One of my many little duties was to make paper bags. I had to cut the paper and paste it together. Another task was to take a hogshead of hams, put each ham in bagging, and sew it up. Then I had to whitewash each particular ham. That was a nice business! It went against my nature more than any other part of my manifold labors in the store. Mr. Holmes was a Baptist deacon, but the only thing about him to which my youthful taste objected was that he chewed tobacco all the time. Yes, there was another objection. He insisted upon my joining the Bible class in his Sunday-school. This I would not do. I could not explain it all to him; but the Santa Claus matter had not yet worn out of my mind. One day at the grocery store, Mr. Holmes brought in an elderly gentleman and said to me: "George, I want you to take this gentleman" (naming him) "up to the college, and walk about with him." The gentleman seemed to me to be about sixty years old. Mr. Holmes cautioned me about keeping him out of any danger, as he was not very well. "Don't talk to him," he said to me, "unless he wants to talk to you." The thing was like a holiday to me. I walked with him up to the college, and all around, as much as he wanted to; and it never occurred to me, in all the days I was with him in this way, to find out who he was, or to think about it at all. He was John Jacob Astor, Jr., eldest son of the founder of the great house of the Astors. He was practically an invalid. He was then in charge of a Mr. Dowse, who generally left him to the care of Mr. Holmes, and who, in turn, left him to me. After this, he came to New York, where he was taken in charge by his brother, William B. Astor. CHAPTER V EARLY NEW ENGLAND METHODISM Before I get away from my boyhood days, I want to say something about the manner of my rearing in the bosom of old New England Methodism. I was reared in the strictest ways of morality, in accordance with the old system. Grandmother told me that I must not swear, must not drink intoxicating liquors, must not lie, must not use tobacco in any form. It seemed to me she was stretching out the moral law a little, and that there were fifteen, instead of ten, commandments, in the religious scheme of Methodism. And each commandment was held up to me as an unfailing precept that would make a man of me. I used to say to myself that I would be fifteen times a man, as I intended to keep them all. But while this training was proceeding, and I was being warned against drinking and using tobacco, there were some strange inconsistencies going on side by side with the precepts. My old grandmother smoked what was known as "nigger-head" tobacco, in a little clay pipe. The pipes cost about a cent apiece. I used to cut up this tobacco for her. But as she smoked, she lost no opportunity of impressing upon me the dreadfulness of the tobacco habit.