Finally I won,
and was permitted to go to the school in the day for a few months,
with the understanding that I was to rise early in the morning and
work in the furnace till nine o'clock, and return immediately after
school closed in the afternoon for at least two more hours of work.
The schoolhouse was some distance from the furnace, and as I had
to work till nine o'clock, and the school opened at nine, I found
myself in a difficulty. School would always be begun before I reached
it, and sometimes my class had recited. To get around this difficulty
I yielded to a temptation for which most people, I suppose, will
condemn me; but since it is a fact, I might as well state it. I have
great faith in the power and influence of facts. It is seldom that
anything is permanently gained by holding back a fact. There was a
large clock in a little office in the furnace. This clock, of course,
all the hundred or more workmen depended upon to regulate their hours
of beginning and ending the day's work. I got the idea that the way
for me to reach school on time was to move the clock hands from half-
past eight up to the nine o'clock mark. This I found myself doing
morning after morning, till the furnace "boss" discovered that
something was wrong, and locked the clock in a case.
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