The Key to Success

by Russell H. Conwell

"Stevenson."

The inventor of the locomotive itself! Oh, where are thy kings, oh, men? They may be in the mine, on the mountain, in the hovel or the palace, wherever a man notices what other people have not seen. Wherever a man observes in his every-day work what other people have not noticed, there will be found the king.

Are any of my readers milkmen? Are you discouraged when the brooks freeze up in the winter? Now, there was a milkman in West Virginia, not many years ago, who went to the train every morning with the milk from the farm, and while they were putting the milk in the car he studied the locomotive standing in the station.

"What do you know about a locomotive?"

"Oh, I don't know anything about it."

Is that so? You have seen and ridden after them all your lifetime, and you have seen them standing in the station, you have looked at the immense structure with some respect, but you don't know anything about it—and then you expect to be a successful man! That young man became interested in the locomotive, and while he stood around there he watched it, measured it, asked the engineer questions about it. One day the engineer, seeing he was interested, took him down to the switch and showed him how to put on the steam, and how to shut it off, and how to reverse the engine, ring the bell, operate the whistle, and all about it, and he was delighted. He went home and made draftings in the evenings of the locomotive.

Two years after that the same train ran on the siding and the engineer and fireman went into a house to get their breakfast, leaving the locomotive alone—waiting for the snow to be shoveled off the track which had rolled down the mountain. While they were absent a valve of the engine accidentally opened. It started the piston, and the engine began to draw out the train on to the main track, and then it began to go down the fearful grade at full speed. The brakeman went out on the rear platform, caught hold of the wheel brake in order to slow down the train. When he saw the engineer and fireman at the top of the hill swinging their arms as though something awful had happened, the brakeman shouted:

"There is the engineer and fireman, both of them, up there. We will all be killed!"

The people fainted and screamed, and the cry went to the second car, and then to the baggage car, and that milkman was there. He ran to the side-door to leap, but saw that it would be certain death. Then, with the help of the baggage-man he clambered over the tender, reached the engineer's place, and felt around for the lever in the smoke. When he discovered it he pressed it home. Then reversed the engine. It was a wonder those cylinder heads held. But with an awful crack the driving wheels stopped on the track, shot fire through the snow as they began to roll back against the ongoing train, the momentum still pushing it on. It shook the train until every pane of glass was broken. When it came to a stop the passengers climbed out to ascertain who stopped the train. They discovered that this young man had done it, and saved their lives, and they thanked him with tears.

A stockholder in the railroad company, an old man nearly eighty years of age, was on the train. He went into the stockholders' meeting that night and told the story of his narrow escape on that train. Since then that milkman has been one of the richest railroad owners in the world.