where the Washington Market now stands. (The shore at that point has been filled in a good deal since that day. Back in those days, boats of light draft could sail right in and land pretty near to the market.) They marched me off along with the rest, and took me across the North River to Fort Gainesvort, opposite New York City. It was near Paulus Hook (which is now Jersey City). There my company was stationed, I suppose to protect New York.

And now my good luck in enlisting showed itself. For my company didn't have to do a smitch of fighting. I just lived there in the camp, without it costing me a cent for food or lodging; and at the end of three months, on a February's day, a British sloop-of-war from Europe sailed into New York Harbour with the news that our Peace Commissioners at Ghent had succeeded in making a treaty. The war was over.

It was mighty good news for everybody. That winter had been one of the hardest New York City had ever seen. The weather was so severe, the North River froze over to Paulus Hook. Hickory wood sold in New York that winter for $20 a cord, and hogs fetched $11 a hundred. (That price for butcher's meat set me thinking, as will be seen a little later.) Milk was a shilling a quart. And the President, when the news came, had been just on the point of calling for 75,000 more militia. I was as glad as the rest. Perhaps a little more so.

I never was cut out to be a soldier. Not that I worried much about the hardships of life in camp. When a fellow has been reared on a hill-side farm, his cradle a sap-trough, and has been brought up to eat from wooden plates, he's used to pot-luck, and life in an army camp doesn't seem hard at all. Still I was glad when the news came of peace. In a battle there's always a danger from bullets and bayonets, and from cannon balls. I'm by nature a peaceable man. And I had cleaned up a hundred dollars in the space of three months. It was a good stroke of business.

I set out for home as soon as I was mustered out. And for a few days I was glad to be back. But I soon saw that I wasn't intended for a humdrum life. I had had a smack of big things, and now the

everlasting chores on the farm didn't gee with my

tastes. My brother Tom was there to take care of those things. (He said, with something pretty near to cuss words, when I spoke to him on the subject, that since I was such a gadabout, somebody had to buckle down and run the farm, in order to take care of mother.)

So I made my plans. Going to mother, I said, "Mother, I want my substitute money. I'm going

into business."

"Goodness sakes!" she replied; "what is it this time? Some new fangle, I'll bet, to waste your money on."

"No new fangle at all," said I; "I'm going to be a drover. I'm going to buy up cattle for the pres were high city market. And I need the hundred dollars to start me off. I'm young. But that's the time to start in. Early sow, early mow."

"But are you sure, Danny," said she (for the idea began to take hold of her); "are you sure that you won't lose your money your money?" I told her I'd planned the thing all out; it was going to be a money-maker. She handed the hundred dollars over to me, and I became a drover.

stuff, the law didn't

And so, I would go

Not exactly a drover, either, in the full sense of the word. I became a buyer of bob calves. The laws against bob-veal weren't very strict in those days - that is, they weren't enforced. If you could get anybody to buy the poke its nose in and stop you. around among the farmers and buy a calf very soon after it had been dropped. I had my troubles. Bob-calves are shaky on their legs. Then, too, there's its mother to bother you. I found it easier to get around the law objection against bob-veal than the mother objection - so to speak that pair of wicked horns, when you go to take the calf away from its dam! But the right kind of handling would do it. And then, by hurrying the calf to market, I would get the critter off my hands before it sickened and died. I dare say that the flesh now and then was pretty soft for real good eating. Peo

ple used to say, "Veal bought from that young Dan Drew can be sucked through a quill." But then, folks who said these things were jealous of me, because I worked hard and managed to get along.

Besides, with me it was a case of calves or nothing. Because I didn't have the money to go into the grown-up cattle business. You can buy calves on a small capital - yes, sometimes without capital at all. Because, a farmer who has a bull calf on his hands and doesn't want to feed it, will often let you have it on credit. Sometimes the farmer thinks that a calf is so misshapen and puny that it is going to die; and then he will be glad to get it off of his hands on any terms. But when it comes to parting with his grown-up critters, a farmer is almighty particular about whom he trusts.

T

HESE

III

years of mine as a calf-drover were broken in upon a little later. I went into the circus business.

Some time after the War of 1812, the travelling circus came into fashion. The people in those days lived in little settlements. They were lonely. They didn't have much amusement. So, when times

became settled once more and the farmers had recovered from the war, the Rolling Show came in and did lots of business. Only we didn't call it a show in those days, nor a circus - no siree! The people wouldn't have come near us. Because the preachers thundered against circuses and all such worldliness. To get the trade of the church people, we called it a "Menagerie" and "The Great Moral and Educational Exhibition."

Putnam and Westchester counties were headquarters for the circus business in early days, particularly Star's Ridge, in the town of South-east, and Purdy's Station, just below Croton Falls. I guess the reason for this was, because those two counties are just north of New York City. Being a beautiful farming region, with Bridgeport, Conn., and Dan