The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-25
The Rise Of u Liue American

ever he got an education 1T would come
through his inordinate desire for read
ing.
Reading Is good for you, my boy"
she said. you've finished one novel
I'm going to bring another one to you
tomorrow"
There was no novel reading at home
for Johnny Hill. His father did not
permit it. But the boy somehow man
aged to put in hours a day with book
Without his knowledge the schoolteach-
cr weaned him off from dime novels
She brought one thrilling story to him.
1t was tale of the sea- After he read
it she made him sit down and tell the
whole story to her She was not salts
fed if he missed an essential bit of
detail. She would make him go back
and read that over. Then she spent
hours explaining various things about
the sea to him. things that Just We're
touched upon In that sea story.
She told him about navigation, how lat
itude and longitude are determined and
a thousand other things that fired the
imagination of the boy and awakened new
interest in him. Then that good woman
secured the country round to get good
books of travel for that child. She had
him read those. He took a deep interest
in geography as a result of those read
ings. One of the first of Livingstones
stories came out about that time. She
borrowed it and had him read it. He
was deeply moved.
That school teacher fed that boy on
books until there was nothing in all the
neighborhood about that she wanted him
to read that she had not borrowed for
him.
When he was IA he got a job In print
ing shop in Black Earth, Wis. He took
naturally TO types and presses. When he
had been in the shop a year and half
or two years he knew as much about the
establishment as the people who owned
it. When he was 16 he went to Chicago,
commissioned to buy a complete printing
OUTFIT for the firm. When he was II he
was foreman. He stayed in the printing
business until he was 49, Then he bought
half interest in a little machine shop.
He always had been interested in me-
chanics. lie loved to tinker about boil
ers and hywheels and engines. and no
could take anything apart, whether 1t
was watch or a stationary engine, re-
pair it and put 1t together again.
That machine shop was just to his lil-
ing and he and his partner had fair
amount of business and excellent pros
poets He had been in business for HIM
self for about a year when one day, in
1875 a friend who had gone to Leadvile
at the time of the first excitement in
that great camp. wrote to him one Of
those letters that make the blood of ad-
venture run riot I'm the veins of youth
The man in Leadvlle pictured what Hill
could make in the mining camp as a ma
chinst- 1t was fabulous. Nothing like
1t in the way of pay had been dreamed
of by the ordinary machinist
Hlll read the letter over Just once With
in an hour he had sold out his half in
terest In that machine shop. That night
at O'Clock he was on his way to Lead
Vile.
His friend had not overdrawn the
picture very much. Hill went to work
putting up machinery in the mines. He
worked all sorts of hours installing
pumps, boilers, etc. He did the work of
Two men and the gold rolled in on him
IL was glorious while 1t lasted. But
after a year in Leadville he had the
mining craze as bad as any one. He
went off on an expedition across tho
mountains into western Colorado pros
pecting He hunted for gold and he
hunted Tor silver He did not get eith
er, but he spent all the money he had
earned in all those days Of hard toll
in Leadville.
In the fall when .the snow was in
the mountain passes and things were
looking very bleak for him he drifted
into Pueblo and got a job firing an en-
glne on the Denver and Rio Grende
railroad. He was a fireman for a wear
and then he was promoted to be enpi
neer. From the latter part of 1880 until
1885 he handled an engine on the Rio
Grande There hardly Is n turn in the
Grand Canyon of the Arkansas that is
not as familiar to him as the fingers
on his hand
Salida was only a hamlet in those
Gays. lie knew every man, woman and
dog in that most beautiful of noun
tain towns. He knew the road from
Pueblo to Denver as an old New York
er knows Broadway from Thirty fifth