Such an experiment
was at all events predestined to an ignominious failure.
An act of heroism was the turning-point in his career. One day, at the
risk of his life, he saved the child of the station-master at Mount
Clemens, near Port Huron, from being run over by an approaching train,
and the grateful father, Mr. J. A. Mackenzie, learning of his interest
in the telegraph, offered to teach him the art of sending and receiving
messages. After his daily service was over, Edison returned to Mount
Clemens on a luggage train and received his lesson.
At the end of five months, while only sixteen years of age, he forsook
the trains, and accepted an offer of twenty-five dollars a month, with
extra pay for overtime, as operator in the telegraph office at Port
Huron, a small installation in a jewelry store. He worked hard to
acquire more skill; and after six months, finding his extra pay
withheld, he obtained an engagement as night operator at Stratford, in
Canada. To keep him awake the operator was required to report the word
'six,' an office call, every half-hour to the manager of the circuit.
Edison fulfilled the regulation by inventing a simple device which
transmitted the required signals. It consisted of a wheel with the
characters cut on the rim, and connected with the circuit in such a way
that the night watchman, by turning the wheel, could transmit the
signals while Edison slept or studied.
Pages:
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254