life has hung--a success not to be attributed to what I have known or
done myself, but to the faculty of knowing and choosing others who did
know better than myself. Precious knowledge this for any man to
possess. I did not understand steam machinery, but I tried to
understand that much more complicated piece of mechanism--man.
Stopping at a small Highland inn on our coaching trip in 1898, a
gentleman came forward and introduced himself. He was Mr. MacIntosh,
the great furniture manufacturer of Scotland--a fine character as I
found out afterward. He said he had ventured to make himself known as
he was one of the boys who had gathered, and sometimes he feared
"conveyed," spoil for the rabbits, and had "one named after him." It
may be imagined how glad I was to meet him--the only one of the rabbit
boys I have met in after-life. I hope to keep his friendship to the
last and see him often. [As I read this manuscript to-day, December 1,
1913, I have a very precious note from him, recalling old times when
we were boys together. He has a reply by this time that will warm his
heart as his note did mine.]

With the introduction and improvement of steam machinery, trade grew
worse and worse in Dunfermline for the small manufacturers, and at
last a letter was written to my mother's two sisters in Pittsburgh
stating that the idea of our going to them was seriously
entertained--not, as I remember hearing my parents say, to benefit
their own condition, but for the sake of their two young sons.
Satisfactory letters were received in reply. The decision was taken to
sell the looms and furniture by auction. And my father's sweet voice
sang often to mother, brother, and me:

"To the West, to the West, to the land of the free,
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea;