I was eight months with Wright and Baldwin when I was offered a clerkship in the office of Judge Westbrook, at Cobleskill, in Schoharie County, at two hundred a year and my board.  I knew not then just how the offer had come, but knew that the Senator must have recommended me.  I know now that he wanted a reliable witness of the rent troubles which were growing acute in Schoharie, Delaware and Columbia Counties.

It was a trial to go so far from home, as Aunt Deel put it, but both my aunt and uncle agreed that it was “for the best.”

“Mr. Purvis” had come to work for my uncle.  In the midst of my preparations the man of gristle decided that he would like to go with me and see the world and try his fortune in another part of the country.

How it wrung my heart, when Mr. Purvis and I got into the stage at Canton, to see my aunt and uncle standing by the front wheel looking up at me.  How old and lonely and forlorn they looked!  Aunt Deel had her purse in her hand.  I remember how she took a dollar bill out of it—­I suppose it was the only dollar she had—­and looked at it a moment and then handed it up to me.

“You better take it,” she said.  “I’m ’fraid you won’t have enough.”

How her hand and lips trembled!  I have always kept that dollar.

I couldn’t see them as we drove away.

I enjoyed the ride and the taverns and the talk of the passengers and the steamboat journey through the two lakes and down the river, but behind it all was a dark background.  The shadows of my beloved friends fell every day upon my joys.  However, I would be nearer Sally.  It was a comfort when we were in Albany to reflect that she was somewhere in that noisy, bewildering spread of streets and buildings.  I walked a few blocks from the landing, taking careful note of my way—­mentally blazing a trail for fear of getting lost—­and looked wistfully up a long street.  There were many people, but no Sally.

The judge received me kindly and gave Purvis a job in his garden.  I was able to take his dictation in sound-hand and spent most of my time in taking down contracts and correspondence and drafting them into proper form, which I had the knack of doing rather neatly.  I was impressed by the immensity of certain towns in the neighborhood, and there were some temptations in my way.  Many people, and especially the prominent men, indulged in ardent spirits.

One of my young friends induced me to go to dinner with him at Van Brocklin’s, the fashionable restaurant of a near city.  We had a bottle of wine and some adventures and I was sick for a week after it.  Every day of that week I attended a convention of my ancestors and received much good advice.  Toward the end of it my friend came to see me.

“There’s no use of my trying to be a gentleman,” I said.  “I fear that another effort would hang my pelt on the door.  It’s a disgrace, probably, but I’ve got to be good.  I’m driven to it.”