the system constructed. In Edison's boyish days it was quite different,
and telegraphic supplies were hard to obtain. But he and his "chum"
had a line between their homes, built of common stove-pipe wire. The
insulators were bottles set on nails driven into trees and short poles.
The magnet wire was wound with rags for insulation, and pieces of spring
brass were used for keys. With an idea of securing current cheaply,
Edison applied the little that he knew about static electricity,
and actually experimented with cats, which he treated vigorously as
frictional machines until the animals fled in dismay, and Edison had
learned his first great lesson in the relative value of sources of
electrical energy. The line was made to work, however, and additional to
the messages that the boys interchanged, Edison secured practice in an
ingenious manner. His father insisted on 11.30 as proper bedtime, which
left but a short interval after the long day on the train. But each
evening, when the boy went home with a bundle of papers that had
not been sold in the town, his father would sit up reading the
"returnables." Edison, therefore, on some excuse, left the papers
with his friend, but suggested that he could get the news from him by
telegraph, bit by bit. The scheme interested his father, and was
put into effect, the messages being written down and handed over for
perusal. This yielded good practice nightly, lasting until 12 and
1 o'clock, and was maintained for some time until Mr. Edison became
willing that his son should stay up for a reasonable time. The papers
were then brought home again, and the boys amused themselves to their
hearts' content until the line was pulled down by a stray cow wandering
through the orchard. Meantime better instruments had been secured, and
the rudiments of telegraphy had been fairly mastered.

The mixed train on which Edison was employed as newsboy did the
way-freight work and shunting at the Mount Clemens station, about half