Explore "The Story of my Boyhood and Youth" by John Muir on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Leaving Home-Creating a Sensation in Pardeeville-A Ride on a Locomotive-At the State Fair in Madison-Employment in a Machine-Shop at Prairie du Chien-Back to Madison-Entering the University-Teaching School-First Lesson in Botany-More Inventions-The University of the Wilderness.
When I told father that I was about to leave home, and inquired whether, if I should happen to be in need of money, he would send me a little, he said, "No; depend entirely on yourself. " Good advice, I suppose, but surely needlessly severe for a bashful, home-loving boy who had worked so hard. I had the gold sovereign that my grandfather had given me when I left Scotland, and a few dollars, perhaps ten, that I had made by raising a few bushels of grain on a little patch of sandy abandoned ground. So when I left home to try the world I had only about fifteen dollars in my pocket.