ed up the horses, rounded up the
cattle, and headed the cavalcade for the West. He was a man, and in
after-life he proved himself one.

On the death of his father, Jim Hill's schooldays were done. His
aptitude in mathematics, his ability to keep accounts, and his general
disposition to make himself useful secured him a place in the village
store, which was also the Post-Office. His pay was one dollar a week.
This training in the country store proved of great value, just as it did
in the case of H. H. Rogers, George Peabody and so many other men of
mark.

It is one thing to get a job, and another to hold it. Jim Hill held his
job, and his salary was raised before the end of the first year to three
dollars a week.

On the strength of this prosperity, the struggle on the old farm with
its stumps, boulders and mortgage was given up and the widow moved her
little brood to town. The log house on the rambling main street of the
village is now pointed out to visitors. Here the mother sewed for
neighbors, took in washing, made garden, and with the help of her boy
Jim, grew happy and fairly prosperous: more prosperous than the family
had ever been. Thus matters went on until Jim was in his eighteenth
year, when the wanderlust got hold of the young man. His mother saw it
coming and being wise did not apply the brake.

Man is a migrating animal. To sit still and stay in one place is to
vegetate.

Jim with twenty dollars in his pocket started for Toronto on foot with a
bundle on a stick, followed by the prayers of his mother, the gaping
wonder of the children, and the blessing of Professor Wetherald. Toronto
was interesting, but too near home to think of as a permanent
stopping-place. A leaky little steamer ran over to Fort Niagara every
other day. Jim took passage, reached the foreign shore, walked up to
Niagara Falls, and the next day tramped on to Buffalo. This was in the
wonderful year of Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six, the year the Republican
Party was born at Bloomington, Illinois. It was a time of unrest, of a
healthy discontent and goodly prosperity, for things were in motion. The
docks at Buffalo were all a-bustle with emigrants going West--forever
West.

Jim Hill, aged eighteen, strong, healthy, farmer boy, lumberman, clerk,
shipped as roustabout on a schooner bound for Chicago. His pay for the
round trip was to be ten dollars and board, the money payable when the
boat got back to Buffalo. If he left the ship at Chicag