When I size up some of the rich men's sons I know, I'm rather glad I'm
poor," said Bill, "and I would rather make a thousand dollars all by my
own efforts than inherit ten thousand."
"I guess you'd take what you could get," Terry offered, and Bill was
quick to reply:
"We know there'll be a lot coming to you and it will be interesting to
know what you'll do with it and how long you'll have it."
"He will never add anything to it," said Ted, who also was the son of
wealth, but not in the least snobbish. The others all laughed at this
and Terry turned away angrily.
Bill, further inspired by what he deemed an unfair reference to Edison,
began to wax eloquent to the others concerning his hero.
"I don't believe Edison would have amounted to half as much as he has if
he hadn't had the hard knocks that a poor fellow always gets. Terry
makes me tired with his high and mighty----"
"Oh, don't you mind him!" said Cora.
"You've read a lot about Edison, haven't you, Bill?" asked Dot, knowing
that the lame boy possessed http://maldivasa.iquebec.com a hero worshiper's admiration for the wizard
of electricity and an overmastering desire to emulate the great
inventor. The girl sat down on the grassy bank, pulled Cora down beside
her and in her gentle, kindly way, continued to draw Bill out. "When
only quite a little fellow he had become a great reader, the lecturer
said."
"I should say he was a reader!" Bill declared. "Why, when he was eleven
years old he had read Hume's History of England all through and--"
"Understood about a quarter of it, I reckon," laughed Ted.
"Understood more than you think," Bill retorted. "He did more in that
library than just read an old encyclopedia; he got every book off the
shelves, one after the other, and http://bloggen.be/aves dipped into them all, but of course,
some didn't interest him. He read a lot on 'most every subject; mostly
about science and chemistry and engineering and mechanics, but a lot
also on law and even moral philosophy and what you call it?
oh--ethics--and all that sort of thing. He had to read to find out
things; there seemed to be no one who could tell him the half that he
wanted to know, and I guess a lot of people got pretty tired of having
him ask so many questions they couldn't answer. And when they would say,
'I don't know,' he'd get mad and yell: '_Why_ don't you know?'"
"Hume's history,--why, we have that at home, in ten volumes. If he got
outside of all of that he was http://abaco.ya.com/volokna/index.html going some!" declared Ted.
"Well, he did, and all of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
too."
"Holy cats! What stopped him?" Ted queried.
"He didn't stop--never stopped. But he had to earn his living--didn't
he? He couldn't read all the books and find out about everything right
off. But you bet he found out a lot, and he believes that after a fellow
gets some rudiments of education he can learn more by studying in his
own way and experimenting
http://wepogva.ifrance.com than by just learning by rote and rule. Maybe
he's not altogether right about that, for education is mighty fine and
I'd like to go to a technical school; Gus and I both are aiming for
that, but we're going to read and study a lot our own way, too, and
experiment; aren't we, Gus? Nobody can throw Edison's ideas down when
they stop to think how much he knows and what he's done."
"He certainly has accomplished a great deal," the usually reticent Gus
offered.
"And yet he seems to be very modest about it," was Cora's contribution.
"Of course, he is; every man who does really big things is never
conceited," declared Bill.
"Oh, I don't know. How about Napoleon?" queried Dot.
"Napoleon? All he ever did was to get up a big army and kill people and
grab a government. He had brains, http://bloggen.be/refereehandsignalsinvolleyball
of course, but he didn't put them to
much real use, except for his own glory. You can't put Napoleon in the
same class with Edison."
"Oh, Billy, you can't say that, can you?"
"I have said it and I'll back it up. Look how Edison has given billions
of people pleasure and comfort and helped trade and commerce. Nobody
could do more than that. War and fighting and being a king,--that's
nothing but selfishness! http://owanova.ibelgique.com Some day people will build the largest
monuments to folks who have done big things for humanity,--not to
generals and kings. Just knowing how to scrap isn't much good. I've got
more respect for Professor Gray than I have for the champion prize
fighter. You can't-----"
"Maybe if you knew how to use your fists, you wouldn't talk that way;
eh, Gus?" queried Ted.
"Well, I don't know but I think Bill is right. It's nice to know how to
scrap if scrapping has to http://rolezz.20six.de be done, but it shouldn't ever have to be
done,--between nations, anyway." This was a long speech for Gus, but
evidently he meant it.
Bill continued:
"Talking about Edison when he was a boy: he wasn't afraid of work,
either. He got up at about five, got back to supper at nine, or later,
and maybe that wasn't some day! But he made from $12 to $20 a day
profits, for it was Civil War times and everything was high."
"I think I'd work pretty hard for that much," said Gus.
"I reckon," remarked Ted, "that he had a pretty good reason to say that
successful genius is one per cent. inspiration and ninety-nine per cent.
perspiration."
"But I guess that's only partly right and partly modesty," declared
Bill. "There must have been a
http://astoriespik.blogspot.com whole lot more than fifty per cent,
inspiration at work to do what he has done. But he is too busy to go
around blowing his own horn, even from a talking-machine record."
"He doesn't need to do any blowing when you're around," Ted offered.
Bill laughed outright at that and there seemed nothing further to be
said. The girls decided to go on, Ted walked up the street with them,
and Gus and his lame companion turned in the opposite direction toward
the less opulent section of the town http://members.lycos.co.uk/banhiiky . There were
and Gus often lent a hand to help his father who was the town carpenter.
Bill, the only son of a widow whose small means were hardly adequate for
the needs of herself and boy, did all he could to lessen the daily
pinch.
CHAPTER VI
THE BOYHOOD OF A GENIUS
The class had assembled again in Professor Gray's study and all were
eager to hear the second talk on Edison. There was a delay of many
minutes past the hour stated, but the anticipation was such that the
time was hardly noticed. During the interim, Professor Gray came to
where Bill and Gus sat.
"I hear that you boys intend to go to work in the mills next week," he
said. "Well, now, I have some news and a proposition, so do not be
disappointed if the beginning sounds discouraging. In the first place I
saw Mr. Deering, superintendent of the mills, again and he told me that
while he would make good his promise to take you on, there would hardly
be more than a few weeks' work. Orders are scarce and they expect to lay
off men in August, though there is likely to be a resumption of business
in the early fall when you are http://xramenblog.isuisse.com getting back into school work. So
wouldn't it be better to forego the mill work,--there goes the
announcement! I'll talk with you before you leave."
"But we need the money; don't we, Gus?"
"We do," said Gus.
"I wonder if the Professor thinks we're millionaires." Bill was plainly
disappointed.
"Oh, well, he didn't finish what he was saying to us. Let's listen to
the weather report," demanded Gus, ever optimistic and joyful.
The words came clearer than ever out of that wonderful horn. There was
to be rain that afternoon--local thunderstorms, followed by clearing and
cooler. On the morrow it would be cloudy and unsettled.
Bill felt as though that prediction suited his mental state! Gus was
never the kind to worry; he sat smiling at the horn and he received with
added pleasure the music of a band which followed. And then came the
second talk on the boyhood of the master of invention.
"It has been said," spouted the horn, "that high mental characteristics
are accompanied by heroic traits. Whether true or not generally, it was
demonstrated in young Edison and it governed his learning telegraphy and
the manner thereof. The story is told by the telegraph operator at Mt.
Clemens, where the red-headed http://logotyp.iespana.es conductor threw the train boy and his
laboratory off the train.
"'Young Edison,' says the station agent, 'had endeared himself to the
station agents, operators and their families all along the line. As the
mixed train did the way-freight work and the switching at Mt. Clemens,
it usually consumed not less than thirty minutes, during which time Al
would play with my little two-and-a-half-year old son, Jimmy.
"'It was at 9:30 on a lovely summer morning. The train had arrived,
leaving its passenger coach and baggage car standing on the main track
at the north end of the station platform, the pin between the baggage
and the first box car having been pulled out. There were about a dozen
freight cars, which had pulled ahead and backed in upon the
freight-house siding. The train men had taken out a box car and pushed
it with force enough to reach the baggage car without a brakeman
controlling it.
"'At this moment Al turned and saw little Jimmy on the main track,
throwing pebbles over his head in the sunshine, all unconscious of
danger. Dashing his papers and cap on the platform he plunged to the
rescue.
"'The train baggage man was the only eyewitness. He told me that when he
saw Al jump toward Jimmy he thought sure both boys would be crushed.
Seizing Jimmy in his arms just as the box car was about to strike them,
young http://members.lycos.co.uk/akssyjxg . There wasn't a tenth of a
second to lose. By this instinctive act he saved his own life, for if he
had thrown the little chap first and then himself, he would have been
crushed under the wheels.
"'As it was, the front wheel struck the heel of the newsboy's boot and
he and Jimmy fell, face downward on the sharp, fresh-gravel ballast so
hard that they were both http://antispivar.ifrance.com bleeding and the baggage man thought sure the
wheel had gone over them. To his surprise their injuries proved to be
only skin deep.