IN A SHIPPING HOUSE IN BOSTON
1844-1850
The next change in my life, and the real beginning of my career as a business man, was soon to come. I had got as much out of the grocery store as it could give me, and was yearning for a change and a wider field of labor.
One day a gentleman drove up to the store in a carriage drawn by an elegant team of horses, and asked if there was a boy there named Train. Mr. Holmes thereupon called to me, and said to the strange gentleman, "This is George Francis Train." He then told me that the stranger was Colonel Enoch Train, and that he wanted to speak to me.
The first thing Colonel Train said was, "I am surprised to see you, George. I thought all your family were dead in New Orleans. Your father was a very dear friend of mine—and your mother, too." He said, as if repeating it to himself, like a sort of formula, "Oliver Train, merchant in Merchants' Row." Then he continued: "He was my cousin. But we had heard that you were all dead. Where have you been?" I told him where I had been living for the past ten years, with my grandmother at Waltham, and how my uncle Clarke had brought me back from New Orleans.
After he had made a number of inquiries of me, and I had given him all the stock of information I had, Colonel Train drove back to Boston. I watched the retreating carriage, and brave and disturbing thoughts came to me.
The following day I went to Boston. I had no very definite plan of action, but I knew that when the time and opportunity came I should find my way, as usual. And so I went directly to the great shipping house of Train & Co., at 37 Lewis Wharf. The big granite building seemed titanic to my eyes then, as if it contained the whole world of business and enterprise. When I went back to Boston years and years afterward, it seemed only a plain, ordinary affair. At first sight of it the place was simply ahead of and greater than anything I had seen. When I had outgrown it, it seemed small.
When I came up to the building, my purpose was at once clear. I walked in and asked to see Colonel Train. The colonel shook hands cordially, and said he was very glad to see me. "Where do I come in?" I asked.
"Come in?" he almost gasped at this effrontery. "Why, people don't come into a big shipping house like this in that way. You are too young."
"I am growing older every day," I replied. "That is the reason I am here. I want to make my way in the world." "Well," said the colonel, smiling at me, "you come in to see me when you are seventeen years old."
"That will be next year," I replied. "I am sixteen now. I might just as well begin this year—right away." He tried to put me off one way after another; but I was not to be got rid of. I was there, and I meant to stay.