Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1893-08-26
BOYHOOD OF EDISON.
Something About the Youth CT the
Great Inventor

Acrecent number of st. Nicholas con
tains an article from the pen OF Ida
Rose McCabe on the boyhood Of the
great Edison. According to this au'
thority the early life of the nineteenth
century wizard was certainly unique
and interesting. He was genuine
type of the American youth, and yet
his father says he had no real boyhood
days, for his earliest amusements were
steam engines and mechanical forces.
OF his life in Milan, Mich, the writer
says:
In Milan, on the banks of the Huron
river, where he passed the first seven
years of his life, he seems to have joined
in the boys games; but soon marbles,
ball and hop-scotch were left to less in
.genious urchins, while young Edison
constructed plank roads or dug tunnels
and caves along the shore.
HIS interest in tunneling was rivaled
by his love for chickens. Astonished
at the results of goose sitting on a
nest of eggs, the inventor thought TO
increase the broods by device of his
own. One day the boy was missed
from his usual haunts. Messengers
were sent in search of him and found
him curled up in nest he had made in
the barn. 1t was filed with goose and
hen eggs, upon which he was sitting,
trying to hatch them!
There was one phase of Milan child
life in which Edison, happily or unhap-
PLY, hardly shared. He was not one of
those who daily trudged with satchel
and books to the white washed school
house. Indeed. Edison went to school
for only two months. In her youth his
mother had been teacher in the
Canadian high school. She taught her
son at home, impressing him with the
love and purpose of study. Like many
of the worlds greatest men, Edison
owes much of his fame to his mother,
to whom he was devoted son. Read
ing was his delight. His father, to en-
courage him in the habit, paid him for
every volume he finished. At the age
of seven, the family removed from
Milan to Port Huron, where Edison, on
the shores of Lake Erie, continued to
bald roads and dig tunnels, during the
same time pursuing his studies at home
with the industry and concentration
that continue to dominate his life.
With Hume's History of England"
D'Aubigne's History of the Reforma-
tion," Gibbons Rome" Sears His
tory of the World" the penny Ency-
.clop@dia, and various scientific works,
he had well stored his mind before he
began Us train-boy to carry basket
of figs, apples, toys, periodicals and
newspapers. In the ups and downs of
this rugged calling Edison found his
university education. He always re-
-fers to this period with q humorous
CLEAN in his searching eyes.
His run was from Port Huron to
Detroit Night, however, always found
him in the shelter of his fathers home
"a large old fashioned frame building
surrounded by grove and with an OBJ
aservatory that commanded glorious
outlook over the broad river and dis
tant hills.
Business increased rapidly and soon
the boy had to employ four assistants.
At this period Edison's inventive
genius first asserted itself. The war
had just begun. News was eagerly
awaited 1t was this dull-looking news
boy who hit upon the novel idea of tel
,egraphing. in advance of his train. the
head lines of the war news columns.
which were promptly hulletined at the
stations. When the train arrived his
papers sold with electric speed.
His stock in trade was purchased