have you got?'
I said: 'Papers.' 'All right.' He took them and threw them out of the
window, and, turning to the colored man, said: 'Nicodemus, pay this
boy.' I told Nicodemus the amount, and he opened a satchel and paid me.
The passengers didn't know what to make of the transaction. I returned
with the illustrated papers and magazines. These were seized and thrown
out of the window, and I was told to get my money of Nicodemus. I then
returned with all the old magazines and novels I had not been able to
sell, thinking perhaps this would be too much for them. I was small and
thin, and the layer reached above my head, and was all I could possibly
carry. I had prepared a list, and knew the amount in case they bit
again. When I opened the door, all the passengers roared with laughter.
I walked right up to the young men. One asked me what I had. I said
'Magazines and novels.' He promptly threw them out of the window,
and Nicodemus settled. Then I came in with cracked hickory nuts, then
pop-corn balls, and, finally, molasses candy. All went out of the
window. I felt like Alexander the Great!--I had no more chance! I had
sold all I had. Finally I put a rope to my trunk, which was about
the size of a carpenter's chest, and started to pull this from the
baggage-car to the passenger-car. It was almost too much for my
strength, but at last I got it in front of those men. I pulled off my
coat, shoes, and hat, and laid them on the chest. Then he asked: 'What
have you got, boy?' I said: 'Everything, sir, that I can spare that is
for sale.' The passengers fairly jumped with laughter. Nicodemus paid me
$27 for this last sale, and threw the whole out of the door in the rear
of the car. These men were from the South, and I have always retained a
soft spot in my heart for a Southern gentleman."

While Edison was a newsboy on the train a request came to him one day
to go to the office of E. B. Ward & Company, at that time the largest
owners of steamboats on the Great Lakes. The captain of their largest
boat had died suddenly, and they wanted a message taken to another
captain who lived about fourteen miles from Ridgeway station on the
railroad. This captain had retired, taken up some lumber land, and had
cleared part of it. Edison was offered $15 by Mr. Ward to go and fetch
him, but as it was a wild country and would be dark, Edison stood out
for $25, so that he could get the companionship of another lad. The
terms were agreed to. Edison