Becomes a Farm Boy.
But soon after this a big change in his life occurred. He left Brooklyn and went West to study—what do you suppose? Nothing short of farming. It was decided that he should learn to become a tiller of the soil, although he had been born and brought up in a city.
At twenty dollars a month, then, he started in to milk the cows, do the chores and make himself generally useful about the place. But it did not take him long to discover that for a young fellow of eighteen, the prospects in such a life were not very illuminating.
Finally he decided to give it up, and he went to Kansas City, where he had a friend who obtained for him a post as bookkeeper in a mercantile establishment. He continued in this environment for several months, but one day he awoke to the fact that the more satisfactory he proved himself as a bookkeeper, the more likelihood there was that he would never rise to anything higher.
At this time he had twenty-one dollars in the bank, but it availed him little, as the bank failed. With what he had in his clothes, he set out for St. Louis, where he hadn't a friend, determined to find out if fate could not do something for him in a city so big as that.