fifty cents for a full one. My old friend said we would eat and let the stage leave if it dared. Said it was a scheme between the driver and the landlord, which proved true, for with all their bluster we quietly finished our meal. We reached Wheeling just at night, and went to a hotel, that proved to be a real Virginia house, and we greatly enjoyed the Virginia and Kentucky fare. During the two days before my companion, Moberley, arrived, I took in the town boy-like, and looked with wonder on the suspension bridge, then the only one on the continent, but I did not write home of it as John Mitchell did. He was an older schoolmate of mine who had quite a good opinion of himself, and was in Wheeling soon after this and wrote, "I have been out to view the great extension bridge athwart the Ohio river." Leaving Wheeling we took steamboat for Maysville, Ky., arriving there at day light in the morning, took stage for Mount Sterling. About eight o'clock at night, the route passed about three miles from our home, and we got off, shouldered our luggage and tramped our way home where we arrived about 9 o'clock, surprising the family, as we had not been able to give them any notice.

Some things here may be noted as a little remarkable. A boy of less than seventeen years of age, entrusted with such responsible duties and transactions, well and faithfully carried out to the perfect satisfaction of his employer. And again this boy living in central Kentucky, within less than forty miles of Frankfort, the capital of the state, and within eighty miles of both Cincinnati and Louisville, large cities on the Ohio river, he had never seen either of them, and no river except the Licking, that is quite small, had never been in a stage coach, steamboat or railroad car. While on this trip he was in seven states besides Kentucky, and two capitals, three of the largest cities on the continent, and had his first ride on steamboat and railroad train, seven hundred miles from home.

In 1852 I worked for Mr. Stone for eight and a third dollars per month, and at the end of this year I again received a present from my employer of a two-year-old colt, worth fifty dollars. The year 1853 I worked for my brother Robert for eleven dollars per month and the keep of my saddle horse. During all these years I rarely ever lost a day from work for any purpose. In Oct. 1853, I joined the Baptist Church, and was baptised on the twenty-third

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Thanks to Catherine Bradford for transcribing this page.