Economy and Hard Study.
All this time he was forced to live on a few cents a day, and the only money he spent besides the cost of his board and clothing was what went for books on mechanics and material for mechanical drawing. When his apprenticeship was finished he was not only a thorough machinist, but he was also a mechanical draftsman.
His next position was in the locomotive repair-shops of the Cleveland, Akron and Columbus Railroad. The year he spent here was one of hard work and hard study, for he continued his drawing more assiduously than before. At the end of the year he obtained a place in the drawing department of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, having prepared himself for the stiff examination given there without one bit of outside assistance.
He spent five years with the Baldwin company, worked up from the lowest position in the drawing department to the highest, and during that five years he introduced nearly one hundred improvements in locomotive construction.
The training he had received in a small machine-shop was repaying him with interest, and his determination to make machines do as much work as possible was bearing fruit. Wherever he could, he introduced automatic machines.
He was only twenty-five years old when he was promoted to the position of chief draftsman in the Rhode Island Locomotive Works.
"Rather a responsible position for a young man," one of his friends suggested dubiously.
"Not if the young man knows his business," replied Pitkin. "And I think I do. I've thought of nothing else for the last nine years."