The keeping of the old ties and the truck which had run across the pit exhibited a trait in Jimmy which the boys soon discovered to be at once amusing and canny. Jimmy never let anything get away from him if there was space to store it, and ultimately, perhaps to-morrow or perhaps two years hence, he found a use for it. Thus, the old ties were eventually utilized in many ways; cut into short lengths, they became blocks to hold up front or rear axles when wheels had been removed; split and chopped into kindlings they started the fires in the small forge which Jimmy set up in the back yard the following spring. As for the four-wheeled truck, it soon became one of the handiest features of the garage. The flanged wheels were taken off and small wheels with wide, flat treads were substituted. The two lengths of rail on top were removed and a platform was built. Then they had a truck that could be pushed easily about the floor and that would hold almost any weight that could be placed upon it. Tom called it “Jimmy’s tender.” The rails pulled up from the floor and left to rust outside the barn eventually formed the framework of an improvised crane by which the body of an automobile under repair could be lifted from the chassis, or, for that matter, by which the whole car could be slung off the floor. Jimmy even hoarded away the old spikes that had held the rails in place, and the boys declared laughingly that he could take one of those spikes, heat it in the forge, hammer it on the anvil and fashion it on the lathe into anything from a rivet to a driving rod! Later that Tuesday afternoon Jimmy appeared with a bag of tools and set to work moving the bench from the back wall to a location under the side windows. After that he hammered and sawed about in the little box-like enclosure that was to serve as the office and soon had a sloping shelf erected for a desk and a row of narrow shelves above it to hold books and paper and such things. He came back after supper that evening and worked until late by the light of a kerosene lantern, while Tom and Willard alternately lent a hand or sat on the truck in the flickering shadows and looked on admiringly. The telephone was put in Wednesday morning and the electric light connections were made that afternoon. Meanwhile a sign-painter, a personal friend of Jimmy’s, was covering ten square feet of the side of the building toward Main Street with a huge sign in black letters on a white ground which read: CITY GARAGE AUTOMOBILES STORED AND REPAIRED GASOLINE――OILS――TIRES――SUPPLIES OFFICE OF THE CITY TRANSFER AND GARAGE COMPANY