joyed the Friday night rehearsals. He found employment
at one dollar a day in a commission store, 84 Utica Street, with the
firm of Lowell & Hinckley. The former, a brother of James Russell
Lowell, had a son, a bright little boy, who afterwards became the
superb cavalry commander at the battle of Cedar Creek in 1864.
Carleton boarded on Beacon Street, next door to the present Athenaeum
Building. The firm dissolved by Mr. Lowell's entering the Athenaeum.
Carleton returned to his native town to vote. He became a farm laborer
with his brother-in-law, passing a summer of laborious toil,
frequently fourteen and sixteen hours, with but little rest.

It was time now for the old Granite State to be opened by the railway.
The Northern Railroad had been chartered, and preliminary surveys
were to be made. Young Carleton, seizing the opportunity, went to
Franklin, saw the president, and told him who he was. He was at once
offered a position as chainman, and told to report two weeks later.
The other chainman gave Carleton the leading end, intending that the
Boscawen boy, and not himself, should drag it and drive the stake.
Carleton did not object, for he was looking beyond the chain.

The compass-man was an old gentleman dim of eyesight and slow of
action. Young Carleton drove his first stake, at a point one hundred
feet north of the Concord railway depot, which was opened in the month
of August, 1845. The old compass-man then set his compass for a second
sight, but before he could get out his spectacles and put them on,
young Carleton read the point to him. When, through his glasses, the
old gentleman had verified the reading, he was delighted. Promotion
for Carleton was now sure. Before night he was not only dragging the
chain, but was sighting the instrument. The result, two days later,
was promotion to the charge of the party. What he had learned of land
surveying was producing its fruit. In the autumn he was employed as
the head of a party to make the preliminary survey of the Concord and
Portsmouth road.

Unfortunately, during this surveying campaign, he received a wound
which caused slight permanent lameness and disqualified him for
military service. It came about in this way. He was engaged in some
work while an axe-man behind him was chopping away some bushes and
undergrowth. The latter gave a swing of the axe which came out too far
and cut through the boot and large tendon of Carleton's left ankle.
With skilled medical