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A fellow named George Henderson who had a grocery store had to keep his wife behind the counter while he pushed a two-wheeled cart around, delivering orders. I offered myself as a delivery boy and was hired at ten dollars a month. I went to work at six o'clock in the morning and was through by 10:30 at night. That store was long and narrow, with just a plain board counter. Practically all the stock was kept in wooden boxes and barrels. We used the scales to measure almost everything we sold; even smoking tobacco was measured out by the pound.

The next year, when I had finished high school, I went back into the grocery store to work for Henderson. He was paying me fourteen dollars a month, but I did not like those hours and I was not satisfied with either my money or my prospects. I wanted to quit the grocery store and learn about machinery. That made Ed sore.

"Why don't you be a boilermaker?" he would roar. "One machinist in a family is enough."

"I don't want to be a boilermaker," I'd yell back to him.