occupation is not so sure, but in all probability they consulted with
their mother and then took the common-sense view that as there is a
never-failing market for food staples, even poverty, if mated with
diligence and sagacity, may find there a fair field for successful
enterprise. John, the eldest, upon whom the mother soon began to rely
as her right hand, went to learn his trade as a baker with a Mr.
Schwab, whose shop was on the corner of Hester and Eldridge Streets.
George, who was some three or four years younger, as the only girl,
Elizabeth, came between them, presently followed his brother to the
same business.

As for Isaac, whom hard necessity, or, more probably, a mistaken
thrift, likewise forced away from school when not much more than ten
years old, his earliest ventures bear a curious symbolic likeness to
his latest. He earned his first wages in the service of a religious
periodical, the Methodist publication still known as _Zion's Herald,_
whose office was situated in Crosby Street near Broadway. From there
he went to learn a trade in the type foundry in Great Thames Street.
But as it was already apparent that the family road to prosperity was
identical with that chosen by his elder brothers, we find him working
away beside them in the bake-house by the time he was eleven. They
had already established the bakery in Rutgers Street, between Monroe
and Cherry, where the family lived for so many years. They had
another shop in Pearl Street, to which Isaac used to carry bread
every morning.

This was a part of his life to which he was fond of recurring in his
last years. "Thanks be to God!" he said on the first day of 1886,
"how hard we used to work preparing for New Year's Day! Three weeks
in advance we began to bake New Year's cakes--flour, water, sugar,