every-day words. Besides, when a young fellow has practised speaking from a barrel-head in front of a village tavern, dressed in outlandish fashion, and telling the people the way to the circus grounds, he isn't going to be scared at a congregation of people inside a church. So on the present occasion I had wondrous liberty. In fact I gave in my testimony with such acceptance that the minister came to me after the service and told me I ought to become a preacher. This was a side of the matter I hadn't looked at. In my testimony I had told the people that "from this time forth I was going to serve the Lord." But as to taking up preaching, that was a different matter. There isn't much chance in preaching to get rich. So, after turning it over in my mind, I told him that I didn't feel any call. And I went back to the drover's business.

I was glad that I had become converted. Because the circus business didn't promise to bring any such money as I felt I could make buying cattle, now that I'd saved up capital enough to start in.

me in

N°

IV

OW began the real work of my life. For
until this time I had been earning money
hit or miss, as the chance offered.
I was

getting nowhere. But, starting now into the drover's business in good earnest, I found my main bent.

About this time a wave of prosperity was setting in throughout the country. The nation had recovered from the effects of the war. The banks were resuming specie payments. Trade revived. New York City was calling for butcher's meat. During the war she had had a long fast, so to speak. Now she began to eat. Her population was growing like sixty. City Hall Park had formerly been way up town. Now it was getting to be in the centre, with houses all around. To keep this big and growing city in butcher's meat was a work in itself. That was where we drovers got a living. Putnam County and the region round about is so hilly that it is fit for raising stock better than for anything else. A steer or a sheep can thrive on hillsides where a plough would tip over. Besides, it is on the same side of the Hudson River as New York, and only a few miles above it. Thus the Harlem Valley,

leading down through Westchester County, soon became a channel through which drovers brought cattle to feed the thousands of hungry mouths in the city at the foot of Manhattan Island.

As a drover I had trouble first along, the same as when I went into the calf business, because the farmers didn't like to sell me their cattle on credit. But I managed to get around them in one way or another. I would ride up to a farmer's house during this time of my life I was rarely out of the saddle except to eat or sleep, occasionally even driving cattle at night to save time, for hunger in the belly puts spurs to the heels and, instead of starting in with talk about buying, I would say:

66

Hello, Brother So-and-So" (the news of how I had got religion helped me with the farmers); "how are you off for fat stock?"

Upon his answering that he had a pair or so of fit cattle, I'd say:

"Well, now, I'm taking a drove into the city next week. If you say so, I'll take yours along, too, and sell them for you, for old acquaintance's sake. I know two or three butchers down there in the city, and calculate I can sell those critters for you at a top price." I had learnt good and early that f you haven't got honey in the crock, you must have it in the mouth.

if

The plan worked fine. That is, first along. I got several hundred head of cattle on these terms,

and they seldom failed to bring a good price in the city. So that before long I had scraped together a nice little capital. To be sure, the farmers who let me have the stock on these terms would keep pestering me for the money. But I put them off with one excuse or another. Sometimes I would soften a man's anger by paying him part of what was coming to him, and tell him he'd have to wait for the balance until after my next trip. In cases where I couldn't quiet a creditor in this way, I had still another shift, for I always was a resourceful fellow. I would change my base of operations to another part of the county, so far away that the farmers I had traded with the last time couldn't reach me. Unfortunately, word would sometimes get around ahead of me, so that when I'd ride up to a farmhouse and try to get cattle without paying cash, I would be turned down. There was Len Clift, over near Brewsters', for one. I had agreed with him on the price of a calf. Then, as I was about to lead the critter off, I told him he would have to trust me a few days, as I was a little short of ready cash just at that moment.

"Trust you?" said he. "Wouldn't trust you no further than you can throw a hog by the tail."

I didn't get riled up. Getting riled up is poor business. A man isn't fit for a business career until he has learned never to get riled up; or leastwise, never to show it on the outside, even if he is all

riled up inside. I sort of explained the thing to Len and coaxed; but he answered a plump "No" every time. "You'll get the calf when I get the money. Not a minute sooner."

“Len,” said I, finally, when I saw that he wasn't to be moved; "you won't trust me for the price of one lousy little calf? All right. But, Len Clift, the time'll come when I'll have money enough to buy your whole farm. Remember what I'm a-telling you."

And the time did come, too. After I had made my fortune I bought his farm and made it into my country seat. I have got my family burying lot on that farm, now. "Drewsclift" I named the place. It's that beautiful farm just on the other side of the hill over from Brewsters' Village. The burying lot is out by the willow trees across the road from the house, down in the meadows. My parents had been buried in old Gilead Burying Ground at Carmel. I got the bodies dug up and carried over to this new burying lot, so I could establish a family cemetery. When a man makes a name for himself, he wants to make a family seat to go with the name.

But though I had a turn-down once in a while, such as this one from Len Clift, I found many a farmer obliging enough to sell me calves and cows and steers and sheep on credit. A very good device, I found, was first to haggle with the farmer over the