A Story of Edison the Inventor

to buy anything. When I reached the southerners I asked them if they wanted some. " 'No ! ' replied the fellow nearest to me, Ve do not, and furthermore we are not going to have any,' whereupon he grabbed the basket out of my hands and dumped the nuts and apples out of the window. 'Here's your basket,' he said, handing it to me. "For a moment I was too surprised to speak. Then I yelled at him in a way that made everybody jump around. I did not say anything. I just yelled at him on general principles. " 'What's the matter, boy?' he said when I stopped. Some of the passengers laughed; others were indignant, and some who had not seen his action simply looked at me in amazement. Then I protested. " 'Look here, boy,' said the young man, 'how much were they worth? ' " 'Oh, about a dollar, I guess,' said I. "He turned to the negro on the next seat. 'Nicodemus,' he said, 'give this boy a dollar.' "The negro grinned, and turning to the box beside him he opened it. It was really full of money and valuables. He took out a dollar and gave it to me. I took it and walked up the car. I was still surprised. At the door I looked back at them, and everybody laughed at me for some reason—all except the young men, that is; they never even smiled during the whole performance. "Well, I filled up my basket with prize packages and came back through the train. Nobody bought any of them. When I reached the southerner, however, he said, 'Excuse me, sir,' and grabbing the basket again he sent the prize packages after the peanuts. He handed me my basket and sat back without a smile, but everybody else laughed again. I did not yell this time. I simply said, 'Look here, Mister, do you know how much those are worth?" " 'No,' said he; how much?' " 'Well, there were three dozen and four at ten cents for each one, not to mention the prizes in some of them.' " 'Oh,' he said; 'Nicodemus, count up how much the boy ought to have and give it to him.'

A STORY OF EDISOh, THE INVENTOR. 375 "The negro opened his box and gave me four dollars, and again I went away with the empty basket, while the passengers laughed. "Next I brought in some morning papers, and nobody bought these either. Somehow the passengers had caught the spirit of the thing, and as it cost them nothing they apparently did not wish to deprive those southerners of their fun. I was watchful when I came to the young bloods this time, and carried the papers so they could grab them easily. Sure enough the nearest one threw them out of the window after the other things. I sat on the edge of a seat and laughed myself. 'Oh, you settle with Nicodemus,' he said, and Nicodemus settled up. "Then I had an idea. I went into the baggage car and got every paper I could find. I had a lot of that day's stock, and over a hundred returns of the day before, which I was going to turn in at the end of the run. The whole lot was so heavy that I could just manage to carry it on my shoulder. When I staggered into the ladies' car and called 'paper!' in the usual drawling way the passengers fairly shrieked with laughter. I thought the southerner would back down, but he never flinched. He just grabbed those papers and hurled them out of the window by the armful. We could see them flying behind the train like great white birds—you know we had blanket sheets then—and they spread themselves out over the landscape in a way that must have startled the rural population of the district. I got over ten dollars for all my papers. "That dandy was game. 'Look here, boy,' he said, when the passengers had seen the last of those papers float around a curve ; 'have you anything else on board?' " ' Nothing except the basket and my box,' I replied. " 'Well, bring in those, too.' "You remember the big three-by-four boxes they used to give us to keep our goods in? Well, I put the basket in the box and turned it over and over down the aisle of the car to where the fellow sat. He threw the basket out of the window, but the box was too big to go that way. So he ordered Nicodemus to throw it off the rear platform. I charged him three dollars for that box. When it had gone he turned to me and said: " 'How much money have you made today?'

"I counted up over twenty-five dollars Nicodemus had given me. " 'Now,' he said, 'are you sure you have nothing more to sell?' "I would have brought in the smoking car stove if it had not been hot. But I was compelled to say there was really nothing more. " 'Very well ! ' and then with a change in his tone he turned to the negro and said: 'Nicodemus, throw this boy out of the window.' "The passengers shrieked with laughter; but I got out of that car pretty quick, I can tell you. That fellow was a thorougbred, and I believe he would have done it, even if his nigger had refused, which was not likely." And the face of the great inventor wore a half-amused, halfregretful smile at this vision of his train-boy days.