controlling it.

"'At this moment Al turned and saw little Jimmy on the main track,
throwing pebbles over his head in the sunshine, all unconscious of
danger. Dashing his papers and cap on the platform he plunged to the
rescue.

"'The train baggage man was the only eyewitness. He told me that when he
saw Al jump toward Jimmy he thought sure both boys would be crushed.
Seizing Jimmy in his arms just as the box car was about to strike them,
young Edison threw himself off the track. There wasn't a tenth of a
second to lose. By this instinctive act he saved his own life, for if he
had thrown the little chap first and then himself, he would have been
crushed under the wheels.

"'As it was, the front wheel struck the heel of the newsboy's boot and
he and Jimmy fell, face downward on the sharp, fresh-gravel ballast so
hard that they were both bleeding and the baggage man thought sure the
wheel had gone over them. To his surprise their injuries proved to be
only skin deep.

"'I was in the ticket office when I heard the shriek and ran out in time
to see the train hands carrying the two boys to the platform. My first
thought was: 'How can I, a poor man, reward the dear lad for risking his
life to save my child's?' Then it came to me, 'I can teach him
telegraphy.' When I offered to do this, he smiled and said, 'I'd like to
learn,' and learn he did. I never saw any one pick it up so fast. It was
a sort of second nature with him. After the conductor treated him so
badly, throwing off his apparatus, boxing his ears and making him hard
of hearing, Al seemed to lose his interest in his business as train boy.