“Oh!” I said, “Mrs. Wilkins, there is something even worse than that.  I understand that some of them have been admitted to heaven!”

There was a silence that could be felt.  Then dear Mrs. Wilkins said gravely: 

“That is a different matter, Mr. Carnegie.”

By far the most precious gift ever received by me up to that time came about in this manner.  Dear Mrs. Wilkins began knitting an afghan, and during the work many were the inquiries as to whom it was for.  No, the dear queenly old lady would not tell; she kept her secret all the long months until, Christmas drawing near, the gift finished and carefully wrapped up, and her card with a few loving words enclosed, she instructed her daughter to address it to me.  It was duly received in New York.  Such a tribute from such a lady!  Well, that afghan, though often shown to dear friends, has not been much used.  It is sacred to me and remains among my precious possessions.

I had been so fortunate as to meet Leila Addison while living in Pittsburgh, the talented daughter of Dr. Addison, who had died a short time before.  I soon became acquainted with the family and record with grateful feelings the immense advantage which that acquaintance also brought to me.  Here was another friendship formed with people who had all the advantages of the higher education.  Carlyle had been Mrs. Addison’s tutor for a time, for she was an Edinburgh lady.  Her daughters had been educated abroad and spoke French, Spanish, and Italian as fluently as English.  It was through intercourse with this family that I first realized the indescribable yet immeasurable gulf that separates the highly educated from people like myself.  But “the wee drap o’ Scotch bluid atween us” proved its potency as usual.

Miss Addison became an ideal friend because she undertook to improve the rough diamond, if it were indeed a diamond at all.  She was my best friend, because my severest critic.  I began to pay strict attention to my language, and to the English classics, which I now read with great avidity.  I began also to notice how much better it was to be gentle in tone and manner, polite and courteous to all—­in short, better behaved.  Up to this time I had been, perhaps, careless in dress and rather affected it.  Great heavy boots, loose collar, and general roughness of attire were then peculiar to the West and in our circle considered manly.  Anything that could be labeled foppish was looked upon with contempt.  I remember the first gentleman I ever saw in the service of the railway company who wore kid gloves.  He was the object of derision among us who aspired to be manly men.  I was a great deal the better in all these respects after we moved to Homewood, owing to the Addisons.

CHAPTER VIII

CIVIL WAR PERIOD

In 1861 the Civil War broke out and I was at once summoned to Washington by Mr. Scott, who had been appointed Assistant Secretary of War in charge of the Transportation Department.  I was to act as his assistant in charge of the military railroads and telegraphs of the Government and to organize a force of railway men.  It was one of the most important departments of all at the beginning of the war.