Later on he became the office-manager of a steamer company in Astrakhan.

His mother was the daughter of a man who began his career as a bargee on the Volga, one of the lowest class of men who, before the advent of steam, hauled the merchandise-laden barks from Astrakhan to Nizhni Novgorod, against the current.

Afterwards he became a dyer of yarns, and eventually established a thriving dyeing establishment in Nizhni.
Gorky's father died of cholera at Astrakhan when the lad was four years old.

His mother soon married again, and gave the boy to his grandfather, who had him taught to read and write, and then sent him to school, where he remained only five months.

At the end of that time he caught smallpox, and his studies were never renewed.