At the age of fourteen he was put to work in his father's blacksmith shop, and acquired a knowledge of that useful trade. When he was nineteen, his father having met with further reverses, he was thrown entirely upon his own resources, and now began to taste the first bitter experience of his life.
He was a singular compound, in his nature, of courage and timidity, of weakness and strength; uniting a penchant for mirth with a proneness to melancholy, and blending the lion-like qualities of a leader among men, with the bashfulness and lamb-like simplicity of a child.
He was not a coward; a braver man probably never lived than Heber C. Kimball. His courage, however was not of that questionable kind which "knows no fear." Rather was it of that superior order, that Christ-like bravery, which feels danger and yet dares to face it. He had all the sensitiveness of the poet—for he was both a poet and a prophet from his mother's womb—and inherited by birthright the power to feel pleasure or suffer pain, in all its exquisiteness and intensity.
Hear his own pathetic story of his early hardships:
"At this time, I saw some days of sorrow; my heart was troubled, and I suffered much in consequence of fear, bashfulness, and timidity. I found myself cast abroad upon the world, without a friend to console my grief. In these heart-aching hours I suffered much for want of food and the comforts of life, and many times when two or three days without food to eat, being bashful and not daring to ask for it.
"After I had spent several weeks in the manner before stated, my oldest brother, Charles, hearing of my condition, offered to teach me the potter's trade. I immediately accepted the offer, and continued with him until I was twenty-one.
"While living with my brother, he moved into the town of Mendon, Monroe, County, New York, six miles north of Bloomfield, towards the city of Rochester, where he again established the potter's business."
Here Heber finished learning his trade and commenced working for wages. Six months later he purchased his brother's business and set up in the same line for himself, in which he prospered for upwards of ten years.