e stopped, while the driver cried:

"All aboard!"

Sukey was in the stage, his dark eyes half closed. He roused himself to
drawl out:

"Come on, Fernando, we're off now, for sure."

While two farm hands, assisted by the driver, placed the trunk in the
boot, Fernando bade father and mother adieu. Sister had come over with
her husband and the baby. His brother with his young wife were present
to bid the young seekers after knowledge adieu. They followed Fernando
to the stage coach and cried:

"Good bye, Sukey! take good care of Fernando!" and Sukey drawled out:

"Who'll take keer o' me?"

The last good bye's were said, and the great stage coach rolled on. The
impressions of the young frontiersmen on approaching the first town were
strange and indescribable. The number of houses and streets quite
confused them. There seemed to be little or no order in the construction
of streets, and everybody seemed in a bustle and confusion. They
stopped over night at a tavern, and at early dawn the stage horn awoke
them, and after a hasty breakfast they were again on their journey.

Several weeks were spent in traveling from town to town, and on
September 1st, 1807, they found themselves in New York City, still
undecided where they would go.

One morning Fernando went for his usual walk toward the river, when a
large crowd of people at the wharf attracted his attention. Drawing
near, he saw a curious-looking boat on the water, the like of which he
had never seen before. It was one hundred feet long, twelve feet wide
and seven feet deep. There was a staff or mast at the bow, another at
the stern. From a tall chimney there issued volumes of smoke, while from
a smaller pipe there came the hissing of boiling water and white steam.
Two great, naked paddle-wheels were on the boat, one on each side near
the middle. Fernando thought this must be the toy of which he had heard
so much, being constructed by Robert Fulton and Chancellor Livingston.
On one side of the boat was painted the name _Clermont_.

"What is that?" Fernando asked of a rollicking, fun-loving young
Irishman about twenty-two or three years of age, who stood near.

"Faith, sir, it's a steamboat. We have all come to see her launched.
They call her the _Clermont_; but it's mesilf as thinks she ought to be
_Fulton's Folly_, for divil a bit do I believe she'll go a
cable's length."

Fernando and his new acquaintance drew nearer. The hissing of the steam
and the roaring