'
"It was at Stratford Junction that the Edison boy began his career of
invention. From the first his chief aim was the saving of labor. In
order to be sure that the operators all along the line were not asleep
at their posts, they were required to send to the train dispatcher's
office a certain dot-and-dash signal every hour in the night. Young
Edison was like young Napoleon in grudging himself the necessary hours
of sleep. While the ingenious lad was fond of machinery--to make a
machine of himself was utterly distasteful to him. It was against his
principles and instincts to do anything a mere machine could do instead.
So he made a little wheel with a few notches in the rim, with which he
connected the clock and the transmitter, so that at the required instant
every hour in the night the wheel revolved and sent the proper signal to
headquarters. Meanwhile that wily young operator slept the sleep of the
genius, if not of the just. Of one experience at this little place
Edison relates:
"'This night job just suited me, as I could have the whole day to
myself. I had the faculty of sleeping in a chair any time for a few
minutes at a time. I taught the night yardman my call, so I could get
half an hour's sleep now and then between trains, and in case the
station was called the watchman was to wake me. One night I got an order
to hold a freight train, and I replied that I would do so.
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