Jean Merrill

“Carlos was known to the pushcart peddlers as the most skillful carton-flattener in the Lower East Side section of New York City. Carlos' business was to go around to small stores that had clean cardboard cartons which they wished to be rid of. With two or three deft motions, Carlos would flatten the cartons and carefully stack them on his pushcart. Carlos was the only flattener in the business who could stack to a height of twelve feet without the cartons slipping off.”

“My father always says one thing leads to another. It certainly does. I started out to buy a friend a birthday present, and I end up trying to get a factory to go with it....”