When the current serves, the unseen monitor that directs our
affairs bids us step aboard our craft, and, with hand firmly
grasping the helm, steer boldly for the distant goal.

Philip D. Armour, the open-handed, large-hearted merchant prince,
who has left a standing memorial to his benevolence in the Armour
Institute at Chicago, heard the call to put to sea when in his
teens.

It came during the gold fever, which raged with such intensity
from 1849 to 1851, when the wildest stories were afloat of the
treasures that were daily being dug out of the earth in
California. The brain of the sturdy youth, whose Scotch and
Puritan blood tingled for some broader field than the village
store and his father’s farm in Stockbridge, New York, was haunted
by the tales of adventure and fortune wafted across the continent
from the new El Dorado. “I brooded over the difference,” he says,
“between tossing hay in the hot sun and digging gold by handfuls,
until, one day, I threw down the pitchfork, went to the house, and
told mother that I had quit that kind of work.”

Armour was nineteen years old when he determined to seek his
fortune in California. His determination once formed, he lost no
time in carrying it out. As much of the journey across the plains
was to be made on foot, he first provided himself with a pair of
stout boots. Then he packed his extra clothing in an old
carpetbag, and with a light heart bade his family good-by.

He had induced a young friend, Calvin Gilbert, to accompany him in
his search for fortune. The two youths joined the motley crowd of
adventurers who were flocking from all quarters to the Land of
Promise, and set out on their journey.

Tramping over the plains, crossing rivers in tow-boats and
ferryboats, and riding in trains and on wagons when they could,
the adventurers, after many weary months, reached their
destination. During the journey young Armour became sick, but was
tenderly nursed back to health by his companion.

“I had scarcely any money when I arrived at the gold fields,” said
Armour, “but I struck right out and found a place where I could
dig, and in a little time I struck pay dirt.”

He entered into partnership with a Mr. Croarkin, and, with
characteristic energy, kept digging and taking his turn at the
rude housekeeping in the shanty which he and his partner shared.
“Croarkin would cook one week,” he says, “and I the next, and we
would have a clean-up Sunday morning We baked our own bread, and
kept a few hens, too, which supplied us with fresh eggs.”

The young gold hunter, however, did not find nuggets as “plentiful
as blackberries,” but he found within himself that which led him
to a bonanza far exceeding his wildest dreams of “finds” in the
gold fields.

He discovered his business ability; he learned how to economize,
how to rely upon himself, even to the extent of baking his own
bread.

By: Orison Swett Marden