Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/74

 pitcher stood on a washstand; there were a bed and two chairs, but no other furniture and no carpet. I opened the store at six o'clock in the morning and swept it out and my hours ended at half after ten at night, when the store was closed, except on Saturday night, when they were extended to half after eleven. We sold glass as well as drugs, cutting it to the required size with a diamond, and mixed paints and varnishes. I learned the business, even to putting up the prescriptions of the doctors. ''Hydrarg. Chlor.'' Mit. is firmly fixed in my mind and the information there acquired has proven to be of value to me through my whole life.

Quinine cost seven dollars an ounce; arsenic, bought at the rate of ten cents a pound, was sold by the grain at the rate of two dollars per ounce. I cleaned the bottles. I furnished the transportation for the supplies secured at the wholesale stores of Ziegler & Smith, at the corner of Second and Green streets, and John M. Collins, on Fifth Street above Market, and often I carried home twenty pounds of putty. Generally I rode with the driver of the omnibus, a lumbering affair with two horses, and with steps leading up to the door in the rear. A strap fastened to the leg of the driver gave the signal to stop. About this time the first railway cars drawn by horses were started on Fifth and Sixth streets and were regarded as very wonderful.

On one occasion I went to the cellar at night with a fluid lamp to mix some paint for a customer, and while I was busy at my task the lamp exploded and the flame ran around. I well knew the danger. The cellar was full of paint, varnish and hay which came around the glass. I pulled the fragments of the lamp away, threw them behind me and succeeded in putting out the fire in front, burning my hands considerably. Then, on turning around, I found that I had thrown the lamp into a pile of hay and the fire was spreading over the cellar. That disturbed me and I called for help. The kitchen girl came to the top of the stairs 66