Young Gould supported himself by odd jobs at surveying, paying his way by erecting sundials for farmers at a dollar apiece, frequently taking his pay in board.

Thus he laid the foundation for the business career in which he became so rich.
Fred.

Douglass started in life with less than nothing, for he did not own his own body, and he was pledged before his birth to pay his master's debts.

To reach the starting-point of the poorest white boy, he had to climb as far as the distance which the latter must ascend if he would become President of the United States.

He saw his mother but two or three times, and then in the night, when she would walk twelve miles to be with him an hour, returning in time to go into the field at dawn.
He had no chance to study, for he had no teacher, and the rules of the plantation forbade slaves to learn to read and write.