to the stage, Jefferson followed the fortunes of his
family, and led with them a wandering life for many years, growing, by
slow degrees and constant, varied practice, to the perfection of his
prime. In 1838 his father led the flock to Chicago, just then grown
from an Indian village to a thriving place of two thousand
inhabitants, where he was to join his brother in the management of a
new theatre, then building. Jefferson's account of the journey is a
striking picture, at once amusing and pathetic, of the changes that
have been wrought by fifty years. The real privations and hardships of
the trip are veiled in the actor's story by his quiet humor and his
disposition to see everything in a cheerful light. Always quizzing his
own youthful follies, he cannot conceal from us by any mischievous
anecdotes his essential goodness of nature, his merry helpfulness, his
unselfish devotion to the welfare of the others, or the pluck with
which he met the accidents of this itinerant life. From Chicago, where
their success was not brilliant, the family went by stage to
Springfield, where, by a singular chance, they were rescued from the
danger that threatened them in the closing of the theatre by a
municipal law trumped up in the interest of religious revivalists, by
the adroitness of a young lawyer, who proved to be none other than
Abraham Lincoln. In Memphis, when bad business had closed the theatre,
young Jefferson's pluck and ready wit saved the family purse from
absolute collapse. A city ordinance had been passed, requiring that
all carts, drays, and public vehicles should be numbered; and the boy,
hearing of this, called at the mayor's office, and, explaining the
situation that had obliged his father to exchange acting for
sign-painting, applied in his name for the contract for painting the
numbers--and obtained it! The new industry furnished father and son
with a month's work, and some jobs at sign-painting helped still
further to make life easier.

From Memphis the family went to Mobile, where they hoped to rest after
their long wanderings, and where it was also hoped the children,
Joseph and his sister, might be put to school. But the yellow fever
was raging in Mobile, and they had been in the city only a fortnight
when Mr. Jefferson was attacked by the disease and died. In Mobile,
too, the good Mary died, and Mrs. Jefferson was left alone to care for
herself and her children as she could. She had no longer a heart for
acti