His first year's tramp took
him through nearly all the towns of Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas,
Nebraska, and Colorado. He returned in August, with nine hundred dollars
in cash credited to his account in the bank and demanded and received
fifteen hundred dollars and expenses for going over the same route the
next year, and to-day he stands with his head as high among his fellows
as any young man in America. Now a retrospect of the young man's short
career shows that
HE HAD GENUINE COURAGE.
He never failed when he had any chance to succeed. He never will. For
such a man the world is not a world of chance. It is almost a certainty.
The opportunities are more frequent than the men with courage.
DURING THE HARDEST WINTER
since 1842 the young man passed through experiences on the road, brought
about by deep snows and blundering Postmasters that would sicken
anybody's heart, experiences that without excellent brain-work would
simply have stalled anybody, but his coolness, his use of the telegraph
with unerring judgment in following the movements of his superior (who
was traveling in like difficulties--it was like Kepler making a path for
Mars while himself riding on the earth),--extricated him, and made his
journeys little more costly, all told, than those of the preceding year.
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