Abandoned thus by his three brothers, John Jacob Astor had to endure for some years a most cheerless and miserable lot.  He lost his mother, too, from whom he had derived all that was good in his character and most of the happiness of his childhood.  A step-mother replaced her, “who loved not Jacob,” nor John Jacob.  The father, still devoted to pleasure, quarrelled so bitterly with his new wife, that his son was often glad to escape to the house of a schoolfellow (living in 1854), where he would pass the night in a garret or outhouse, thankfully accepting for his supper a crust of dry bread, and returning the next morning to assist in the slaughter-house or carry out the meat.  It was not often that he had enough to eat; his clothes were of the poorest description; and, as to money, he absolutely had none of it.  The unhappiness of his home and the misconduct of his father made him ashamed to join in the sports of the village boys; and he passed much of his leisure alone, brooding over the unhappiness of his lot.  The family increased, but not its income.  It is recorded of him that he tended his little sisters with care and fondness, and sought in all ways to lessen the dislike and ill-humor of his step-mother.

It is not hardship, however, that enervates a lad.  It is indulgence and luxury that do that.  He grew a stout, healthy, tough, and patient boy, diligent and skilful in the discharge of his duty, often supplying the place of his father absent in merry-making.  If, in later life, he overvalued money, it should not be forgotten that few men have had a harder experience of the want of money at the age when character is forming.

The bitterest lot has its alleviations.  Sometimes a letter would reach him from over the sea, telling of the good fortune of a brother in a distant land.  In his old age he used to boast that in his boyhood he walked forty-five miles in one day for the sole purpose of getting a letter that had arrived from England or America.  The Astors have always been noted for the strength of their family affection.  Our millionaire forgot much that he ought to have remembered, but he was not remiss in fulfilling the obligations of kindred.

It appears, too, that he was fortunate in having a better schoolmaster than could generally be found at that day in a village school of Germany.  Valentine Jeune was his name, a French Protestant, whose parents had fled from their country during the reign of Louis XIV.  He was an active and sympathetic teacher, and bestowed unusual pains upon the boy, partly because he pitied his unhappy situation, and partly because of his aptitude to learn.  Nevertheless, the school routine of those days was extremely limited.  To read and write, to cipher as far as the Rule of Three, to learn the Catechism by heart, and to sing the Church Hymns “so that the windows should rattle,”—­these were the sole accomplishments of even the best pupils of Valentine Jeune.  Baden