Andrew had been sent to school in Dunfermline, and, having a fondness for books, was a bright, ambitious boy at twelve, ready to begin the struggle for a living so as to make the family burdens lighter. Work was not easily found; but finally he obtained employment as a bobbin-boy in a cotton factory, at $1.20 a week.
Mr. Carnegie, when grown to manhood, wrote in the Youth's Companion, April 23, 1896:—
"I cannot tell you how proud I was when I received my first week's own earnings. One dollar and twenty cents made by myself, and given to me because I had been of some use in the world! No longer entirely dependent upon my parents, but at last admitted to the family partnership as a contributing member, and able to help them! I think this makes a man out of a boy sooner than almost anything else, and a real man too, if there be any germ of true manhood in him. It is everything to feel that you are useful.
"I have had to deal with great sums. Many millions of dollars have since passed through my hands. But the genuine satisfaction I had from that one dollar and twenty cents outweighs any subsequent pleasure in money-getting. It was the direct reward of honest manual labor; it represented a week of very hard work, so hard that but for the aim and end which sanctified it, slavery might not be much too strong a term to describe it.
"For a lad of twelve to rise and breakfast every morning, except the blessed Sunday morning, and go into the streets and find his way to the factory, and begin work while it was still dark outside, and not be released until after darkness came again in the evening, forty minutes' interval only being allowed at noon, was a terrible task.
"But I was young, and had my dreams; and something within always told me that this would not, could not, should not last—I should some day get into a better position. Besides this, I felt myself no longer a mere boy, but quite 'a little man;' and this made me happy."
Another place soon opened for the lad, where he was set to fire a boiler in a cellar, and to manage the small steam-engine which drove the machinery in a bobbin factory. "The firing of this boiler was all right," says Mr. Carnegie; "for fortunately we did not use coal, but the refuse wooden chips, and I always liked to work in wood. But the responsibility of keeping the water right and of running the engine, and the danger of my making a mistake and blowing the whole factory to pieces, caused too great a strain, and I often awoke and found myself sitting up in bed through the night trying the steam-gauges. But I never told them at home that I was having a 'hard tussle.' No! no! everything must be bright to them.
"This was a point of honor; for every member of the family was working hard except, of course, my little brother, who was then a child, and we were telling each other only all the bright things. Besides this, no man would whine and give up—he would die first.
"There was no servant in our family, and several dollars per week were earned by 'the mother' by binding shoes after her daily work was done! Father was also hard at work in the factory. And could I complain?"
Wages were small, and in every leisure moment Andrew looked for something better to do. He went one day to the office of the Atlantic and Ohio Telegraph Company, and asked for work as a messenger. James Douglas Reid, the manager, was a Scotchman, and liked the lad's manner. "I liked the boy's looks," said Mr. Reid afterwards; "and it was easy to see that though he was little he was full of spirit. His pay was $2.50 a week. He had not been with me a full month when he began to ask whether I would teach him to telegraph. I began to instruct him, and found him an apt pupil. He spent all his spare time in practice, sending and receiving by sound, and not by tape as was largely the custom in those days. Pretty soon he could do as well as I could at the key, and then his ambition carried him away beyond doing the drudgery of messenger work."