But a new period of hard times was setting in, jobs were getting scarce as they had been in 1884.

That was the year when we had no money in the house and I was chasing every loose nickel in town.

The mill at Sharon was down, and father was hunting work in Pittsburgh and elsewhere.

Then after a period of prosperity the hard times had come again in 1891 and '92.

My furnace job in Pittsburgh was not steady.