The boy was naturally of a cheerful disposition, and it did
him good service now in helping to sustain him in his hard lot. Four
years were passed in this way, and when he was fifteen years old his
guardian informed him that he had now reached an age when he must begin
his apprenticeship to some regular trade.
The boy was very anxious to learn clock-making, and begged his guardian
to apprentice him to that trade; but the wise individual who controlled
his affairs replied, sagely, that clock-making was a business in which
he would starve, as it was already overdone in Connecticut. There was
one man, he said, engaged in that trade who had been silly enough to
make two hundred clocks in one year, and he added that it would take the
foolish man a life-time to sell them, or if they went off quickly, the
market would be so glutted that no dealer would have need to increase
his stock for years to come. Clock-making, he informed the boy, had
already reached the limit of its expansion in Connecticut, and offered
no opportunities at all. The carpenter's trade, on the other hand, was
never crowded with good workmen, and always offered the prospect of
success to any enterprising and competent man.
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