The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-09-24

strength and zeal, but he continually
| fell over himself. Back on the farm
an alone by himself, he could have split
| the rails and laid up a beautiful fence
around. the pasture, but here in the
hive of industry he seemed perfectly
helpless! After he had been the cause
of one or two accidents the men COM
planned to the foreman and the fore
man to the head of the department, and
the second complaint was carried to
the ironmaster. {r
Still dough-head, eh?" he quer-
led. We'll we must try another
niche. 1 knew man once who enter
ed into thirteen different occupations
before he finally made a success as a
horse trader. Shift him along"
Brice was shifted, and at the end of
a week one of his fellow workmen
tried to brain him with a crowbar be-
cause he let go when he should have
held on. Then he was shifted again.
He was on his fifth sixth shift and
had become a butt of ridicule among
five hundred men when the great man
said to him:
1.-The man is finding it a difficult
road to hit his own particular niche.
1t may be that it's clerical instead of
physical labor he should be put to.
Try him in one of the departments as
a time-keeper-"
The man was tried. He had a smile
of self-confidence on his face as he
assumed his duties but inside of
so mixed up that the men did not
know o'clock in the morning from 2
in the afternoon He was then tried
as a messenger, and he held that
place for two weeks. 1t was the gen.
eral opinion among the heads of de-
partments that he held it two weeks
too long, but subsequent events
proved to the contrary. 1t took Brtce
two weeks to make score of blum
ders and to learn that new and larg-
err works were to be erected further
down the river. All the land except
an acre belonging to an aged widow
had been secured, and he heard it
whispered that she had refused to sell
at any price.
"Oh, we'll don't let's be discour-
aged over him." said the iron-master.
when told that Brice ought to be sent
to an idiot asylum. He is simply
hunting for his niche. He is the son
of an old friend of mine and we must
bear with him until he finds it. I will
never go back on my contention that
every man has his niche. Outside of
it he is almost worthless; in that par
tfcular spot he may do great things.
Shift the man along.
There were three more shifts, and
then William Brlce found his niche.
No one but himself rad the least sus-
picion of it, When they saw him
smiling and grinning and heard his
chuckIing they simply thought he was
one week nearer the idiot asylum
ON a certain Sunday William Brica
had gone down to see the aged widow.
He was twenty-five years old and she al
most seventy. He was sturdy and in the
hest of health; she was all knotted up
with rheumatism and full of complaints.
The young man might have been a
dough-head in the shops, but, outside of
them he knew a rabbit-tTack when he
saw one. He fell in love with the widow.
She was necessary to his future happi-
ness. She was old, but he didn't believe
in Eighty young girls. She wasTs all
twisted up, but marriage at the best
was full of twists. He loved her gray
hairs her cracked voice and her wrin-
killed. face and in a month they were
married and he assumed the head or
the house. When he had been shifted
for the twelfth time in the shops he
had found his niche. No foreman or
head CT department discovered TINS
fact. 1t was the iron-master himself,
or, rather, the lawyers who were slyly
working to get hold of the widows land
It's actual value was about twelve nun
dred dollars She had been offered two
thousand to quietly sell out: She had
partly consented when she suddenly.
changed her mind. scrawl1ng letter
reached the lawyers to the effect that
1--WE" don't care to sell at the price. and
the men of law hustled around to find