The Indianapolis Journal

HE WANTED A JOB.
A Boy Who Refused to Wait and Grow Up Before He Got Work.
Cleveland Herald.

A year or more ago, as the foreman of one of the iron works of this city was crossing the yard one day, he espied a little skip of a boy, seemingly not over eleven years old, seated on a big fly-wheel and chewing the cud of bitter reflection.

"Who are you?"
"I'm Jack."
"What are you doing here?"
"Resting."
"What do you want?"
"A job."

Those were the questions and answers. The boy was pale and ragged, but in his steel-blue eyes the foreman saw game. And, too, the idea of a waif like him setting out to battle the world touched a tender chord in the heart of the man, who had boys of his own, and he set Jack at work in the yard.

No one thought the boy would stay a week, and no one cared to ask where he came from or who he was. But he stuck. He was hard working and faithful, and, as the weeks went by, he gained friends. One day he walked up to the foreman and said:

"I want to learn the trade."
"You? Ha! ha! ha! Why, Jack, you are not big enough to handle a cold-chisel."
"I can whip any 'prentice boy in this shop!" was the earnest declaration.
"Just hear him! Why, any of the lot could turn you wrong side out! When you get big enough to whip the smallest one, you come to me for a job."

At noon that day Jack walked up to the biggest apprentice boy in the shop and said:

"Come out doors."
"What do you want?"
"I'm going to lick you."
"What for?"
"Because I want a chance to learn the trade?"

The two went out, and, in the sight of twenty witnesses, little Jack won a victory. At 1 o'clock he touched his cap to the foreman and said:

"I've licked your biggest 'prentice and want to go to work!"

Ten minutes later he had become a machinist's apprentice, and if you go in there to-day you will find him with greasy hands, oily face, and a head full of business ideas. Jack carries the keys to the drawers where steam-gauges, safety-valves and other trimmings are kept, and he knows the use of every tool, the workings of every piece of machinery, and there is a constant call for Jack here and Jack there. Before he is twenty he will be a finished machinist, and before he is twenty-five he will be foreman of some great shop.

He is quiet, earnest, respectful and observing. What he does is well done. What he is told he never forgets.