"I was raised in a little town in Tennessee," said he. "A traveling man whose home was in my native town took me along with him, one day, when he made a team trip to Bucksville, an inland country town, fourteen miles away. That was a great trip for me—fourteen miles, and staying over night in a hotel!—the first time I had ever done so in my life. And for the first time I knew how it felt to have a strange landlord call me "mister." It was on that trip that I caught the fever for travel, and that trip put me on the road!
"When, the next morning after reaching Bucksville, my drummer friend had finished business and packed his trunks, he said to me: 'Billie, I guess you may go and get the team ready.' I answered him, saying, 'The team is ready and backed up, sir, for the trunks.' In three minutes the trunks were loaded in and we were off.
"'Billie,' said my friend—I shall never forget it for it was the dawn of hope for me, as I had never had any idea what I was going to do in after life!—'I'll tell you, Billie, you would make a good drummer, suh. When we drove down yesterday you counted how many more horseflies lit on the bay mare than on the white horse. You reasoned out that the flies lit on the bay because the fly and the mare were about the same color and that the fly was not so liable to be seen and killed as if it had lit on the white. That showed me you notice things and reason about them. To be a good traveling man you must make a business of noticing things and thinking about them. Real good hoss sense is a rare thing. Then, this mo'nin', when I said "Get the team ready," you said "It is ready, suh," and showed me that you look ahead, see what ought to be done and do it without being told. Generally any fool can do what he is told to; but it takes a man of sense to find things to do, and if he has the grit to do them he will get along. I'm just going to see if I can't get a place in our house for you, Billie. You've got the stuff in you to make a successful drummer, suh. Yes, suh! Hoss sense and grit, suh—hoss sense and grit!'
"Sure enough the next Christmas night—I wasn't then sixteen—I struck out for the city in company with my older traveling man friend. He had got me a place in his house. The night I left, my mother said to me: 'Son, I've tried to raise you right. I'll soon find out if I have. I believe I have and that you will get along.' My father then gave me the only word of advice he ever gave me in his life: 'Son, be polite,' said he; 'this will cost you nothing and be worth lots.'
"Well, sir, with those words ringing in my ears: 'Use hoss sense; have grit;' 'Be polite;' 'Son, I've tried to raise you right,' I struck out for the city. As I think it over now, the thing that did me the most good was my father's advice: 'Son, be polite, this will cost you nothing and be worth lots.' The boy can never hope to be much if he does not know that he should tip his hat to a lady, give his seat to a gray-haired man, or carry a bundle for an old woman.
"How strange it was for me that night, to sleep with my friend in a bed on wheels! How strange, the next morning, to wash in a bowl on wheels! and to look out of the Pullman windows as I wiped my face! I was living then! And when I reached the city! Such a bustle I've never seen since. As I walked up a narrow street from the depot, I fell on the slippery sidewalk. 'Better get some ashes on your feet' said my friend. And, indeed, I did need to keep ashes on my feet for a long time. I had before me a longer and more slippery sidewalk than I then dreamed of. Every boy has who goes to the city. But, when he gets his sled to the top, he's in for a long, smooth slide!
"I started in to work for twenty dollars a month—not five dollars a week! I found there was a whole lot of difference, especially when I had to pay $4.50 a week for board and forty cents for laundry. I was too proud to send home for money and too poor to spend it out of my own purse. Good training this! One winter's day a friend told me there was skating in the park. I asked a gentleman where the park was. 'Go three blocks and take the car going south,' said he. I went three blocks and when the car came along I followed it, for I could not afford a single nickel for car fare. What a fortune I had when, during busy season, I could work nights and get fifty cents extra for supper money! None of this did I spend, as my boarding house wasn't far away. The only money that I spent in a whole year was one dollar for a library ticket—the best dollar I ever spent in my life! Good books, and there are plenty of them free in all cities, are the best things in the world, anyway, to keep a boy out of devilment. The boy who will put into his head what he will get out of good books will win out over the one who gets his clothes full of chalk from billiard cues. One day the "Old Gentleman" saw me at the noon hour as I was going to the library with a book under my arm. 'So you read nights, do you, Billie,' said he. 'Well, you keep it up and you will get ahead of the boys who don't.'
"Work? I worked like a beaver. I was due at seven in the morning. I was always there several minutes before seven. One morning the old gentleman came in real early and found me at work, while a couple of the other boys were reading the papers and waiting for the seventh strike, and before most of the stock boys had shown up. At noon I would wrap bundles, take a blacking pot and mark cases, run the elevator or do anything to "keep moving." I did not know that an eye was on me all the time; but there was. At the end of a year the old gentleman called me into the office and said: 'Billie, you've done more this year than we have paid you for; here's a check for sixty dollars, five dollars a month back pay. Your salary will be $25.00 a month next year. You may also have a week's vacation.
"How big that sixty was! Rockefeller hasn't as much to-day as I had then. What he has doesn't make him happy; he wants more. I had enough. Why, I was able to buy a new rig-out. I can see that plaid suit of clothes to this day! I could afford to go home looking slick, to visit my mother and father; I could buy a present for my sweetheart, too. The good Lord somehow very wisely puts 'notions' into a young man's head about the time he begins to get on in the world, and the best thing on earth for him when he is away from home is to have some girl away back where he came from think a whole lot of him and send him a crocheted four-in-hand for a Christmas present. This makes him loathe foul lips and the painted cheek. When a boy 'grows wise' he stands, sure's you're born, on the brink of hell. It's a pity that so many, instead of backing away when they get their eyelashes singed a little, jump right in.
"All during my first year I had helped the sample clerk, who had the best job in the house, get out samples for the salesmen. It was not "my business" to do this; but I did it during spare time from my regular work. When I came back from my visit home, the old gentleman found me on the floor one day while I was tagging samples. 'Billie,' said he, 'Fritz (the sample clerk) is going out on the road for us next week. I have decided to let you take his place here in the house. You are pretty young but we think you can do it.'