Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie
aloft. Well; by his kindness on the voyage he made one boy his devoted
friend and admirer.
We knew only Mr. and Mrs. Sloane in New York--parents of the
well-known John, Willie, and Henry Sloane. Mrs. Sloane (Euphemia
Douglas) was my mother's companion in childhood in Dunfermline. Mr.
Sloane and my father had been fellow weavers. We called upon them and
were warmly welcomed. It was a genuine pleasure when Willie, his son,
bought ground from me in 1900 opposite our New York residence for his
two married daughters so that our children of the third generation
became playmates as our mothers were in Scotland.
My father was induced by emigration agents in New York to take the
Erie Canal by way of Buffalo and Lake Erie to Cleveland, and thence
down the canal to Beaver--a journey which then lasted three weeks,
and is made to-day by rail in ten hours. There was no railway
communication then with Pittsburgh, nor indeed with any western town.
The Erie Railway was under construction and we saw gangs of men at
work upon it as we traveled. Nothing comes amiss to youth, and I look
back upon my three weeks as a passenger upon the canal-boat with
unalloyed pleasure. All that was disagreeable in my experience has
long since faded from recollection, excepting the night we were
compelled to remain upon the wharf-boat at Beaver waiting for the
steamboat to take us up the Ohio to Pittsburgh. This was our first
introduction to the mosquito in all its ferocity. My mother suffered
so severely that in the morning she could hardly see. We were all
frightful sights, but I do not remember that even the stinging misery
of that night kept me from sleeping soundly. I could always sleep,
never knowing "horrid night, the child of hell."
Our friends in Pittsburgh had been anxiously waiting to hear from us,
and in their warm and affectionate greeting all our troubles were
forgotten. We took up our residence with them in Allegheny City. A
brother of my Uncle Hogan had built a small weaver's shop at the back
end of a lot in Rebecca Street. This had a second story in which there
were two rooms, and it was in these (free of rent, for my Aunt Aitken
owned them) that my parents began housekeeping. My uncle soon gave up
weaving and my father took his place and began making tablecloths,
which he had not only to weave, but afterwards, acting as his own
merchant, to travel and sell, as no dealers could be found to take
them in quantity. He was compelled to market them himself, selling
from door to door. The returns were meager in the extreme.
As usual, my mother came to the rescue. There was no keeping her down.
In her youth she had learned to bind shoes in her father's business
for pin-money, and the skill then acquired was now turned to account
for the benefit of the family. Mr. Phipps, father of my friend and
partner Mr. Henry Phipps, was, like my grandfather, a master
shoemaker. He was our neighbor in Allegheny City. Work was obtained
from him, and in addition to attending to her household duties--for,
of course, we had no servant--this wonderful woman, my mother, earned
four dollars a week by binding shoes. Midnight would often find her at
work. In the intervals during the day and evening, when household
cares would permit, and my young brother sat at her knee threading
needles and waxing the thread for her, she recited to him, as she had
to me, the gems of Scottish minstrelsy which she seemed to have by
heart, or told him tales which failed not to contain a moral.
This is where the children of honest poverty have the most precious of
all advantages over those of wealth. The mother, nurse, cook,
governess, teacher, saint, all in one; the father, exemplar, guide,
counselor, and friend! Thus were my brother and I brought up. What has
the child of millionaire or nobleman that counts compared to such a
heritage?
My mother was a busy woman, but all her work did not prevent her
neighbors from soon recognizing her as a wise and kindly woman whom
they could call upon for counsel or help in times of trouble. Many
have told me what my mother did for them. So it was in after years
wherever we resided; rich and poor came to her with their trials and
found good counsel. She towered among her neighbors wherever she
went.
CHAPTER III
PITTSBURGH AND WORK
The great question now was, what could be found for me to do. I had
just completed my thirteenth year, and I fairly panted to get to work
that I might help the family to a start in the new land. The prospect
of want had become to me a frightful nightmare. My thoughts at this
period centered in the determination that we should make and save
enough of money to produce three hundred dollars a year--twenty-five
dollars monthly, which I figured was the sum required to keep us
without being dependent upon others. Every necessary thing was very
cheap in those days.
The brother of my Uncle Hogan would often ask what my parents meant to
do with me, and one day there occurred the most tragic of all scenes I
have ever witnessed. Never can I forget it. He said, with the kindest
intentions in the world, to my mother, that I was a likely boy and apt
to learn; and he believed that if a basket were fitted out for me with
knickknacks to sell, I could peddle them around the wharves and make
quite a considerable sum. I never knew what an enraged woman meant
till then. My mother was sitting sewing at the moment, but she sprang
to her feet with outstretched hands and shook them in his face.
"What! my son a peddler and go among rough men upon the wharves! I
would rather throw him into the Allegheny River. Leave me!" she cried,
pointing to the door, and Mr. Hogan went.
She stood a tragic queen. The next moment she had broken down, but
only for a few moments did tears fall and sobs come. Then she took her
two boys in her arms and told us not to mind her foolishness. There
were many things in the world for us to do and we could be useful men,
honored and respected, if we always did what was right. It was a
repetition of Helen Macgregor, in her reply to Osbaldistone in which
she threatened to have her prisoners "chopped into as many pieces as
there are checks in the tartan." But the reason for the outburst was
different. It was not because the occupation suggested was peaceful
labor, for we were taught that idleness was disgraceful; but because
the suggested occupation was somewhat vagrant in character and not
entirely respectable in her eyes. Better death. Yes, mother would have
taken her two boys, one under each arm, and perished with them rather
than they should mingle with low company in their extreme youth.
As I look back upon the early struggles this can be said: there was
not a prouder family in the land. A keen sense of honor, independence,
self-respect, pervaded the household. Walter Scott said of Burns that
he had the most extraordinary eye he ever saw in a human being. I can
say as much for my mother. As Burns has it:
"Her eye even turned on empty space,
Beamed keen with honor."
Anything low, mean, deceitful, shifty, coarse, underhand, or gossipy
was foreign to that heroic soul. Tom and I could not help growing up
respectable characters, having such a mother and such a father, for
the father, too, was one of nature's noblemen, beloved by all, a
saint.
Soon after this incident my father found it necessary to give up
hand-loom weaving and to enter the cotton factory of Mr. Blackstock,
an old Scotsman in Allegheny City, where we lived. In this factory he
also obtained for me a position as bobbin boy, and my first work was
done there at one dollar and twenty cents per week. It was a hard
life. In the winter father and I had to rise and breakfast in the
darkness, reach the factory before it was daylight, and, with a short
interval for lunch, work till after dark. The hours hung heavily upon
me and in the work itself I took no pleasure; but the cloud had a
silver lining, as it gave me the feeling that I was doing something
for my world--our family. I have made millions since, but none of
those millions gave me such happiness as my first week's earnings. I
was now a helper of the family, a breadwinner, and no longer a total
charge upon my parents. Often had I heard my father's beautiful
singing of "The Boatie Rows" and often I longed to fulfill the last
lines of the verse:
"When Aaleck, Jock, and Jeanettie,
_Are up and got their lair_,[11]
They'll serve to gar the boatie row,
And lichten a' our care."
[Footnote 11: Education.]
I was going to make our tiny craft skim. It should be noted here that
Aaleck, Jock, and Jeanettie were first to get their education.
Scotland was the first country that required all parents, high or low,
to educate their children, and established the parish public schools.
Soon after this Mr. John Hay, a fellow-Scotch manufacturer of bobbins
in Allegheny City, needed a boy, and asked whether I would not go into
his service. I went, and received two dollars per week; but at first
the work was even more irksome than the factory. I had to run a small
steam-engine and to fire the boiler in the cellar of the bobbin
factory. It was too much for me. I found myself night after night,
sitting up in bed trying the steam gauges, fearing at one time that
the steam was too low and that the workers above would complain that
they had not power enough, and at another time that the steam was too
high and that the boiler might burst.
But all this it was a matter of honor to conceal from my parents. They
had their own troubles and bore them. I must play the man and bear
mine. My hopes were high, and I looked every day for some change to
take place. What it was to be I knew not, but that it would come I
felt certain if I kept on. Besides, at this date I was not beyond
asking myself what Wallace would have done and what a Scotsman ought
to do. Of one thing I was sure, he ought never to give up.
One day the chance came. Mr. Hay had to make out some bills. He had no
clerk, and was himself a poor penman. He asked me what kind of hand I
could write, and gave me some writing to do. The result pleased him,
and he found it convenient thereafter to let me make out his bills. I
was also good at figures; and he soon found it to be to his
interest--and besides, dear old man, I believe he was moved by good
feeling toward the white-haired boy, for he had a kind heart and was
Scotch and wished to relieve me from the engine--to put me at other
things, less objectionable except in one feature.
It now became my duty to bathe the newly made spools in vats of oil.
Fortunately there was a room reserved for this purpose and I was
alone, but not all the resolution I could muster, nor all the
indignation I felt at my own weakness, prevented my stomach from
behaving in a most perverse way. I never succeeded in overcoming the
nausea produced by the smell of the oil. Even Wallace and Bruce proved
impotent here. But if I had to lose breakfast, or dinner, I had all
the better appetite for supper, and the allotted work was done. A real
disciple of Wallace or Bruce could not give up; he would die first.
My service with Mr. Hay was a distinct advance upon the cotton
factory, and I also made the acquaintance of an employer who was very
kind to me. Mr. Hay kept his books in single entry, and I was able to
handle them for him; but hearing that all great firms kept their books
in double entry, and after talking over the matter with my companions,
John Phipps, Thomas N. Miller, and William Cowley, we all determined
to attend night school during the winter and learn the larger system.
So the four of us went to a Mr. Williams in Pittsburgh and learned
double-entry bookkeeping.