Page:How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon.djvu/264

 usual life of the Yankee boy, to bring the cows and milk them, to 240 cut the wood, and later to plow and sow the fields, as we afterward find he knew how to do all these things. The strong, sturdy boy of ceaseless activity and indomitable will who loved hunting and exploring, and a touch of wild life, must have sometimes given his old grandfather a trial of his mettle, but on the whole, no doubt, he was a great comfort and help to his declining years.

After the death of his grandfather, he returned to the home of his mother in Rushville. There he became a member of the Congregational Church at the age of nineteen, and it is said was very desirous of studying for the ministry, but by a long illness, and the persuasion of friends, was turned from his purpose to the study of medicine.

He took a three years' course, and graduated at Fairfield, in 1824. He first went to Canada, where he practiced his profession for four years, then came back to his home, determined again to take up the study for the ministry, but was again frustrated in his design, and practiced his profession four years more in Wheeler, N. Y., where he was a member and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He and a brother also owned a saw-mill near there, where he assisted in his spare hours, and so learned another trade that was most useful to him in later life. In fact, as we see his environments in his Mission