The Grit-advocate., 1903-12-04
ABOUT SOME EASY ERRORS.

When | saw the word weird"
printed where the word three" should
have been the only thing | could do
was to invest it in this kind of re-
port.
From past experience I have found
that investment of trouble is an eco
nomic way of handling it.
A man sold me a tifty-cent micro
scope for three dollars. When found
out the value of it l told the story
for New York magazine and they
sent me s2s5.
That was fifteen years ago, and ever
since then l have felt that trouble
might in some cases be key which
would open door to desirable oppor-
tunities.
Soon after the microscope expert
ence | found log in path which
led from railway station to my home.
II the train happened to be late
would use that path in the night, and
Il the night happened to be dark that
log was apt to make me trouble.
l asked the owner of the log how
much he would take for it. He named
the price and | took him up; then
asked neighbor if he would turn
that log into stove wood and put half
OF the wood in our shed for the other
half Of the wood for his own shed. He
said yes, and did so.
When my people found out about
the price Of the log and the quality
Of the wood they felt that l needed
some kind of an education that l, had
not secured. But when that New York
magazine sent me 60 per cent more
for the written report than l paid for
the log, my people began to think that
did know something.
The other day l went to suburban
station at -:30 p. M, and the day was
Thursday. I soon found that the LBS
train which l had come to take ran
Saturdays only. This made me feel
like framing a sentence for my own
use, and | soon saw that the informa-
tion at the top of a column is as i'm
portant as the train time in the col
umn
What to do with the hour in hand
was the next question, and after max
ing couple of calls near the station, l
| made a third call on a gentleman
whom I had met several times 1t was
with some diffidence that l opened the
subject. but l believe that the forty
minutes spent with him were as useful
| to me as any forty minutes that have
ever invested.
Recently, while at hotel in a south
western town, went to the letter box
| late in the evening to post some mail
| The box was near the clerks desk in
| the hotel. and on it hung a card The
hook which held the card was a large
piece of hoop iron bent at both ends
had read the card before, and yet
at the time | was so thoroughly occu
! pied with some foreign subject that
with considerable effort pulled down
the shutter and dropped in my mail.
With that act my mind dropped the
foreign subject, and seemed to be
ready to rest, and then l re-read the
card on the box, which said, "Hant
mail to the clerk for trains east anG
west"
Just how l could get that shutter
down and the bent hoop iron made il
particularly difficult, is something thai
is not very clear to me at present, bu
teachers claim that one can be 81
thoroughly occupied with an idea tina
| m ho cfo
ly. You may have heard of the man
while taking a bath, who got to think
ing in an original way and continued
wiping one of his feet for twenty min
utes until he finished his line O
thought and came to himself. heart
Cough say that during one of his ora
tions he seriously injured his hant
by striking a railing near the table
but that he did not know of the in
jury until after he lad finished hi
Grafton. One of the best busines
men OF Chicago left basket Of grape
on the train and never saw them agail
because he left the train in the mids
of ananimated conversation with
friend. When we go to bed we want t
sleep and get rested. When we worl
we want to concentrate in way to vii
and when we start on line Of orig
nal thought we should have specia
time for that kind of brain work. Cal
we have a time of day for origina
study and cause the spontaneou
thoughts and original helps to flock il
on us at that time? Is it possibi!it
by practice?