mighty
handsome things anyway to come from the backwoods." So I was
encouraged to leave home and go at his direction to the State Fair
when it was being held in Madison.

VIII

THE WORLD AND THE UNIVERSITY

Leaving Home--Creating a Sensation in Pardeeville--A Ride on a
Locomotive--At the State Fair in Madison--Employment in a
Machine-Shop at Prairie du Chien--Back to Madison--Entering
the University--Teaching School--First Lesson in Botany--More
Inventions--The University of the Wilderness.

When I told father that I was about to leave home, and inquired
whether, if I should happen to be in need of money, he would send me a
little, he said, "No; depend entirely on yourself." Good advice, I
suppose, but surely needlessly severe for a bashful, home-loving boy
who had worked so hard. I had the gold sovereign that my grandfather
had given me when I left Scotland, and a few dollars, perhaps ten,
that I had made by raising a few bushels of grain on a little patch of
sandy abandoned ground. So when I left home to try the world I had
only about fifteen dollars in my pocket.

Strange to say, father carefully taught us to consider ourselves very
poor worms of the dust, conceived in sin, etc., and devoutly believed
that quenching every spark of pride and self-confidence was a sacred
duty, without realizing that in so doing he might at the same time be
quenching everything else. Praise he considered most venomous, and
tried to assure me that when I was fairly out in the wicked world
making my own way I would soon learn that although I might have
thought him a hard taskmaster at times, strangers were far harder. On
the contrary, I found no lack of kindness and sympathy. All the
baggage I carried was a package made up of the two clocks and a small
thermometer made of a piece of old washboard, all three tied together,
with no covering or case of any sort, the whole looking like one very
complicated machine.

The aching parting from mother and my sisters was, of course, hard to
bear. Father let David drive me down to Pardeeville, a place I had
never before seen, though it was only nine miles south of the Hickory
Hill home. When we arrived at the village tavern, it seemed deserted.
Not a single person was in sight. I set my clock baggage on the
rickety platform. David said good-bye and started for home, leaving me
alone in the world. The grinding noise made by the wagon in turning
short brought out t