The business manager of the Northern Spectator, when Horace asked him, “Do you want a boy to learn the trade?” thought it strange that so unpromising a subject should have conceived the idea of becoming a printer. But he found the lad intelligent, and was told by him that he “had read some,” and that he understood what he had read; so he sent him to the foreman. The latter also changed a first unfavorable impression to the opinion that they should give him a trial, and he was engaged. A few days later, he appeared at the office with his father, his worldly possessions tied up in a handkerchief, and entered into a verbal agreement to work for the concern until he was twenty-one years old, receiving only his board for the first six months, and after that $40 a year in addition. This compensation was somewhat increased before he left Poultney, and out of his slender means,
