, that there must be
some genius born in the man who achieves it, else he could not do such
remarkable things.

CHAPTER XXXV

GETTING AROUSED

"How's the boy gittin' on, Davis?" asked Farmer John Field, as he
watched his son, Marshall, waiting upon a customer. "Well, John, you
and I are old friends," replied Deacon Davis, as he took an apple from
a barrel and handed it to Marshall's father as a peace offering; "we
are old friends, and I don't want to hurt your feelin's; but I'm a
blunt man, and air goin' to tell you the truth. Marshall is a good,
steady boy, all right, but he wouldn't make a merchant if he stayed in
my store a thousand years. He weren't cut out for a merchant. Take
him back to the farm, John, and teach him how to milk cows!"

If Marshall Field had remained as clerk in Deacon Davis's store in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he got his first position, he could
never have become one of the world's merchant princes. But when he
went to Chicago and saw the marvelous examples around him of poor boys
who had won success, it aroused his ambition and fired him with the
determination to be a great merchant himself. "If others can do such
wonderful things," he asked himself, "why cannot I?"

Of course, there was the making of a great merchant in Mr. Field from
the start; but circumstances, an ambition-arousing environment, had a
great deal to do with stimulating his latent energy and bringing out
his reserve force. It is doubtful if he would have climbed so rapidly
in any other place than Chicago. In 1856, when young Field went there,
this marvelous city was just starting on its unparalleled career. It
had then only about eighty-five thousand inhabitants. A few years
before it had been a mere Indian trading village. But the city grew by
leaps and bounds, and always beat the predictions of its most sanguine
inhabitants. Success was in the air. Everybody felt that there were
great possibilities there.

[Illustration: Marshall Field]

Many people seem to think that ambition is a quality born within us;
that it is not susceptible to improvement; that it is something thrust
upon us which will take care of itself. But it is a passion that
responds very quickly to cultivation, and it requires constant care and
education, just as the faculty for music or art does, or it will
atrophy.

If we do not try to realize our ambition, it will not keep sharp and
defined. Our faculties become dull an