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eents a day Ar ter the boy had been there four or five weeks, one morning the engi- neer blew the cylinder cover from the engine, which was about 75 horsepower. The boy was then made engi- neer and the engineer was placed in the fire- room and told to stay The Engineer's First Engine Which Ran the Coffee Grinder and Roaster in a Grocery Store, Where He Secured His First Job T an early age a boy who was A always interested in steam en- gines used to help operate the engine in a grocery store on Satur- days. This engine ran the coffee roaster and coffee grinder. He did this for a_ skilled engineer, James C. Decker, who owned the grocery store at that time and who told the boy many things about steam which were useful to him in after life. The little engine and boiler were probably of 2 horsepower and were of a variety totally extinct now. The next summer vacation, the boy 'fired a railroad pumping-plant boiler for the whole summer under the direc- tion of a baggage master, Harley Clark, who was the engineer of the pumping plant besides being a bag- gage master. The boy. received the compensation of 10 cents at the end of the summer for the work he did in addition to what he learned. - Another vacation, he fired a boiler with sawdust and shavings in the base- ment of a feed store, and his only pay was the privilege of blowing the whistle and stopping the engine at night in addition to what he learned. The engineer wisely would not let him start the engine in the morning, About this period, the boy's father, who was quite a well-to-do business man, failed in business and the boy went to work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill, where he received 30 there. This 'boiler in- cidentally was a_ well- known type of water- tube boiler on the mar- ket today. The boiler was located in a dirty water district and the tubes - had to be scraped out -inside quite often. The boy used to go down and work the entire week-end with the men, holding a lamp and carry- ing drinking water to them for what he would learn about the business. So that by the age of 12 the boy was somewhat of an engineer. Later ime Dboys family . moved. .to a then quite important lake port, and a then quite important lake port, and the boy got his first real job--running an engine of about 1§ horsepower in a stone yard for the magnificent salary of $5 a week. This boiler was fired with butts of logs from a shingle mill; logs which had to be split be- fore put into the fire box. About the time the boy was well started, the man failed and, as times were hard, the only job the boy could get after a three-month search was to run a small portable engine in a little plan- ing mill at $5 a week--which seemed the set wages for: boy engineers of that period. This boiler was so bulged and leaky around the stay- bolts in the furnace and around the wagon top, that the boy, after working there a week decided that life was too precious to work longer around that ° boiler. Next the boy was sent away from home, for the first time, to work on a dredge which was then stationed 186 ms From a Lake Dredge steam in the boiler. toa ransatlantic Liner True Story Of a Retired Marine Engineer in another large lake port. He per- formed the duties of fireman at the then splendid salary of $26 a month and, board, such as it was. The boiler in the dredge was of the locomotive type; probably 50 or 60 horsepower, with a furnace door in the side of fire box. Wood the edgings were used for fuel, which meant almost constant firing and attention. The dredge dug mud 12 hours a day. This 'meant that the boy had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get up Also he had to scrub out the engine room at night after the running of the dredge was over. : In the fall of this season, the dredge was ordered to be transferred to an- other lake port and it was driven ashore'in a heavy gale in Lake Huron. Before the dredge went ashore, the men were actually in line with pails to keep it baled out. The dredge drove high and dry, as they used to say, on "the man's farm". When the weather cleared, the dredge was dragged off from the beach and pro- ceeded under easy steam in tow of a tug. In passing, he wishes to com- ment on the judgment of Captain Corbin of the tug, who, instead of trying to come back and pick them' up' on account of the signals of dis- tress that they were making, realized his position and towed them through to the shallow water. Otherwise, they would have gone to "Davy Jones" forthwith, and this story would not have been written. During the following winter, the boy worked in the shipyard at $10 a month heating rivets and_ helping about the repairing and overhauling of the engines and boilers of the tug- boats and dredges which the com- pany owned--some five or six of each, He worked with a skilled engineer, William Logan, whom the boy has been proud to have known ever since. This engineer spent considerable time in instilling into the boy sound and sensible mechanical principles.