the hatches, who seemed at first astonished to see a stranger aboard his ship. He was almost too drunk to walk and James felt anxious lest the besotted, bloated wretch should fall backward into the hold,

"I would like to speak to the captain," said James to the drunken man.

For a stranger to board his ship without permission was evidently no light offense in the eyes of the captain. But to venture to speak to him, and especially to be ignorant of the fact that he was the captain, was too great an insult to be endured. The captain's wrath was uncontrollable.

"What in the

are you here for?" yelled the inebriate. "Get out of this yeare craft, you sneakin' thief!"

There was not a fight, but if the captain had been sober and had indulged in such abuse, profanity and gesticulations, James would have picked up the rumsoaked tyrant and ducked him in the harbor. For James had inherited a powerful frame, and had increased his natural strength greatly by hard work.

But he swallowed his wrath, and, leaving the drunken wretch to vent his rage on some poor sailor, he walked away with nearly all the poetry of a sail

or's life oozing swiftly out of his brain and heart. It was a great shock. It made him feel as if he had met with a great loss. For he never again encouraged the dreams of a sailor's happy life. His longing for the sea was never wholly overcome, but his views of its hardships underwent an entire change.

In a discouraged mood he sought his uncle's house with a hope, perhaps, of securing another job of work in the woods. There he learned that his cousins were soon to start out with a canal boat, owned by his uncle, to bring coal from the mines to Cleveland, on the Ohio Canal. Hearing of no other employment, he asked the privilege of going with the boat in some capacity. The only place they felt he was capable of filling was a driver boy to lead the horses along the bank of the canal, as they dragged the boat toward its destination. It seems that it never occurred to James that, by taking such employment on the canal, he was throwing himself directly into the company and into the work which his father so much disliked, and to avoid which he had taken his children into the forest.

He soon found it a calling for which he was not fitted, or at least one which such a spirit as his could not long endure.

He never complained of his treatment by his employer or or superiors. The captain, Jonathan Myers, and his wife, were very favorably inclined toward him because of his strict adherence to the truth. The canal boys were notorious for their long yarns, and often preferred to tell a lie when it was