This is the way I heard it.

The Frigid Wind tore across the icy surface of Lake Michigan and ripped through the construction

site, transforming the grimace on Eli's face into a frozen rictus, and creating yet one

more job for the man who was already doing everything.

Chicago couldn't endure another great fire, so Eli was now making sure that hundreds

of newly installed fire hydrants in Jackson Park didn't freeze, a task he accomplished

by encasing each one in a steaming pile of horse crap.

It was not the job he had signed on for, but Eli didn't mind.

He just hoped his contribution to building the Chicago World's Fair would get him one

step closer to his dream job.

That of a contractor with his own shingle on Main Street USA.

For as long as he could recall, Eli had imagined his name on a modest shop in the heart of

a small town where a hardworking immigrant could claim a small piece of the American dream.

So Eli focused on that dream and ignored the mind numbing cold and the stomach churning

smell of the task it had just as he ignored the exhaustion that followed every ten-hour

shift and the long walk back to the tumbled down shack where he tried to sleep off the

cold.

It was the winter of 1893 and America was in the grip of her first great depression,

so Eli was happy to cover fire hydrants in horse crap.

He was also thrilled to dig trenches, poor concrete, and tend to the raging coal fires

that belched thick smoke into the icy air.

In between doing whatever needed doing, Eli apprenticed with tinners, bending metal

...