He worked this way long after he had an income of thirty thousand
dollars a year.
This was not because he wanted to have so much more money for
himself.
You remember he had a plan to carry out which would take much
money.
That was to build his free school for the poor.
He had no time for parties or pleasures.
But the people of New York knew he was both honest and intelligent.
They asked him to be a member of the City Council, and President of
their Board of Education.
Peter Cooper never refused to do anything which might help others.
So he did not refuse these offices.
I must tell you now about Mr. Cooper's first child, and how fine a
thing it was to have an inventor for a papa.
Mr. Cooper made for this baby a self-rocking cradle, with a fan
attached to keep off the flies, and with a musical instrument to
soothe the dear baby into dreamland.
Mr. Cooper's business prospered.
[Illustration: THE "BEST FRIEND,"--FIRST LOCOMOTIVE BUILT IN
AMERICA. BUILT BY PETER COOPER.]
Once the glue factory burned, with a loss of forty thousand dollars.
But at nine o'clock the next morning there was lumber on the ground
for a factory three times as large as the one burned.
He then built a rolling mill and furnace in Baltimore.
They were then trying to build the Baltimore and Ohio railroad.
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