He brought his wife and boys to Galena, where at any rate he was sure
of having a roof over his head.
"The brothers found him of no earthly account at driving bargains, or
tending store," says General Charles King. "He could keep books after
a fashion and do some of the heavy work in handling the miscellaneous
stock."
Another soldier, who became his devoted follower in the later days, had
his first sight of Grant at this down-at-the-heels period. "I went
round to the store," he says; "it was a sharp winter morning, and there
wasn't a sign of a soldier or one that looked like a soldier about the
shop. But pretty soon a farmer drove up with a lot of hides on his
sleigh, and went inside to dicker, and presently a stoop-shouldered,
brownish-bearded fellow, with a slouch hat pulled down over his eyes,
who had been sitting whittling at the stove when I was inside, came
out, pulling on an old light-blue soldier's overcoat. He flung open
the doors leading down into the cellar, laid hold of the top hide,
frozen stiff it was, tugged it loose, towed it over, and slung it down
the chute. Then one by one, all by himself, he heaved off the rest of
them, a ten minutes' tough job in that weather, until he had got the
last of them down the cellar; then slouched back into the store again,
shed the blue coat, got some hot water off the stove and went and
washed his hands, using a cake of brown soap, then came back and went
to whittling again, and all without a word to anybody.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55