When he was eleven his father, handy at making money in all sorts of ways, took a contract for building the county jail, a job which called for hauling a great many logs; he bought a horse called Dave for Ulysses, and set him to hauling. The woods were two miles from the site of the jail, the logs a foot square and fourteen feet long. Eleven men did the hewing and loaded the logs; the boy drove. One cloudy day the hewers were not in the woods, and Ulysses was left alone, but by his own ingenuity the boy did the job of several strong men. A fallen maple lay slanting with its top caught in another tree. Using this as an inclined plane the boy hitched Dave to the logs, hauled them up on the trunk till they nearly balanced, and then backing the wagon up to it hitched Dave to them again and snaked them forward upon the axles one at a time.

He was the best traveled boy in the village. At Flat Rock, Kentucky, on one of his trips he traded one of his horses for a saddle horse which caught his fancy. Here is his own illuminating story: "I was seventy miles from home with a carriage to take back and Mr. Payne said he did not know that his horse had ever had a collar on. I asked to have him hitched to a farm wagon, and we would soon see whether he would work. It was soon evident that the horse had never worn harness before; but he showed

no viciousness and I expressed a confidence that I could manage him. A trade was at once struck, I receiving ten dollars difference." The next day with a Georgetown neighbor whose brother had swapped the horse he started home. The horses were frightened and ran away twice. "The road we were on struck the turnpike within half a mile of the point where the second runaway commenced, and there was an embankment twenty or more feet deep on the opposite side of the pike. I got the horses stopped on the very brink of the precipice. My new horse was terribly frightened and trembled like an aspen; but he was not half so badly frightened as my companion, Mr. Payne, who deserted me after this last experience and took passage on a freight wagon for Maysville. Every time I attempted to start my new horse would commence to kick. I was in quite a dilemma for a time. Once in Maysville, I could borrow a horse from an uncle who lived there; but I was more than a day's travel from that point. Finally I took out my bandanna. . . and with this blindfolded my horse. In this way I reached Maysville safely the next day."

He earned his first money by taking a load of rags to Cincinnati, and selling it for fifteen dollars. He was less than twelve years old and the business venture was his own device. "My best training," he con

fided to Thomas Kilby Smith, at Vicksburg, "was before I went to West Point."

There is another story made much of by biographers given to drawing lessons, as showing the boy's guilelessness. It is about a colt which he was sent to buy. His father had offered twenty dollars, but the owner, Ralston, wanted twenty-five. "My father ... said twenty dollars was all the horse was worth, and told me to offer that price. If it was not accepted, I was to offer twenty-two and a half, and if that would not bring him to give the twenty-five. I at once mounted a horse and went for the colt. When I got to Mr. Ralston's house I said to him: 'Papa says I may offer you twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won't take that I am to offer twenty-two and a half, and if you won't take that to give you twenty-five!' It would not take a Connecticut man to guess the price finally agreed upon."

The story got out among the other boys, and it was a long time before he heard the last of it; but Grant was only eight years old. If we must have an incident disclosing Grant's guileless trust in others' honesty, we can find one more pertinent of a later date. There is a letter bearing date of October 24, 1859, when, writing to his younger brother Simpson from St. Louis, he says:

"I have been postponing writing to you hoping to

make a return for your horse

but as yet I have re

ceived nothing for him. About two weeks ago a man spoke to me for him and said that he would try him the next day, and if he suited give me $100 for him. I have not seen the man since; but one week ago last Saturday he went to the stable and got the horse, saddle, and bridle, since which I have seen neither man nor horse. From this I presume he must like him. The man I understand lives in Florisant, about twelve miles from the city. . . .

"P.S. The man that has your horse is the owner of a row of six three-story brick houses in this city and the probabilities are that he intends to give me an order on his agent for the money on the first of the month when the rents are paid. At all events, I imagine the horse is perfectly safe."

CHAPTER II

THE TRAINING OF A SOLDIER

I. WEST POINT

GRANT's early schooling, the best the village gave, and then two terms in private schools, at Maysville and at Ripley, was limited to the "three R's." He never saw an algebra till after his appointment to West Point, and as he studied no more than he could help, his scholarship left much to be desired. The love of learning which lured him from the tannery was probably as much his father's passion as his own. The knowledge which he found of greatest use in after years he garnered in the University of Common Sense. The ingenuity he showed in solving boyish problems was classified as genius when later put to harder tests.

He says that as a boy he did not like to work, "but I did as much of it while young as grown men can be hired to do in these days and attended school at the same time"; yet, when he was not stirred to swift decision in emergencies, he was of sluggish habit all his days. "As I grow older I become more indolent, my besetting sin through life," he wrote, in 1873, when he was President, to Adam Badeau. But in