FullReads

“Well, sir, with those words ringing in my ears: ‘Use hoss sense; have grit;’ ‘Be polite;’ ‘Son, I’ve tried to raise you right,’ I struck out for the city. As I think it over now, the thing that did me the most good was my father’s advice: ‘Son, be polite, this will cost you nothing and be worth lots.’ The boy can never hope to be much if he does not know that he should tip his hat to a lady, give his seat to a gray-haired man, or carry a bundle for an old woman.

“How strange it was for me that night, to sleep with my friend in a bed on wheels! How strange, the next morning, to wash in a bowl on wheels! and to look out of the Pullman windows as I wiped my face! I was living then! And when I reached the city! Such a bustle I’ve never seen since. As I walked up a narrow street from the depot, I fell on the slippery sidewalk. ‘Better get some ashes on your feet’ said my friend. And, indeed, I did need to keep ashes on my feet for a long time. I had before me a longer and more slippery sidewalk than I then dreamed of. Every boy has who goes to the city. But, when he gets his sled to the top, he’s in for a long, smooth slide!

“I started in to work for twenty dollars a month–not five dollars a week! I found there was a whole lot of difference, especially when I had to pay $4.50 a week for board and forty cents for laundry. I was too proud to send home for money and too poor to spend it out of my own purse. Good training this! One winter’s day a friend told me there was skating in the park. I asked a gentleman where the park was. ‘Go three blocks and take the car going south,’ said he. I went three blocks and when the car came along I followed it, for I could not afford a single nickel for car fare. What a fortune I had when, during busy season, I could work nights and get fifty cents extra for supper money! None of this did I spend, as my boarding house wasn’t far away. The only money that I spent in a whole year was one dollar for a library ticket–the best dollar I ever spent in my life! Good books, and there are plenty of them free in all cities, are the best things in the world, anyway, to keep a boy out of devilment. The boy who will put into his head what he will get out of good books will win out over the one who gets his clothes full of chalk from billiard cues. One day the “Old Gentleman” saw me at the noon hour as I was going to the library with a book under my arm. ‘So you read nights, do you, Billie,’ said he. ‘Well, you keep it up and you will get ahead of the boys who don’t.’

“Work? I worked like a beaver. I was due at seven in the morning. I was always there several minutes before seven. One morning the old gentleman came in real early and found me at work, while a couple of the other boys were reading the papers and waiting for the seventh strike, and before most of the stock boys had shown up. At noon I would wrap bundles, take a blacking pot and mark cases, run the elevator or do anything to “keep moving.” I did not know that an eye was on me all the time; but there was. At the end of a year the old gentleman called me into the office and said: ‘Billie, you’ve done more this year than we have paid you for; here’s a check for sixty dollars, five dollars a month back pay. Your salary will be $25.00 a month next year. You may also have a week’s vacation.