But the sad printer refused to be warned and went from bad to worse.
Wilbur Cowan partook of this pessimism about the craft, and wondered if his father had heard the news.

If it had ceased to be important that a bright boy should set up a column of long primer, leaded, in a day, he might as well learn some other loose trade in which they couldn't invent a machine to take the bread out of your mouth.

It was that summer he spent many forenoons on the steps of the ice wagon driven by his good friend, Bill Bardin.

Bill said you made good-enough money delivering ice, and it was pleasant on a hot morning to rumble along the streets on the back steps of the covered wagon, cooled by the great blocks of ice still in its sawdust.
When they came to a house that took only twenty-five pounds Bill would let him carry it in with the tongs--unless it was one where Bill, a knightly person, chanced to sustain more or less social relations with the bondmaid.

And you could chip off pieces of ice to hold in your mouth, or cool your bare feet in the cold wet sawdust; and you didn't have to be anywhere at a certain hour, but could just loaf along, giving people their ice when you happened to get there.