ose enjoying poor health. Whether the news did anybody any
good or not matters little--the boy was learning to write. In
after-years he used to refer to this period of his life as his
"newspaper career." Superstitious persons have been agitated about that
word "Standard," and how it should have ominously come into the life of
H. H. Rogers at this early time.

When the railroad came in, Henry got a job as assistant baggageman. The
conductorship was in sight--twenty years away, but promised positively
by a kind relative--when something else appeared on the horizon, and a
good job was exchanged for a better one.

An enterprising Boston man had established a chain of grocery-stores
along the coast, and was monopolizing the business or bidding fair to do
so. By buying for many stores, he could buy cheaper than any other one
man could. But the main point of the plan was the idea of going to the
home, taking the order and delivering the goods. Before that, if you
wanted things you went to the store, selected them and carried them
home. To have asked the storekeeper to deliver the goods to your house
would have given that gentleman heart-failure. He did mighty well to
carry in stock the things that people needed. But here was a
revolutionary method--a new deal. Henry Rogers' father said it was
initiative gone mad, and would last only a few weeks. Henry Rogers'
mother said otherwise, and Henry agreed with her. He had clerked in his
father's grocery, and so knew something of the business. Moreover, he
knew the people--he knew every family in Fairhaven by name, and almost
every one for six miles around as well.

He started in at three dollars a week, taking orders and driving the
delivery-wagon. In six months his pay was five dollars a week and a
commission. In a year he was making twenty dollars a week. He was only
eighteen--slim, tall, bronzed and strong. He could carry a hundred
pounds on his shoulder. The people along the route liked him: he was
cheerful and accommodating.

Not only did he deliver the things, but he put them away in cellar,
barn, closet, garret or cupboard. He did not only what he was paid to
do, but more. He anticipated Ali Baba, who said, "Folks who never do any
more than they get paid for, never get paid for anything more than they
do." It was the year Eighteen Hundred Fifty-nine, and Henry Rogers was
making money. He owned his route, and the manager of the stores was
talking about making him assistant