“Andra, I am proud of you.”

The voice trembled and he seemed ashamed of himself for saying so much.  The tear had to be wiped from his eye, I fondly noticed, as he bade me good-night and told me to run back to my office.  Those words rang in my ear and warmed my heart for years and years.  We understood each other.  How reserved the Scot is!  Where he feels most he expresses least.  Quite right.  There are holy depths which it is sacrilege to disturb.  Silence is more eloquent than words.  My father was one of the most lovable of men, beloved of his companions, deeply religious, although non-sectarian and non-theological, not much of a man of the world, but a man all over for heaven.  He was kindness itself, although reserved.  Alas! he passed away soon after returning from this Western tour just as we were becoming able to give him a life of leisure and comfort.

After my return to Pittsburgh it was not long before I made the acquaintance of an extraordinary man, Thomas A. Scott, one to whom the term “genius” in his department may safely be applied.  He had come to Pittsburgh as superintendent of that division of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  Frequent telegraphic communication was necessary between him and his superior, Mr. Lombaert, general superintendent at Altoona.  This brought him to the telegraph office at nights, and upon several occasions I happened to be the operator.  One day I was surprised by one of his assistants, with whom I was acquainted, telling me that Mr. Scott had asked him whether he thought that I could be obtained as his clerk and telegraph operator, to which this young man told me he had replied: 

“That is impossible.  He is now an operator.”

But when I heard this I said at once: 

“Not so fast.  He can have me.  I want to get out of a mere office life.  Please go and tell him so.”

The result was I was engaged February 1, 1853, at a salary of thirty-five dollars a month as Mr. Scott’s clerk and operator.  A raise in wages from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars per month was the greatest I had ever known.  The public telegraph line was temporarily put into Mr. Scott’s office at the outer depot and the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was given permission to use the wire at seasons when such use would not interfere with the general public business, until their own line, then being built, was completed.

CHAPTER VI

RAILROAD SERVICE

From the operating-room of the telegraph office I had now stepped into the open world, and the change at first was far from agreeable.  I had just reached my eighteenth birthday, and I do not see how it could be possible for any boy to arrive at that age much freer from a knowledge of anything but what was pure and good.  I do not believe, up to that time, I had ever spoken a bad word in my life and seldom heard one.  I knew nothing of the base and the vile.  Fortunately I had always been brought in contact with good people.