Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The land of promise proved all that had been promised. The Carnegies wanted jobs they did not wait to accept situations. The father found a place in a cotton-mill at a dollar and a half a day. Andy slipped in as bobbin-boy and got one dollar and twenty cents a week. Five shillings a week, all his own to be laid in his mother's lap each Saturday night spelled paradise.
"What's 'it'?" asked Archie innocently. "Why, the library. The Boat Club is going to see that Winsted has a public library." "Turn into Carnegies?" inquired Max, doing a sketch of Geraldine Winthrop on the margin of the secretary's book. "Not exactly. We haven't got our own dock built yet, and I don't think we are in a position to endow libraries. But I mean we can work and talk "
Now there's the Carnegies and the Gordons and the rest o' the royal families in the Northeast, and the sour-blooded Covenanters down in the West, and it's no in the nature o' things that they should agree any more than oil and water. As for me, the very face of a Presbyterian whig makes me sick. But there's the trumpet again," and Grimond helped his master to put on his arms.
The Carnegies had never had a telegraph-message come to them, and didn't want one, for folks only get messages when some one is dead. The way you learned "the key" then was to start in as messenger, and when there were no messages, to hang around the office and pick up the mystery by induction. One great drawback to acting as messenger was that Andy did not know the streets.
In Pittsburgh at this time was a young man by the name of Douglass Reid, who was born in Edinburgh. On Sunday afternoon Reid used to visit the Carnegies and talk about old times and new. Reid was an expert telegraph-operator, and afterwards wrote "A History of the Telegraph." The more he saw of Andy the more sure he was that the lad could learn the dot and dash, and be an honor to the profession.
Kirkham, however, having determined that it was its duty to reclaim Bessie, was moved to be imperious. As Mr. Fairfax heard nothing from his lawyer, he went into Norminster to bid him press the thing on. Mr. John Short pleaded to give the Carnegies longer law, and when Mr. Fairfax refused to see any grounds for it, he suggested a visit to Beechhurst as more appropriate than another letter.
Of course it would take money to do all this, and flocks of free people who are doing the work they love. But it is not book-racks, nor paper, nor ink, nor stone steps, nor white pillars it is free men and free women America and England are asking of their Andrew Carnegies to-day. Mr. Carnegie has not touched this human problem in his libraries.
He was helping to support the household! To know you are useful, and realize that you are needed, is a great stimulus to growth. Never again did the Carnegies hear that muffled groan, "There is no work!" The synonym of the word "Carnegie" is work. In a year little Andy had graduated to the boiler-room at two dollars a week.
They met under the arch of the gate, and Carmichael returned with the Carnegies, Kate making much of him and insisting that he should stay to luncheon. "You are our first visitor, Mr. Carmichael, and the General says that we need not expect more than six, so we mean to be very kind to them. Do you live far from here?" "Quite near just two miles west.
She never knew when her husband would be called away for one of his hunts, and though there were many Loyalist families in Forfarshire, it was not a time for easy social intercourse, and Jean was conscious that the Carnegies and the rest of them of the old Cavalier stock looked askance at her, and suspected the black Covenanting taint in her blood.
Word Of The Day