Bailing Wire and Tin Cans Play
Part in Lives of Maiden Youths
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Bailing wire and tin cans hold but little charm for the average boy, and serves one purpose, that of holding straw, oats, and hay intact, and for a vessel in canning and preserving. But according to the philosophy of some of the country's learned men there is exceptions to all rules and this story is about a group of Catawba county boys who proved the exception rather than the rule.
As the story goes Herbert and William Allen, John Cook and D.F. Finger, formerly of Maiden, as barefoot boys decided to master the art of telegraphy. After ransacking their father's barns for baled-hay wire and the family work shops for various trinklets and devices which might be used in rigging up a telegraphic system, the boys assembled their outfits with a line running into the various homes where they learned to communicate by means of telegraphy. To them it was just a matter of pastime and using up boyish energy, but it proved of benefit to them in later years, according to those who have kept on the inside of their lives. One of them became connected with the Southern Railway as main operator, another is serving as chief operator for one of the large telegraphic concerns, a third deviated from his early profession and is now operating one of the big auto companies in one of four largest cities. The fourth member of the quartett, D.F. Finger, and who is visiting his mother in Maiden at the present time, is now headed south to join the Philadelphia National Baseball League as reporter for the Philadelphia newspapers.
Mr. Finger, who is said to be one of the best informed men in the country in the art of baseball fandom, knows every player just like he knows his brother and while other reporters are having a hard time trying to find out the man who knocks a home-run or who fanned at the plate, Mr. Finger is ticking the story off to his newspaper and at the same time is conversing with his friends about the game and other things of interest.
Mr. Finger is the son of Mrs. Dock Finger of Maiden, route 2, and the late Dock Finger, well-known Catawba county Confederate soldier who carried a stiff leg for many years as a result of a wound received in the War Between the States. He was with Lee and Jackson in Northern Virginia and was in some of the thickest engagements encountered by the Lee forces. He was a member of the Reformed Church, and was well-known in Democratic circles as a staunch suporter of the party.
Article from The Catawba Enterprise - 1930's
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