we got to Port Huron. I had to jump off the train about a quarter of a
mile from the station which was situated out of town. I had paid a big
Dutch boy to haul several loads of sand to that point, and the engineers
knew I was going to jump so they slowed down a bit. Still, I was quite
an expert on the jump. I heaved off my bundle of papers and landed all
right. As usual, the Dutch boy met me and we carried the rest of the
papers toward the town.

"'We had hardly got half way when we met a crowd hurrying toward the
station. I thought I knew what they were after, so I stopped in front of
a church where a prayer-meeting was just closing. I raised the price to
twenty-five cents and began taking in a young fortune.

"'Almost at the same moment the meeting closed and the people came
rushing out. The way the coin materialized made me think the deacons had
forgotten to pass the plate in that meeting!'

"In those days they commonly called trainboys 'Candy Butchers'; the
terms 'Newsies' and 'Peanuts' may have been used then also but were not
so common. They are not so common on trains nowadays, except in the West
and South, but formerly they were even more of an institution than the
water cooler or the old-fashioned winter stove. The station-shouting
brakemen were no more familiar or comforting to weary passengers than
the 'candy butchers' and their welcome stock."




CHAPTER IV