This job was a hard one and you had to hustle to make a dollar a day,
but I did not mind the hustling: I was strong, the drink had gone out of
me, and I felt good. I was anxious to get a job as porter in some
wholesale house, and delivering these books gave me a good chance to
ask, and ask I did in nearly every store where I delivered a book. I
always got the same reply, "No one wanted." I stayed at this about
three months, and was getting discouraged. It looked as though I'd never
get a steady position.
I had only a few more days of work, and was just finishing 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.
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