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.