the last scrap of my huge lunch. But I was resolved to show them
what a husky young fellow determined to rise could do. The worst
of it was that my wrists were swelling and going back on me.
There are few who do not know the pain of walking on a sprained
ankle. Then imagine the pain of shovelling coal and trundling a
loaded wheelbarrow with two sprained wrists.

Work! More than once I sank down on the coal where no one could
see me, and cried with rage, and mortification, and exhaustion,
and despair. That second day was my hardest, and all that enabled
me to survive it and get in the last of the night coal at the end
of thirteen hours was the day fireman, who bound both my wrists
with broad leather straps. So tightly were they buckled that they
were like slightly flexible plaster casts. They took the stresses
and pressures which hitherto had been borne by my wrists, and they
were so tight that there was no room for the inflammation to rise
in the sprains.

And in this fashion I continued to learn to be an electrician.
Night after night I limped home, fell asleep before I could eat my
supper, and was helped into bed and undressed. Morning after
morning, always with huger lunches in my dinner pail, I limped out
of the house on my way to work.

I no longer read my library books. I made no dates with the
girls. I was a proper work beast. I worked, and ate, and slept,
while my mind slept all the time. The whole thing was a
nightmare. I worked every day, including Sunday, and I looked far
ahead to my one day off at the end of a month, resolved to lie
abed all that day and just sleep and rest up.