copy, or eight cents a month for regular subscribers, and the circulation ran up to over four hundred copies an issue. This was by no means the result of mere public curiosity, but attested the value of the sheet as a genuine newspaper, to which many persons in the railroad service along the line were willing contributors. Indeed, with the aid of the railway telegraph, Edison was often able to print late news of importance, of local origin, that the distant regular papers like those of Detroit, which he handled as a newsboy, could not get. get. The London Times wrote an article on the Weekly Herald calling it the first newspaper in the world to be printed on a train in motion. The youthful proprietor sometimes cleared as much as twenty to thirty dollars a month from this unique journalistic enterprise

But all this extra work required attention, and Edison solved the difficulty of attending also to the newsboy business by the employment of a young friend, whom he trained and treated liberally as an understudy There was often plenty of work for both in the early days of the war, when the news of battle caused intense excitement and

large sales of papers. Edison, with native shrewdness already so strikingly displayed, would telegraph the station agents and get them to bulletin the event of the day at the front, so that when each station was reached there were eager purchasers waiting. He recalls in particular the sensation caused by the great battle of Shiloh, or Pittsburgh Landing, in April, 1862, in which both Grant and Sherman were engaged, and in which there was a ghastly total of 25,000 killed and wounded.

In describing his enterprising action that day, Edison says that when he reached Detroit the bulletin boards of the newspaper offices were surrounded with dense crowds, which

read awe-stricken the news that there were 60,000 killed and wounded, and that the result was uncertain. "I knew that if the same excitement was attained at the various small towns along the road, and especially at Port Huron, the sale of papers would be great. I then conceived the idea of telegraphing the news ahead, went to the operator in the depot, and by giving him Harper's Weekly and some other papers for three months, got him to agree to telegraph to all the stations the matter on the bulletin boards. I hurriedly copied it, and he sent it, requesting the agents to display it on the blackboards used for stating the arrival and departure of trains. I decided that instead of the usual one hundred papers I could sell one thousand; but not having sufficient money to purchase that number, I determined in my desperation to see the editor himself and get credit. The great paper at that time was the Detroit Free Press. I walked into the office marked "Editorial" and told a young man that I wanted to see the editor on important business important to me, anyway. I was taken into an office where there were two men, and I stated what I had done about telegraphing, and that I wanted a thousand papers, but only had money for three hundred, and I wanted credit. One of the men refused it, but the other told the first spokesman to let me have them.

'By the aid of another boy I lugged the papers to the train and started folding them. The first station, called Utica, was a small one where I generally sold two papers. I saw a crowd ahead on the platform, and thought it some excursion, but the moment I landed there was a rush for me; then I realized that the telegraph was a great invention. I sold thirty-five papers there. The next station was Mount Clemens, now a watering-place, but then a town of about

one thousand. I usually sold six to eight papers there. I decided that if I found a corresponding crowd there, the only thing to do to correct my lack of judgment in not getting more papers was to raise the price from five cents to ten. The crowd was there, and I raised the price. At the various towns there were corresponding crowds. It had been my practice at Port Huron to jump from the train at a point about one-fourth of a mile from the station, where the train generally slackened speed. I had drawn several loads of sand to this point to jump on, and had become quite expert. The little Dutch boy with the horse met me at this point. When the wagon approached the outskirts of the town I was met by a large crowd. I then yelled; 'Twenty-five cents apiece, gentlemen! I haven't enough to go around!' I sold all out, and made what to' me then was an immense sum of money."

Such episodes as this added materially to his income, but did not necessarily increase his savings, for he was then, as now, an utter spendthrift so long as some new apparatus or supplies for experiment could be had. In fact, the laboratory on wheels soon became crowded with such equipment, and served as a basis for the ceaseless testing and study which prepared the young inventor for his great life work of service to mankind.

AMERICA FIRST

FRANCES NIMMO GREENE

Little Riego Yañez was a native of Mexico - of that unhappy part of Mexico which is constantly plundered by revolutionary bands who spend their time in fighting, and who win their supplies by robbing the more stable people of the republic.

Riego's father, Antonio Yañez, had suffered many times at the hands of the revolutionists. He was a saddler by trade, and also a small farmer, so the products of his industry were just what the warring bandits needed. But the warring bandits did not pay for what they needed. They merely took, and rode away!

So Antonio decided on a desperate step- he would emigrate to America.

But Riego's mother objected to removing to America. Mexico was rife with hatred and distrust of the "gringos," and many and dark were the stories told of the country. north of the Great North River. Besides, Riego's elder brother, Pascual, an unruly lad of fifteen, was very bitterly opposed to the change.

So it was at length decided that Antonio should dare alone the dangers and hardships of America. If all was as the revolutionists said, he could escape back to Chihuahua. If, by happy chance, he should prosper in the new country, he would send for wife and children.

A year passed. The father's letters few and short, for he had had little schooling-were chiefly concerned with begging them to come and see for themselves.

Then, one never-to-be-forgotten day, the mother and

children packed into a hired wagon the tragic little which the bandits had left them, and set their faces toward the Rio Grande. They, too, were bound for that distrusted country which lay north of the northern edge of their world. The mother and the two girls were hopeful, but Pascual was silent and Riego afraid.

Not till the night came down did they reach the dark river which was to flow forever between the old life and the new. To little ten-year-old Riego this all-pervading darkness meant "America," for to his drowsy brain and anxious heart the black clouds above and the darkly rolling waters below seemed to typify the spirit of the land into which he was crossing.

Another moment, however, and he had given up the struggle to think it all out and had fallen asleep with his head on his mother's lap.

The next morning Riego waked up in a better land.

He sat up on his cot and blinked his black eyes and stared about him at the cosy little room. A flood of light poured in at the one tiny window! Then the sun did shine in this land of the gringos!

This was very interesting. Riego hurried into his clothes and started out to see America.

His route of exploration led through a cheery kitchen, where he found his two sisters busy cooking breakfast, and smiling and chatting at their work. But Riego had no time to stop and question, for the green things in the little garden beyond were beckoning to him.

this "America"

In another minute he was out among them. It was very green with very green and very sunny, rows upon rows of the most wonderful vegetables running out to meet the morning sun!