"Nothing; and I'm as poor as a church mouse," was the reply.
"But, look here, Charlie, keep up your courage. I haven't got much myself; but I'll go halves with you. Come up to my room to-night, and we'll talk matters over."
The friends parted, to meet again within a few hours in the glow of the gas-light. Affairs were candidly and earnestly discussed, plans were laid, and then and there began the firm, whose reputation has extended wherever the English language is spoken,—the house of LEE AND SHEPARD.
It was February 1, 1862. The times were not propitious for a beginning at any trade, but the partners were veterans in experience, and no sooner had they shaped their plans than the public in many ways evinced its confidence in their undertaking. Better than a large capital was the encouragement they received from all with whom they had formerly had dealings; and they began under the most pleasing auspices.
The firm first occupied a very old, two-storied wooden building, known as "the old dye-house" on Washington Street, opposite the Old South "Church."[1]
Of course the store soon began to show its incapacity for the growing business, just as the "old corner" had done in the case of Ticknor and Fields, and as almost every ancient book-shop has done in the last quarter of a century. The proprietors of the establishment were not only their own employers, but their own employees as well. They attended to their own book-keeping, did their own selling and buying, tied up their bundles and packed all the cases. Early and late they shouldered their task, and started ahead. After three years thus spent the firm moved into the new store at 149 Washington Street, which still remains, and which the firm continued to occupy until 1873.
At this point it is convenient to go back a number of years and recount the principal events in the life of the junior partner of the house: Charles A.B. Shepard.
If the boy could have had his own way, when he started in life, the chances are that to-day he would be an American admiral. As it happened, his early passion and proclivities were not fostered; he became a bookseller whom all the world now knows as "Charley Shepard."
He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, October 18th, 1829, and received his education at the public school. He was one of the brightest scholars in his class, learned easily, was fond of books, never wearied of study, and never forgot what he acquired. At the start he was blest with a most marvelous and retentive memory, and a keen sense of the practical side of life. "It was thus," as one of his friends has remarked, "that his school days were profitable to him to a degree not common, and it was thus that his rapidly-growing literary attainments became the astonishment of strangers and the never failing delight and surprise of his friends."
Mr. Shepard's father was a sea-faring man, who, however, took good care to check every inclination towards that sort of life that existed in the mind of his son, at a very tender age. At his business start, therefore, the boy was forced into a channel that was not of his own choosing. At the age of fifteen, after having previously tried his skill as a boy of all work in the grocery business, he entered the store of John P. Jewett, a bookseller at Salem. He remained with Mr. Jewett eleven years, during which time he forgot all about the details of the West India trade and instead acquired a perfect knowledge of those of the making and selling of books. When, in 1846, Mr. Jewett removed to Boston and opened a store on Cornhill, Mr. Shepard accompanied him, and by his untiring energy, his close application to business and his intelligent way of conducting the affairs of the house in general, very largely contributed to the success which, in those days, was accounted so remarkable. He was even then looked upon as the "hardest worker" in the trade. He was the first to enter the store in the morning, and the last to leave at night. To many, it seemed as if his hours were only hours of toil; and yet, few young men of his age took life so easily as did he, or got more enjoyment out of it. It was during Mr. Shepard's connection with the house of John P. Jewett that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" first saw the light. The story of its publication has so often been told that it need not be repeated here. Mr. Shepard recalls all the incidents associated with it as vividly to-day as though they were but events of yesterday, and he is now the only living man that can tell them. As everybody knows, the book bounded into success, due as much to the shrewd advertising of the publisher as to the merits of the work itself. It redounds to the credit of Mr. Jewett that he never hesitated to acknowledge that whatever success he had as a Boston publisher was largely due to his sprightly clerk, who labored literally night and day, to master every detail of the business.