Radio Boys Cronies | Page 4

no play,' he took great pleasure in his work. In the course of
his daily routine at Detroit, he could hardly help making friends on the
Free Press, the greatest newspaper there. In this he resembled that
other great inventor, also a great worker as a boy--Benjamin Franklin.
"Young Edison had a friend up in the printing office who let him see
proofs from the edition being set up, so that he kept posted as to what
was to be in the paper before it came off the press. After the Free Press
came out, he had to get an armful and hustle for his train. In this
shrewd way the train-boy was better off than 'he who runs may read,'
for he had read, and could shout while running: 'All about the big
battle!' So he sold his papers in short order. He had learned to estimate
ahead how many papers the news of a battle ought to sell, and so he

stocked up well beforehand. One day he saw in the advance proofs a
harrowing account of the great two-days' battle of Shiloh. He grasped
not only the news value but also the strategic importance of that
victory.
"Running down to the telegraph office at the Grand Trunk Station in
Detroit, he told the operator all about it. Edison has told us himself
about the offer he made that telegrapher:
"'If you will wire to every station on my run and get the station master
to chalk up on the blackboard out on the station platform that there has
been a big battle, with thousands killed and wounded, I'll give you
Harper's Weekly free for six months!'
"The operator agreed and that Edison boy tore back to the Free Press
office.
"'I want a thousand papers!' he gasped. 'Pay you to-morrow!' This was
more than three times as many as he had taken out before, so the clerk
refused to trust him.
"'Where's Mr. Storey?' demanded the lad. The clerk snickered as he
jerked his head toward where the managing editor was talking with a
'big' man from out of town. Young Edison was forced to break in, but
the editor noticed how anxious and business-like he was. When the boy
had told him what he wanted, the great newspaper man scribbled a few
words on a scrap of paper and handed it down to him, saying:
"'Here, take this. Wish you good luck!'
"Al handed the clerk the order and got his thousand papers at once. He
hired another 'newsie' to help him down to the station with them. Long
after this, he told the rest of the story:
"'At Utica, the first station, twelve miles out of Detroit, I usually sold
two papers at five cents each. As we came up I put my head out and
thought I saw an excursion party. The people caught sight of me and
commenced to shout. Then it began to occur to me that they wanted

papers. I rushed back into the car, grabbed an armful, and sold forty
there.
"'Mt. Clemens was the next stop. When that station came in sight, I
thought there was a riot. The platform was crowded with a howling
mob, and I realized that they were after news of Shiloh, so I raised the
price to ten cents, and sold a hundred and fifty where I never had got
rid of more than a dozen.
"'At other stations these scenes were repeated, but the climax came
when we got to Port Huron. I had to jump off the train about a quarter
of a mile from the station which was situated out of town. I had paid a
big Dutch boy to haul several loads of sand to that point, and the
engineers knew I was going to jump so they slowed down a bit. Still, I
was quite an expert on the jump. I heaved off my bundle of papers and
landed all right. As usual, the Dutch boy met me and we carried the rest
of the papers toward the town.
"'We had hardly got half way when we met a crowd hurrying toward
the station. I thought I knew what they were after, so I stopped in front
of a church where a prayer-meeting was just closing. I raised the price
to twenty-five cents and began taking in a young fortune.
"'Almost at the same moment the meeting closed and the people came
rushing out. The way the coin materialized made me think the deacons
had forgotten to pass the plate in that meeting!'
"In those days they commonly called trainboys 'Candy Butchers'; the
terms 'Newsies' and 'Peanuts' may have been used then also but were
not so common. They are not so common on trains nowadays, except in
the West and