Romance of the Macaroni Box
IN the early '80's Dorr E. Felt was operating a planer in a machine shop in Chicago. As the cutting tool went back and forth across the work, it turned a screw one or more notches—at the pleasure of the operator.
One day it occurred to the young machinist that this principle might be made to count for him. He soon became highly enthusiastic and told a friend of his—an electrical engineer—what he had in mind. "Inside of ninety days," asserted young Felt, "every office in the United States will be doing its calculating by machines."
Bent on achieving this object, he purchased a wooden box at the corner grocery. It had once contained many reels of macaroni. He next bought some beef skewers at the butcher's, some elastic bands at the druggist's, and some staples at the hardware store. He was now all ready to take advantage of the first holiday that came his way.
He had not long to wait. Shortly afterwards God-fearing people all over the land were offering Thanksgiving. Not so Dorr E. Felt. He was huddled over an infamous contraption made of skewers, elastic bands, and wire staples—savory odors floating up the while from the boarding-house table. Tradition has it that he forgot to eat his dinner, but I am skeptical. He may have. He worked nearly every evening, Christmas day, all day New Year's—and a Sunday now and then, though he denies it. At the end of a year, the bookkeepers of the United States were still doing their work in the same grinding, gruelling, late to supper fashion. The macaroni box Felt had counted on, wouldn't count. He was up against the same problem that had got Magnus a smashed head and had brought poor Leibnitz in sorrow to the grave.
The next scene shows young Felt working on a model for an automatic elevator door. The unfortunate macaroni box had meanwhile crawled under the work-table and was hiding there in the guise of a foot-stool. Enter now, Mr. A. B. Lawther, the beneficent employer.
