was of a
most kindly and gentle disposition. Also there was a brother, Benjamin,
who died in 1848 aged ten or twelve.

[Sidenote: (1843.)]

Orion's boyhood was spent in that wee little log hamlet of Jamestown up
there among the "knobs"--so called--of East Tennessee. The family
migrated to Florida, Missouri, then moved to Hannibal, Missouri, when
Orion was twelve and a half years old. When he was fifteen or sixteen he
was sent to St. Louis and there he learned the printer's trade. One of
his characteristics was eagerness. He woke with an eagerness about some
matter or other every morning; it consumed him all day; it perished in
the night and he was on fire with a fresh new interest next morning
before he could get his clothes on. He exploited in this way three
hundred and sixty-five red-hot new eagernesses every year of his life.
But I am forgetting another characteristic, a very pronounced one. That
was his deep glooms, his despondencies, his despairs; these had their
place in each and every day along with the eagernesses. Thus his day was
divided--no, not divided, mottled--from sunrise to midnight with
alternating brilliant sunshine and black cloud. Every day he was the
most joyous and hopeful man that ever was, I think, and also every day
he was the most miserable man that ever was.

While he was in his apprenticeship in St. Louis, he got well acquainted
with Edward Bates, who was afterwards in Mr. Lincoln's first cabinet.
Bates was a very fine man, an honorable and upright man, and a
distinguished lawyer. He patiently allowed Orion to bring to him each
new project; he discussed it with him and extinguished it by argument
and irresistible logic--at first. But after a few weeks he found that
this labor was not necessary; that he could leave the new project alone
and it would extinguish itself the same night. Orion thought he would
like to become a lawyer. Mr. Bates encouraged him, and he studied law
nearly a week, then of course laid it aside to try something new. He
wanted to become an orator. Mr. Bates gave him lessons. Mr. Bates walked
the floor reading from an English book aloud and rapidly turning the
English into French, and he recommended this exercise to Orion. But as
Orion knew no French, he took up that study and wrought at it like a
volcano for two or three days; then gave it up. During his
apprenticeship in St. Louis he joined a number of churches, one after
another, and taught in their Sunday-schools--c