Mr.Phipps, father of my friend and partner Mr.Henry Phipps, was, like my grandfather, a master shoemaker.

He was our neighbor in Allegheny City.

Work was obtained from him, and in addition to attending to her household duties--for, of course, we had no servant--this wonderful woman, my mother, earned four dollars a week by binding shoes.

Midnight would often find her at work.

In the intervals during the day and evening, when household cares would permit, and my young brother sat at her knee threading needles and waxing the thread for her, she recited to him, as she had to me, the gems of Scottish minstrelsy which she seemed to have by heart, or told him tales which failed not to contain a moral.
This is where the children of honest poverty have the most precious of all advantages over those of wealth.