It was a trying time, and it took all the fortitude I had to look hopefully forward toward a day when things would begin picking up and the wheels of industry would whirl again.

The idle men who had camped by the railroads had drunk their water from, and cooked their mulligan stews in, tomato cans.
The tin can had become the badge of hoboing.

The tin trade was new in America and I foresaw a future in the industry, for all kinds of food were now being put up in tin, whereas when I was a child a tin can was rarely seen.

I decided that two trades were better than one, and I would learn the tin plate trade.

I went to Elwood, Indiana, and found a place there in a tin mill.