CHAPTER V. THE LOST FEATHER BED

I didn't care very much for day school. The whipping that I got there

rather dulled the flavor of it for me. But I was a prize pupil at

Sunday-school. Father had gone to America and had saved enough money to

send for the family. I asked my mother if there were Sunday-schools in

America, but she did not know. In those days we knew little about lands

that lay so far away.

My boy chums told me we were going to Pennsylvania to fight Indians.

This cheered me up. Fighting Indians would be as much fun as going to

Sunday-school. A trip to America for such a purpose was a sensible move.

But when mother exploded the Indian theory and said we were going to

work in a rolling mill, I decided that it was a foolish venture.

This shows how much my judgment was worth. I thought it foolish to go to

America merely to better our condition. But I thought it a wise move

to go there and kill Indians to better the living conditions of the

Americans. I know grown men to-day with the same kind of judgment. They

are unwilling to do the simple things that will save their own scalps;

but they are glad to go fight imaginary Indians who they believe are

scalping the human race. “Capitalism” is one of these imaginary Indians.

And Lenin and Trotsky are the boy Indian-fighters of the world. These

poor children are willing to go to any country to help kill the Indian

of capitalism. Meanwhile their own people are the poorest in the world,

but they do nothing to better their condition. Such men have minds that

never grew up.

When our household was dissolving and we were packing our baggage for

America, I tried to break up the plan by hiding under the bed. Mother

took the feather ticks off the two bedsteads and bundled them up to take

to America. Then she reached under the bedstead and pulled me out by the

heels. She sold the bedsteads to a neighbor. And so our household ended

in Wales and we were on our way to establish a new one in a far country.

As I said before, the feather beds were mother's measure of wealth.

Before she was married she had begun saving for her first feather bed.

It had taken a long time to acquire these two tickfuls of downy goose

feathers. The bed is the foundation of the household. It is there that

the babies are born. There sleep restores the weary toiler that he may

rise and toil anew. And there at last when work is done, the old folks

fall into a sleep that never ends.

We traveled steerage to Castle Garden. Having passed the immigrant

tests, we found ourselves set out on the dock, free to go where we

pleased. But our baggage had disappeared. Some one had made off with our

precious feather beds!

This was the first real tragedy of my mother's life. All the joy

of setting foot in the new land was turned to dismay. The stored-up

pleasure with which she awaited the greeting of her husband was dashed

in a moment, like sweet water flung upon the ground. When I saw the

anguish in my mother's face, I was sobered to life's responsibilities.

The song had died out of her heart, and I must make it sing again. While

she was crying in distraction, I wrapped my own tearful face in her

skirts and prayed to God that I might grow up in a day--that He would

make my arms strong so I could go to work at once earning money to

replace the lost feather beds. I was then not quite eight years old. It

was early in April, 1881. Before the month was out I had found a job

in the new country and was earning money. I gave all my earnings to my

mother. I have been earning money ever since. As long as I lived at home

I turned over all my wages to my mother. When I went away I sent her

weekly a percentage of my earnings. This I have ever continued to do.

My love for my mother and her grief at the loss of the feather beds

turned a careless boy into a serious money-maker. This led to the study

of economics and finance. A man's destiny is often made by trifles light

as feathers.