“I am glad I was old enough to remember my home before the war,” he
said, in speaking of his early life. “Rightly or wrongly, I attach
great importance to this fact as a constant incentive in my career.
The thought of regaining the position which we had previously held was
always with me.”
The five weeks immediately following Lee’s surrender were a golden time
to Tom financially; in that period, he earned eighty-eight dollars,
enough to carry the family (which consisted of his parents and two
younger brothers), back to Kentucky. This was the way he did it: There
was, of course, great thirst for news in Staunton, as all over the
country, but only once a day was Staunton in railway communication with
the outside world.
The boy saw his chance for a monopoly in newspapers and periodicals,
and he straightway cornered the market. This he was enabled to do
through the friendship of the conductor of Staunton’s unique train, who
refused to furnish papers to anyone else. For five weeks he held his
monopoly, selling dailies at fifteen cents and illustrated periodicals
at twenty-five cents each.
When Johnson ceased to enjoy these exclusive privileges, he was already
a small capitalist, besides having learned a lesson that was not
without profit in after life. He had eighty-eight dollars in silver.
“I tell you, that seemed like a lot of sure ’nough money,” he said,
with a smile, “to us who had been paying one hundred dollars in
Confederate notes for a hat.”