A rich man who lived near the Greeleys used to lend books to Horace. Horace had grown tall. His hair was white. He was poorly dressed. He was a strange-looking boy. One day he went to the house of the rich man to borrow books. Some one said to the owner of the house, “Do you lend books to such a fellow as that?”
But the gen-tle-man said, “That boy will be a great man some day.”
This made all the com-pa-ny laugh. It seemed funny that anybody should think of this poor boy becoming a great man. But it came true. The poor white-headed boy came to be a great man.
Horace Greeley learned all that he could learn in the country schools. When he was thirteen, one teacher said to his father,—
“Mr. Greeley, Horace knows more than I do. It is not of any use to send him to school any more.”
Horace Greeley had always wanted to be a printer. He liked books and papers. He thought it would be a fine thing to learn to make them.
One day he heard that the news-paper at East Poult-ney wanted a boy to learn the printer’s trade. He walked many long miles to see about it. He went to see Mr. Bliss. Mr. Bliss was one of the owners of the paper. Horace found him working in his garden. Mr. Bliss looked up. He saw a big boy coming toward him. The boy had on a white felt hat with a narrow brim. It looked like a half-peck measure. His hair was white. His trousers were too short for him. All his clothes were coarse and poor. He was such a strange-looking boy, that Mr. Bliss wanted to laugh.
“I heard that you wanted a boy,” Horace said.
“Do you want to learn to print?” Mr. Bliss said.
“But a printer ought to know a good many things,” said Mr. Bliss. “Have you been to school much?”
“No,” said Horace. “I have not had much chance at school. But I have read some.”
“Well, I have read some his-to-ry, and some travels, and a little of everything.”
Mr. Bliss had ex-am-ined a great many schoolteachers. He liked to puzzle teachers with hard questions. He thought he would try Horace with these. But the gawky boy answered them all. This tow-headed boy seemed to know everything.
Mr. Bliss took a piece of paper from his pocket. He wrote on it, “Guess we’d better try him.”
He gave this paper to Horace, and told him to take it to the printing office. Horace, with his little white hat and strange ways, went into the printing office. The boys in the office laughed at him. But the foreman said he would try him.