LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS ZS WON.

but he never complained, and made many friends
because he was always good-natured. He used to
say to himself, “If I ever get rich, I will build a place
where the poor boys and girls of New York may have
an education free.” How absurd it seemed that a
boy who earned only fifty cents a week for five years,
should ever think of being rich, and establishing
reading rooms and public institutions. Yet the very
kind and quality of his dreams was an earnest of
future success and greatness.

When Peter became of age, Mr. Woodward, who
owned the carriage factory, called him into his office.
“You have been very faithful,” he said, “and I will
set you up in a carriage manufactory of your own;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PETER COOPER.

you could pay me back for the money borrowed in a
few years.”

Peter was astonished. This was a remarkable offer
to a poor young man, but he had made a solemn
resolution never to go in debt, and he declined it,
though with gratitude. Mr. Woodward was now as
greatly astonished as Peter had been, but he respected
his good judgment in the matter.

The young mechanic now found a situation in a
woollen mill at Hempstead, Long Island, at nine
dollars a week. Here he invented a shearing machine,
which proved so valuable that he made five hundred
dollars in two years. With so much money as this,
he could not rest until he had visited his mother.
He found his parents overwhelmed in trouble on

269

account of their debts, gave them the entire five hun.
dred dollars, and promised to meet the other notes
his father had given asthey became due. His father
had- made no mistake, evidently, in naming him after
the Apostle Peter.

Meantime the young man had fallen in love, not
with a foolish girl who cared only for dress, and her
own pretty face, but with one who had a fine mind
and lovely disposition. Sarah Bedell was worthy of
him. After fifty-six years of married life, she died
on the anniversary of her wedding day. Her husband
said, “She was the day-star, the solace and the inspir-
ation of my life.” When their first baby was born, he
invented a self-rocking cradle for it, with a fan
attached, to keep off the flies, and a musical instru-
ment to soothe the child to sleep.

He now moved to New York and opened a grocery
store. An old friend advised him to buy a glue fac-
tory which, having been mismanaged, was for sale.
He knew nothing of the business, but he had faith in
himself that he could learn it, and he soon made not
only the best glue, but the cheapest in the country.
For thirty years he carried on this business almost
alone, with no salesman, and no bookkeeper. He rose
every morning at daylight, kindled his factory fires,
worked all the forenoons making glue, and afternoons
selling it, keeping his accounts, writing his letters and
reading in the evenings, with his wife and children.
He continued to work thus when his income had
reached thirty thousand dollars a year, not because
he was over economical, but that he might some day
carry out the purpose of his life, to build his free
school for the poor. He had no time for parties or
pleasures, but when the people of New York, because
he was both honest and intelligent, urged him to be
one of the City Council, and President of the Board
of Education, he dared not refuse if he could help
his own city. How different such a life from that of
aman, who, enjoying all the advantages of a govern-
ment, does not even take time to vote.

Mr. Cooper’s business prospered. Once when his
glue factory burned, with a loss of forty thousand
dollars, before nine o’clock the next morning, lumber
was on the ground for a new building, three times
the size of the former. He now built a rolling mill
and furnace in Baltimore. At that time, only thirteen
miles of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad had been
completed, and the directors were about to give up
the work, discouraged, because they thought no en-
gine could make the sharp turns in the track. Mr.
Cooper needed the road in connection with his roll-
ing mill; nothing could discourage him. He imme-
diately went to work to make the first locomotive ever
constructed in America, attached a box car to it, in-
vited the directors to get in, took the place of engi-
neer himself, and away they flew over the thirteen
miles in an hour. The directors took courage, and
the road was soon finished. Years after, when Mr.
Cooper had become famous, and the hospitality of
the city of Baltimore was offered him, the old engine