the education of her children, and there is no evidence that she did, she could have done little for them in her circumstances. At that day, especially, schooling was out of the question to the children of the poor in the South. The consequence was that Mrs. Johnson's children went without anything of the kind. In a great city they would have been bootblacks and "gamins;" as it was they were simply "white trash." It appears that she married again, but there are no indications that this event bettered the condition of her children in any way.

At the early age of ten Andrew was put in a shop to learn the tailor's trade, then, especially, very valuable. This undesirable trade presented then, as it does now indeed, some rare opportunities for improvement, of which Andrew Johnson in time had the spirit to take advantage; illustrating in his own career that the way to distinction in this country may lie within any honorable pursuit.

Before entering upon this trade, Johnson had some way, perhaps, learned a part of the alphabet; but he never had gone to school a day, and never did at any subsequent time spend a moment as a student. in a school or college. According to the custom of that day, Johnson was indentured, and for years went quietly on in his long and irksome apprenticeship. But in the meantime he had learned to read. His inclination in this direction was discovered to him in listening to the reading of "The American Speaker" by some generous loafer who often visited the tailor's shop for that purpose. In hearing this

man read, Johnson, perhaps, got his first glimpse of his own passion for speaking. In this book, which was afterwards presented to him, he learned to read. Among his fellow-laborers in a shop which appears to have been quite extensive, he was the only one who had a quality susceptible of being aroused. "The American Speaker" in the hands of this unknown reader put him on the way to the Presidency. The taste for reading and desire for self-improvement started at this time never left him; and the determination, formed doubtlessly in the shop at Raleigh, "to be something," he never abandoned.

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In 1824, guilty of some boyish offense, he ran away from his employer, J. J. Selby, and remained over a year working at his trade in South Carolina. Early in 1826 he returned to Raleigh, and seeking his old employer offered to pay him for the unexpired time on his indenture, but his expectations of an amicable settlement were not realized, and in September of that year he set out with all his worldly effects" to seek his fortune in Tennessee. Before this time he had assumed the responsibility of taking care of his mother. She accompanied him on his journey, which was made in a primitive style not yet out of fashion in that region. Imagine a wrinkled, swarthy little old woman with scant apparel and a few cooking utensils and other chattels in a rickety dog-cart drawn by her son; or at times she tripping along on foot to rest the willing horse in the tedious stretch over the mountains and among the hills! In this wretched plight it was

that Andrew Johnson, the future President of the United States, presented himself at Greenville, in East Tennessee, late in the fall of 1826.

During his stay in South Carolina he had accumulated a little fund which was to serve him now in this great adventure, but it does not appear that he was at all able to buy a horse. It was not unusual then, nor is it yet, for such poor and shiftless people in that country to travel afoot, themselves drawing their scant worldly goods in little carts. There is no evidence that Johnson did not enter his new field at the head of an outfit of this kind. It is also claimed by some of his friends and admirers in Tennessee that he brought with him, and actually hauled at times in the little cart, his step-father, and took care of him equally with his mother while they lived. But this dim tradition is flatly denied by other friends, who see no virtue in it to adorn a story at best too sadly plain for more pretentious days; and so it may rest among the things undecided in the "memory of man."

The following colored and very doubtful story is taken from the "Nashville American" of November 4, 1880, as copied from the "Louisville CourierJournal," and while it sufficiently shows where the old Kentuckian draws too hard on his imagination, if he does not do so throughout, it well serves to illustrate the character of Johnson's earlier associations, and the kind of people from whom he sprang:

"I stopped to-day and asked for dinner at the door of a neat little log house. It was near the division line of

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Lewis and Carter Counties, but in which of the two I am unprepared to say. It was a very hospitable-looking house, with a neat front yard, surrounded by a paling fence. There were flowers in the yard, and a green vine clambered over the porch. All the out-buildings were comfortable, and the fields stretching away in the rear of the house bore evidences of careful cultivation. There were no unsightly brush-heaps, brier-patches, or stone-piles, and the fence-corners were clean. A trimly clad little woman, in a dress of some light material, responded to my summons, and invited me in. A broad-shouldered fellow came up from the stable and took my horse. The young woman ushered me into a pleasant room, which I suppose they call the dining-room.' It was a very pleasant room. bright rag carpet was spread in front of the hearth, a table under the window was covered with books and papers, and there was a shelf filled with books in a little niche beside the chimney. A cabinet organ filled the other corner. A baby, chubby-faced and red-cheeked, slept in a cradle, which was gently rocked by an old man. This old man's face was seamed and furrowed, and his hair and beard were white, but he did not seem to be as old as one would at first judge. The lines deep graven in his face were care lines, and sorrow or sickness had whitened his hair and beard. Dinner was on the table; but the little woman who had invited me in brought out a jar of preserves, a dish of fruit, and some cake, and arranged them among the substantials. The broadshouldered man came in directly, and I was introduced to him. He was the husband of the pleasant-faced woman, and the old man rocking the cradle was his father. Two boys came into the room as we were sitting down to the table, and they called the little woman mother. It seemed to be a very agreeable family, and I was glad I stopped. The old man took the head of the table opposite a leg of mutton, and I was placed on his right. Opposite me on

the wall was hung a fine steel portrait of Andrew Johnson. There were other pictures, but this one stood out prominently. The frame was gilt, very heavy, and protected from the flies and dust by gauze. It grew in proportion as I looked toward it from time to time, and it finally became the only object in the room. After dinner I stepped close under it to make a better examination. It was certainly a fine picture, and the bold signature of the great commoner was not a lithograph fac-simile, but a written. autograph.

"That is a fine picture,' I remarked.

"Yes, that's Andy!' replied the old man, and he walked up beside me and ran his hand lovingly over the face of the picture.

"You knew him, then?' I again asked, beginning to get curious.

"Knew him!' answered the old gentleman, stepping back to give the reply more emphasis; why, stranger, Andy and I worked together on the tailor's bench in Raleigh, forty odd years ago, and he was the best friend I ever had.'

"He was the best friend he ever had,' was the refrain echoed by the two boys, the broad-shouldered man, and the pleasant-faced woman.

"I felt confident that there was an interesting story behind this, and I begged the old gentleman to tell it. He nodded his head, and I drew my chair up beside his. The boys and their father and mother drew up their chairs also.

"I knew Andy,' he began, waving his hand toward the picture, 'a good many years ago, when he was a ragged little boy, running around Raleigh. His father was a poor man, and got drowned when Andy was about nine years old. He lived with his mother; and was a good son, although he was very little and could n't do much. He used to come to our shop a great deal. That was in the good