good to know that young Eads was after all a real flesh-and-blood boy,
a boy so mischievous that, as he was the only son, his father hired a
neighbor boy to come and play with him. Certainly he was very clever;
but that he had even better qualities than cleverness is shown by his
first actions on his arrival at Saint Louis.

His father, deciding to move farther west, had sent ahead the mother,
the two daughters just grown, and the lad of thirteen, intending to
follow with supplies for opening a shop. Again the route was by river.
Arrived at Saint Louis, the boat caught fire; and early on a cold
morning the family set foot, scarcely clothed, not only in the city of
which the young boy was to be one day the leading citizen, but on the
very spot, it is said, where he was afterwards to base one pier of his
great bridge. On that bleak morning, however, none of them foresaw a
bright future, or indeed anything but a distressful present. Some
ladies of the old French families of the town were very kind to the
forlorn women; and once on her feet Mrs. Eads set about supporting
herself and her children. In those days, when sometimes a letter took a
week to go a couple of hundred miles, she was not the one to wait for
help from her husband; so she immediately rented a house and took
boarders. The boy, as resourceful and self-reliant as his mother, now
showed his energy as well as his devotion by doing the first thing he
found to help her. In going along the street he saw some apples for
sale, and, buying as many of them as he could afford, he peddled them
to the passers-by.

That, of course, was no permanent occupation for a well-bred boy, whose
associations and abilities were both high. Nevertheless his family
could no longer afford to have him at school, and it was necessary for
him to do some sort of work. One of his mother's boarders, a Mr.
Barrett Williams, offered him a position in his mercantile house.
Before long this gentleman discovered his young employee's aptitude and
overwhelming love for mechanics, and kindly allowed the lad the use of
his own library. Studying at night the scientific books which he found
there, Eads acquired his first theoretical knowledge of engineering. In
this way, without teachers, he began, in a time when there was no free
higher education, to educate himself; and both then and ever after he
was a constant reader not only of scientific works, but of all kinds of
books. This practical experienc