Gilbert Patten
By the Fall of 1881 Willie was 15 years old. He was spending so much time in his attempts to write stories that his grades at Corinna Union Academy were suffering. Many of his stories at the time were unfinished and have been lost. One he started, that we will see again later, was called “The Diamond Sport”. Like the others it was not completed at that time. His parents did not support his writing and wanted him to put more effort into school work.
During that year Willie had become less shy and more outgoing. He defied his parents objection and through “scrapping” found new respect among his peers. He developed a new streak of independence.
His grades did not improve. In the Spring of 1882 his father, Bill, gave Willie an ultimatum, “do better in school or go to work”. Bill’s intention was for Willie to go to work with him in the carpentry business. [3] In response, Willie decided to run away. His older friend Frank Nutter had moved to Biddeford and secured a job in a machine shop. Willie packed a few belongings and boarded the passenger train heading south. Frank helped him get a job in the same machine shop. [3]
Patten says his job was using hammers to straighten metal bars that would become parts for cotton mill machinery. It was hard work, from six in the morning until six at night with an hour off for lunch, six days a week. He was paid ninety cents a day. Rooming with Frank in a boarding house cost him three dollars a week. That left two dollars and forty cents a week for other expenses. [7]
He made friends and saw a wider world beyond the small town of Corinna. However, he found the work tedious and physically demanding. After six months he asked for a pay raise. The boss fired him on the spot.
The experience taught him that hard labor was the only resource of the unskilled. He was determined to return to Corinna, go back to school, and become an author. [3] Welcomed by his parents upon his return, he was well dressed and had some money in his pocket. The hard work at the machine shop had changed him from the skinny, lanky adolescent to a more mature young man with new-found self esteem and the determination to improve his lot by education.