Near the close of 1836 I wrote to my brother Charles at Mansfield, asking him to get me employment. He discouraged me and said I should stick to my studies, but I insisted that I was strong and could make my own living. At this time Ohio had decided upon the improvement of the Muskingum River from Zanesville to Marietta, and the Board of Public Works had selected Colonel Samuel R. Curtis, a graduate of West Point, as chief engineer. He was a brother of Mr. Curtis, of Mount Vernon, and a friend of our family. Charles had no difficulty in securing me employment as junior rodman if, at the age of fourteen, I could perform the duties requed,-- which Colonel Curtis doubted. The work was not to commence until the spring, when I was to be given a trial. I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune. I studied the mode of leveling. I saw a man on the Hocking canal operate his instrument, take the rear sight from the level of the water in the canal, then by a succession of levels backwards and forwards carry his level to the objective point. Then the man was kind enough to show me how, by simple addition and subtraction, the result wanted could be obtained. I was well advanced in arithmetic and in mathematics generally, and was confident, even if I was hardly fourteen years old, that I could do the work of a junior rodman. About the first of May, 1837, the day of deliverance came. I was to be my own master and make my own living! A fortune gilded with hope was before me. I was to go in the stage thirty-six miles to Zanesville, and thence by stage-route down the Muskingum River, twenty-eight miles to McConnelsville. When the stage arrived at my mother's house it was rather full, but there was still room enough for me. All the family, and my comrades, had gathered to see me off. My baggage, all new, was thrown into the boot, and I took my seat in the stage. My heart sank a little as the stage rolled over the hill and down the valley beyond, but the passengers wanted to know who I was, where I was going, and what I was going to do, and I think they got all the information they wanted, for why should I not tell them of my visions of hope, sometimes called plans! Oh! the golden dreams of childhood, the splendid anticipations of boyhood, the fields of conquest to be won, the fortunes to be made, all to vanish into thin air by the touch of reality.