n 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 bleeding and the baggage man thought sure the
wheel had gone over them. To his surprise their injuries proved to be
only skin deep.

"'I was in the ticket office when I heard the shriek and ran out in time
to see the train hands carrying the two boys to the platform. My first
thought was: 'How can I, a poor man, reward the dear lad for risking his
life to save my child's?' Then it came to me, 'I can teach him
telegraphy.' When I offered to do this, he smiled and said, 'I'd like to
learn,' and learn he did. I never saw any one pick it up so fast. It was
a sort of second nature with him. After the conductor treated him so
badly, throwing off his apparatus, boxing his ears and making him hard
of hearing, Al seemed to lose his interest in his business as train boy.

"'Some days Al would stop at my station at half past nine in the morning
and stay all day while the train went on to Detroit and returned to Mt.
Clemens in the evening. The train baggage man who saw Al rescue Jimmy
would get the papers in Detroit and bring them up to Mt. Clemens for
him. During these long hours the Edison boy made rapid progress in
learning. And every day he made the most of the half hour or more of
practice he had while the train stopped at Mt. Clemens each way.

"'At the end of a couple of weeks I missed him for several days. Next
time he dropped off he showed me a set of telegraph instruments he had
made in a gunshop in Detroit, where the stationer who had sold him goods
had told the owner of the machine shop the story of the printing press.'

"The first place young Edison worked after he was graduated from the Mt.
Clemens private school of telegraphy was in Port Huron, his home town.
Here he had too many boy friends to let him keep on the job as a
youthful telegrapher should. Besides, he had a laboratory in his home
and found it too fascinating to take enough sleep. Between too much side
work and mischief, young Edison sometimes found himself in trouble. Some
of his escapades he has described to his friend and assistant, William
H. Meadowcroft.

"'About every night we could hear the soldiers stationed at Fort
Gratiot. One would call out: "Corporal of Guard Number One!" This was
repeate