My Parents Thought That I Would Be As Great As Edison Or Greater: For As A Boy I Made Balloons And Wondrous Kites And Toys With Clocks And Little Engines With Tracks To Run On And Telephones Of Cans And Thread. I Played The Cornet And Painted Pictures, Modeled In Clay And Took The Part Of The Villain In The "Octoroon." But Then At Twenty - One I Married And Had To Live, And So, To Live I Learned The Trade Of Making Watches And Kept The Jewelry Store On The Square, Thinking, Thinking, Thinking, Thinking, - Not Of Business, But Of The Engine I Studied The Calculus To Build. And All Spoon River Watched And Waited To See It Work, But It Never Worked. And A Few Kind Souls Believed My Genius Was Somehow Hampered By The Store. It Wasn't True. The Truth Was This: I Did Not Have The Brains.