ecture. . . . In accordance with the promise made my
boy maker, I was to go back to him. My heart bounded at the prospect.
Never in all those years had I seen him. . . .

"In a short time I learned that the author of my existence, after
many hard struggles and trials, had at last found truth and light,
peace and rest, in the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church. He had
returned, when he found me, from the Plenary Council of 1867. He is
now a priest, and the head of a religious community. Need I assure
those who have been interested in my history that I also have found a
home in the same community, where I am consecrated to its use? I am
no longer alone now; I am busy from morning until night, helping to
regulate the movements of the community. There is not an hour in the
day when I do not see my boy maker. We have established sympathies in
common; I call him to prayers, to his meals, to his matins, and to
his rest. Many a time, when he finds me alone, he gives me some
spiritual reading, or says aloud some prayers. Every time I strike,
he breathes an aspiration of love and thanksgiving. In short, we have
found our glorious mission in our new birth. We are both apostles: I
represent Time; he preaches of Eternity."

There can be little doubt, however, that the chief formative
influence in the Hecker household was that which came directly
through the mother. Young as she was when an unduly heavy share of
the domestic burdens fell to her portion, she took it up with courage
and bore it with dignity and fidelity. What aid her father could give
her was doubtless not lacking, but we may well suppose that, as age
crept on Engel Freund, his business began to slip away from him into
younger hands. He was probably no longer in a position to endow
daughters or to undertake the education of grandchildren. What is
certain is that Caroline Hecker's boys, after very brief school-days,
were put at once to hard work. What decided their choice of an
occupation is not so sure, but in all probability they consulted with
their mother and then took the common-sense view that as there is a
never-failing market for food staples, even poverty, if mated with
diligence and sagacity, may find there a fair field for successful
enterprise. John, the eldest, upon whom the mother soon began to rely
as her right hand, went to learn his trade as a baker with a Mr.
Schwab, whose shop was on the corner of Hester and Eldridge Streets.
George, who was some thr