moment of embarrassment, and then the uncle told the lad, frankly but kindly, that he could not provide for his further education.  With considerable show of affection, he advised him to give up the notion of going to college and to remain on the farm, where he would have an assured competence.  In after years the grown man related this incident with a tinge of bitterness, averring that there had been an understanding in the family that he was to attend college.[7] Momentary disappointment he may have felt, to be sure, but he could hardly have been led to believe that he could draw indefinitely upon his uncle’s bounty.

Piqued and somewhat resentful, Stephen made up his mind to live no longer under his uncle’s roof.  He would show his spirit by proving that he was abundantly able to take care of himself.  Much against the wishes of his mother, who knew him to be mastered by a boyish whim, he apprenticed himself to Nahum Parker, a cabinet-maker in Middlebury.[8] He put on his apron, went to work sawing table legs from two-inch planks, and, delighted with the novelty of the occupation and exhilarated by his newly found sense of freedom, believed himself on the highway to happiness and prosperity.  He found plenty of companions with whom he spent his idle hours, young fellows who had a taste for politics and who rapidly kindled in the newcomer a consuming admiration for Andrew Jackson.  He now began to read with avidity such political works as came to hand.  Discussion with his new friends and with his employer, who was an ardent supporter of Adams and Clay, whetted his appetite for more reading and study.  In after years he was wont to say that these were the happiest days of his life.[9]

Toward the end of the year, he became dissatisfied with his employer because he was forced to perform “some menial services in the house."[10] He wished his employer to know that he was not a household servant, but an apprentice.  Further difficulties arose, which terminated his apprenticeship in Middlebury.  Returning to Brandon, he entered the shop of Deacon Caleb Knowlton, also a cabinet-maker; but in less than a year he quit this employer on the plea of ill-health.[11] It is quite likely that the confinement and severe manual labor may have overtaxed the strength of the growing boy; but it is equally clear that he had lost his taste for cabinet work.  He never again expressed a wish to follow a trade.  He again took up his abode with his mother; and, the means now coming to hand from some source, he enrolled as a student in Brandon Academy, with the avowed purpose of preparing for a professional career.[12] It was a wise choice.  Vermont may have lost a skilled handworker—­there are those who vouch for the excellence of his handiwork[13]—­but the Union gained a joiner of first-rate ability.

Wedding bells rang in another change in his fortunes.  The marriage of his sister to a young New Yorker from Ontario County, was followed by the marriage of his mother to the father, Gehazi Granger.  Both couples took up their residence on the Granger estate, and thither also went Stephen, with perhaps a sense of loneliness in his boyish heart.[14] He was then but seventeen.  This removal to New York State proved to be his first step along a path which Vermonters were wearing toward the West.