Shortly after my return from the trip to the northwest, my father died, with the result that our household was, for a time, very much broken up. For a while, at least, my stammering, though not forgotten, did not receive a great deal of attention, for there were many other things to think about. The summer following my father's death, however, I began again my so-far fruitless search for a cure for my stammering, this time placing myself under the care and instruction of a man claiming to be "The World's Greatest Specialist in the Cure of Stammering." He may have been the world's greatest specialist, but not in the cure of stammering. He did succeed, however, by the use of his absurd methods, in putting me through a course that resulted in the membrane and lining of my throat and vocal organs becoming irritated and inflamed to such an extent that I was compelled to undergo treatment for a throat affection that threatened to be as serious as the stammering itself. I tried everything that came to my attention--first one thing and then another--but without results. Still I refused to be discouraged. I kept on and on, my mother constantly encouraging and reassuring me. And you will later see that I found a method that cured me. There are always those who stand idly about and say, "It can't be done!" Such people as these laughed at Fulton with his steamboat, they laughed at Stephenson and his steam locomotive, they laughed at Wright and the airplane. They say, "It can't be done"--but it is done, nevertheless. I turned a deaf ear to the people who tried to convince me that it couldn't be done. I had a firm belief in that old adage, "Where there is a will there is a way," and I made another of my own, which said, "I will FIND a way or MAKE one!" And I did! CHAPTER IV A STAMMERER HUNTS A JOB After recovering from my sad experiment with the "Wonderful Specialist," I did not want to go home and listen to the Anvil Chorus of "It Can't Be Done!" and "I Told You So!" I had no desire to be the object of laughter as well as pity. So I tried to get a job in that same city. I went from office to office--but nobody had a job for a man who stammered. Finally I did land a job, however, such as it was. My duties were to operate the elevator in a hotel. How I managed to get that job, I often wonder now, for nobody on whom I called had any place for a boy or man who stammered. I thought it would be easy to find a job where I wouldn't need to talk, but when I started out to look for this job, I found it wasn't so easy after all. Almost any job requires a man who can talk. This I had learned in my own search for a place. But somehow or other, I managed to get that job as elevator boy in a hotel. For the work as elevator boy I was paid three dollars a week. Wasn't that great pay for a man grown? But that's what I got.