ng my deliveries
one afternoon. I had Twenty-second Street and North River as my last
delivery, which took me into the lumber district and into the office of
John McC----. I asked the young man in charge of the office if they
wanted a young fellow to work. He asked me what I could do, and I said,
"Anything." Now it's an old saying, "A man that can do everything can't
do much of anything."

We went down into the yard and he asked me the different qualities of
lumber and their names. I'll never forget the first question he asked
me, which was, "What's the name of that piece of timber?" I said, "Oak,"
and I was right. After testing me on the other piles he asked me if I
could measure, and could I tally? I told him I could, and he said,
"I'll give you $9.00. Is that enough?" I said that would do for a
starter, and he told me to be on hand at seven o'clock in the morning.

I delivered the few books I had left, drew my money, got a shave, bought
a leather apron, and went to bed. I was up and at John McC----'s yard at
6:30.

He was Police Commissioner then, and one of the whitest men I ever ran
up against.

I started in at my third job since I had been converted. I was at home
in the lumber yard, as I had learned the business While roughing it in
Tonawanda, Troy, Syracuse, Buffalo, and on the Lakes. And when a man
learns anything, if he isn't a fool he can always work at it again. Here
I was at a business few could tell me much about.

TESTIFYING IN A LUMBER YARD

The lumber-handlers as a rule are a free and easy set, nearly all
drinking men. It's warm work, and when a man is piling all day, pulling
up plank after plank, he thinks a pint of beer does him good. They rush
the can--first the piler, then the stager, and then the ground man, then
the piler again, and so on. I've counted as many as twenty pints in one
day among one gang. I soon got the run of the yard and made friends with
all the men; but if ever I was up against temptation it was there in
that yard, where I worked a long time. They would ask me to have a
drink, but I told them time and time again that I did not care about it;
I was off the stuff.

Often when I was sweating after pushing down a load of lumber from the
pile and keeping tally at the same time, the Devil would whisper to me,
"Oh, have a glass of beer; it won't hurt you; it will do you good," and
I was tempted to join with the men and drink. I had to keep praying hard
and fast, for I was sor