To
his great delight, young Astor learned that, so far from being compelled
to pay his employer for learning him the business, as in Europe, he
would be certain here to receive his board and nominal wages from the
first. The next day the three started out, and succeeded in obtaining a
situation for the young man in the store of Mr. Robert Bowne, a Quaker,
and a merchant of long experience in the business, as well as a most
estimable man. He is said to have engaged Astor at two dollars per week
and his board.
Astor was at once set to work by his employer to beat furs, this method
of treating them being required to prevent the moths from lodging in and
destroying them. From the first he applied himself to the task of
learning the business. He bent all the powers of his remarkable mind to
acquiring an intimate knowledge of furs, and of fur-bearing animals, and
their haunts and habits. His opportunities for doing so were very good,
as many of the skins were sold over Bowne's counters by the hunters who
had taken them. These men he questioned with a minuteness that
astonished them, and the result was that in a few years he was as
thoroughly familiar with the animals, their habits, their country, and
the mode of taking them, as many of the trappers themselves.
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