Such a story is a sufficient indication of character. It exhibits the two qualities which distinguished him as a man--good sense and courage. Another story of his boyhood is worth telling for the same reason. He was about twelve years of age when he went one day to a village about two miles off, and returning late at night with his father, who had been drinking hard as usual, they met a group of women who had turned back from a place called Rogue Green because they had seen a dreadful apparition in a hollow part of the road where some person had been murdered years before. Of course the place had been _haunted_ ever since! The women dared not go by the spot after what they had seen, and were returning to the village to spend the night. Lackington and his father laughed at the tale, and the dauntless boy engaged to walk on in front and go up to the object when they came near it in order to discover what it was. He did so, keeping about fifty yards ahead of the company and calling to them to come on. Having walked about a quarter of a mile, the object came in sight. "Here it is!" said he. "Lord have mercy on us!" cried they, and were preparing to run, "but shame prevented them." Making a long file behind him, the order of procedure of course being according to the degree of each person's courage, they moved on with trembling steps toward the _ghost_. Although the boy's "hat was lifted off his head by his hair standing on end," and his teeth chattered in his mouth, he was pledged in honor and must go on. Coming close to the dreaded spectre, he saw its true character--"a very short tree, whose limbs had been newly cut off, the doing of which had made it much resemble a giant." The boy's pluck was the talk of the town, and he "was mentioned as a hero." His merits as a pie vender had made him a reputation, and now an application was made to his father to allow James to sell almanacs about the time of Christmas and the New Year. He rejoiced immensely in this occupation and drove a splendid trade, exciting the envy and ire of the itinerant venders of Moore, Wing, and Poor Robin to such a degree that he speaks of his father's fear lest these poor hawkers, who found their occupation almost gone, should do the daring young interloper some grievous bodily harm. "But," he says, "I had not the least concern; and as I had a light pair of heels, I always kept at a proper distance."