Many years later, after I had written articles and books, I received a letter from the gentleman who had charge of the Fine Arts Hall.  He proved to be the Professor of English Literature in the University of Wisconsin at this Fair time, and long afterward he sent me clippings of reports of his lectures.  He had a lecture on me, discussing style, etcetera, and telling how well he remembered my arrival at the Hall in my shirt-sleeves with those mechanical wonders on my shoulder, and so forth, and so forth.  These inventions, though of little importance, opened all doors for me and made marks that have lasted many years, simply, I suppose, because they were original and promising.

I was looking around in the mean time to find out where I should go to seek my fortune.  An inventor at the Fair, by the name of Wiard, was exhibiting an iceboat he had invented to run on the upper Mississippi from Prairie du Chien to St. Paul during the winter months, explaining how useful it would be thus to make a highway of the river while it was closed to ordinary navigation by ice.  After he saw my inventions he offered me a place in his foundry and machine-shop in Prairie du Chien and promised to assist me all he could.  So I made up my mind to accept his offer and rode with him to Prairie du Chien in his iceboat, which was mounted on a flat car.  I soon found, however, that he was seldom at home and that I was not likely to learn much at his small shop.  I found a place where I could work for my board and devote my spare hours to mechanical drawing, geometry, and physics, making but little headway, however, although the Pelton family, for whom I worked, were very kind.  I made up my mind after a few months’ stay in Prairie du Chien to return to Madison, hoping that in some way I might be able to gain an education.

At Madison I raised a few dollars by making and selling a few of those bedsteads that set the sleepers on their feet in the morning,—­inserting in the footboard the works of an ordinary clock that could be bought for a dollar.  I also made a few dollars addressing circulars in an insurance office, while at the same time I was paying my board by taking care of a pair of horses and going errands.  This is of no great interest except that I was thus winning my bread while hoping that something would turn up that might enable me to make money enough to enter the State University.  This was my ambition, and it never wavered no matter what I was doing.  No University, it seemed to me, could be more admirably, situated, and as I sauntered about it, charmed with its fine lawns and trees and beautiful lakes, and saw the students going and coming with their books, and occasionally practising with a theodolite in measuring distances, I thought that if I could only join them it would be the greatest joy of life.  I was desperately hungry and thirsty for knowledge and willing to endure anything to get it.