The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-11-21
The True Story Of IN Humble Iron.
Worker.

In the novels of some of the female
writer's of the day we frequently meet
with family who live in an elegant
house, and have all the costly things
which the fertile brain of the authorizes
can conjure up. In many Of these
novels the father and head Of the fam
lily, who has, by hard work, accumu-
lated the money which the others are
spending, is Represented as being "ec-
centric" He is said to be good hearted,
and allows his wife and family plenty
of money, but, as he lacks polish and q
knowledge of that peculiar animal call
ed society" he is scrupulously kept
in the background, and only shown up
at deaths and marriages, or when a
check for $4,000 is wanted to cover
up some little mistake made by the
hero. The sympathy of the reader al
ways goes out to this shadOwy father of
the novelist.
1t is only where the father has
stepped year by year up the stairway of
time and has opened the door of eterni-
ty and rest that he is missed. At last
he is recognized as being father as
we'll as banker, q man to whom all
present luxury and ease is due, as we'll
as gratitude for unwavering love and
fraternal care. There are, as has Just
been said, many such fathers in mod
ern romances; anyone who has seen
much of the world can add, there are
many such in everyday life in city,
town and country. In order 70 illus
trate this by example, the following
little story is given. 1t is true in all Of
its chief details, the names are those
of the actual characters in the little
drama of real life and the locations
mentioned are in reality the ones where
it all occurred:
In YOUNGSTOWN are situated the great
works of the Cambria Iron Company,
and among the hundreds of men en-
ployed there at one time, was a man
named John Murphy-nothing wonder
full in the appearance of its owner, save
to those who knew him well and were
acquainted with his story, with all its
manly. touching details. He was truly
eccentric" inasmuch as he differed
from ninety-nine men out of a hundred.
He was SO earnest, Woodworking,
kindly-hearted, economical in habits,
shrewd in business, and ambitious
for his family's advancement, that
to the world at large he was "eccen-
tric," to those who knew him he was
John Murphy. He was at once WIRE
drawer in the Gautier Steel Works, a
capitalist in the real estate market in
New York, a workman who carried his
dinner in q tin-pail on Monday, and ate
the same amid the noise and dirt of the
factory, but ON Wednesday he could, if
he desired, dine in his own elegant din
ing-room in his superb residence on
Fifth avenue, in New York-surely a
singular compound to exist in one man.
Modest John Murphy has been a wire-
drawer for forty-tive years, and he has
been saving in his habits all that time.
He piled up dollar after dollar, until he
had enough to purchase some real es-
tate in New York, and then he began to
speculate in city property, until he
sands of dollars. His family were
ambitious themselves, and John
was ambitious for them. They
dressed we'll and made many
friends, and finally purchased and
moved into their present magnificent
home on Fifth avenue. John is sixty
nine years old, and his hair is silvered.
He kept steadily at his old work, for he
said he was too old to make change
in his mode of life. He lived in his
palace, but he entered it by a back
door, and never came into his parlors
when there was company in them. His
family love him and respect him, and
would gladly have him come to assume
his rightful position, but he will not
have it so, and they have ceased to find
fault with his wishes. Soon after the
Gautier Wire Works were started at
YOUNGSTOWN, John went there, got a
situation, and worked there until re-
Gently, and the Johnstown Tribune re-
ferred to his story. AnOld nam named
Welsh, who had been Johns firm friend
and crony for thirty years, had his
foot torn off by the machinery, and
John took him to New York in order to
nurse and care for him. "Old John
Murphy" did not come back, but it is
not a difficult stretch of the imagine
ton to picture him still drawing wire,
his honest, kindly face blackened with
SCOT and smoke, and at night, when the
time comes for rest, one can almost
see him as he picks up his lunch bucket
and walks off to his princely home ON
New York's most aristocratic thor
oughfare. -Pittsburgh Post.