d. His brothers left home to earn their
livelihood elsewhere, as soon as they were old enough to do so, and he
alone remained under the paternal roof. His father destined him for his
own calling, but the boy shrank from it with disgust. To crown his
misfortunes, his mother died, and his father married again, and this
time a woman who looked with no favor upon the son. The newly-married
pair quarreled continually, and the boy was glad to escape occasionally
to the house of a schoolmate, where he passed the night in a garret or
outhouse. By daylight he was back at his father's slaughter-house, to
assist in carrying out the meat. He was poorly clad and badly fed, and
his father's bad reputation wounded him so keenly that he shrank from
playing with other boys, and led a life of comparative isolation.

Fortunately for him, he had a teacher, Valentine Jeune by name, the son
of French Protestants, who was better fitted for his position than the
majority of the more liberally-patronized Catholic instructors. He was
well taught by Valentine Jeune in the rudiments of a plain education,
and the tutor and the Protestant minister of the village together
succeeded so well in his religious instruction that at the age of
fourteen he was confirmed. Confirmation is the decisive point in the
career of the German youth. Until then he is only a child. Afterward he
is regarded as on the threshold of manhood, and is given to understand
that the time has come for him to make choice of a career in life.

To the German peasant two courses only lie open, to learn a trade or go
out to service. John Jacob was resolved not to do the latter, and he was
in no condition to adopt the former. He was already familiar with his
father's trade, but he shrank from it with disgust, and he could not
hope to obtain money enough to pay for his tuition as an apprentice in
any other calling. No workman in the village would receive him as an
apprentice for less than fifty dollars, and fifty dollars were then
further beyond his reach than as many millions in after years. The
harvest was approaching, and Jacob Astor, seeing an unusual amount of
work in store for him at that season, decided the matter for his son by
informing him that he must prepare to settle down as his assistant. He
obeyed, but discontentedly, and with a determination to abandon his home
at the earliest practicable moment.

His chief desire was to leave Germany and emigrate to America. The
Americ