I should have been perfectly secure had it been summertime, for I knew the farmer's life and all that pertained to it, but it was winter. How to get a living in a strange town was my problem. It was a bright, clear, intensely cold February, and I was not very warmly dressed—hence I kept moving.
Meanwhile I had become acquainted with a young clergyman in one of the churches, and had showed to him certain letters and papers to prove that I was not a tramp, and no doubt his word kept my boarding mistress from turning me into the street.
Mr. Eaton was a man of books. His library contained many volumes of standard value and we met as equals over the pages of Scott and Dickens. I actually forced him to listen to a lecture which I had been writing during the winter and so wrought upon him that he agreed to arrange a date for me in a neighboring country church.—Thereafter while I glowed with absurd dreams of winning money and renown by delivering that lecture in the churches and school-houses of the state, I continued to seek for work, any work that would bring me food and shelter.
One bitter day in my desperate need I went down upon the lake to watch the men cutting ice. The wind was keen, the sky gray and filled with glittering minute flecks of frost, and my clothing (mainly cotton) seemed hardly thicker than gossamer, and yet I looked upon those working men with a distinct feeling of envy. Had I secured "a job" I should have been pulling a saw up and down through the ice, at the same time that I dreamed of touring the west as a lecturer—of such absurd contradictions are the visions of youth.
I don't know exactly what I would have done had not my brother happened along on his way to a school near Chicago. To him I confessed my perplexity. He paid my board bill (which was not very large) and in return I talked him into a scheme which promised great things for us both—I contracted to lecture under his management! He was delighted at the opportunity of advancing me, and we were both happy.
Our first engagement was at Cyene, a church which really belonged to Eaton's circuit, and according to my remembrance the lecture was a moderate success. After paying all expenses we had a little money for carfare, and Franklin was profoundly impressed. It really seemed to us both that I had at last entered upon my career. It was the kind of service I had been preparing for during all my years at school—but alas! our next date was a disaster. We attempted to do that which an older and fully established lecturer would not have ventured. We tried to secure an audience with only two days' advance work, and of course we failed.
I called a halt. I could not experiment on the small fund which my father had given Frank for his business education.
However, I borrowed a few dollars of him and bought a ticket to Rock River, a town near Chicago. I longed to enter the great western metropolis, but dared not do so—yet. I felt safe only when in sight of a plowed field.
At a junction seventy miles out of the city, we separated, he to attend a school, and I to continue my education in the grim realities of life.
From office to office in Rock River I sullenly plodded, willing to work for fifty cents a day, until at last I secured a clerkship in a small stationery jobbing house which a couple of school teachers had strangely started, but on Saturday of the second week the proprietor called me to him and said kindly, but firmly, "Garland, I'm afraid you are too literary and too musical for this job. You have a fine baritone voice and your ability to vary the text set before you to copy, is remarkable, and yet I think we must part."