EARLY COLLEGE DAYS
In the foregoing chapters I have tried to give some idea of the kind of
boy I was, say by the time I had reached my fifteenth year, or the
calendar year 1884. There is no use denying that such wickedness as I
displayed was due more to willful waywardness than to hereditary
influences. Consequently, I have always felt justified in replying to a
distant cousin as I did when she took me to task for making so much
trouble and causing my family such anxiety.
"Can you imagine yourself doing such dreadful things when you get your
senses back and are able to think clearly?" was the way her question was
worded. My reply was: "In my senses or out of them, I certainly can't
imagine any one else as having done them." And I can truthfully say
that, as a boy, I was very little given to trying to shift the blame for
my sins on other boys. I was not a "squealer," although I was an expert
fibster when necessity seemed to call for a lie in place of the plain,
unvarnished truth.
In the spring or early autumn of 1884 my mother and sisters went to
Europe, and I was sent to a small Illinois college. The village home was
broken up and for better or for worse, the five of us, in the years
that were to follow, were to be either voluntary exiles abroad, or
travelers at home or in foreign parts. Since that final break-up our
complete family has never again been gathered together under one and the
same roof.
In spite of a manly effort to overcome them, two traits dogged my steps
to college as persistently as they had troubled me at home--the love of
the tempting Beyond, and an alarming uncertainty in my mind about the
meaning of the Law of Mine and Thine. It was going to take several
wearisome and painful years yet before I was to become master of these
miserable qualities. They were the worst pieces of baggage I took away
with me. My better traits, as I recall them, were willingness and
eagerness to learn when I was not under the spell of _Die Ferne_, a fair
amount of receptivity in acquiring useful facts and information, and for
most of the time a tractable well-weaning, amenable boy disposition. All
of these good qualities were scattered to the four winds, however, when
the call became irresistible. I stood to win as a student, if love for
distant fields could be kept under control. Otherwise there was no
telling what I might become or do. Under these circumstances I began my
collegiate career in a denominational college in the western part of
Illinois. My mother, of course, hoped for the best; and at the time of
her departure it looked as if I had definitely struck the right road at
last.
I remained for a little over two years at college advancing with
conditions to my sophomore year. I paid for my board and lodging by
"chore" work in a lawyer's home in the town, so that the expenses my
mother had to meet were comparatively light. The studies that seemed to
suit me best were history, historical geography and modern languages.
Mathematics and Greek and Latin were tiresome subjects in which I made
barely average progress. Mathematics were a snare and a delusion to me
throughout my school and college life in America. I mean sometime to
pick up my old arithmetic again and see whether maturer years may have
given me a clearer insight into the examples and problems that formerly
gave me so much trouble.
History, Geography and German, interested me from the start, and I
usually stood well in these classes. History took hold of me just as
biography did, and I used to read long and late such works as Motley's
"Dutch Republic," Bancroft's "History of the United States," Prescott's
books on Mexico and South America, and an interesting autobiography or
biography was often more appealing to me than a novel or story. Indeed,
I read very little fiction during the time I was at college, preferring
to pore over an old geography and map out routes of travel to be enjoyed
when I had made enough money to undertake them as legitimate
enterprises, or, perhaps, as a hired explorer, whose services commanded
remunerative prices. For a while the ambition to be a lawyer struggled
with my traveling intentions, and I seriously considered taking a course
in law in my benefactor's library and office when my academic course
should be finished; but this resolve never came to anything because my
academic studies were never finished.
For two years, and more, I had struggled as hard as any of my fellow
students to support myself, keep up with my class, and probably harder
than most of them to be "on the level," and above all things not to let
_Die Ferne_ entice me away from my new home and pleasant surroundings.
Many and many a time _Die Ferne_ would whistle one of her seductive
signals, and it was all I could do to conquer the desire to go and
answer it in person; but my studies, the work at home, and pleasant
companions helped me to resist the temptation, and, as I have said, for
about two years I attended strictly to business, hearing _Die Ferne_
calling, from time to time, but closing my ears to the enticing
invitation.
My undoing at college had a most innocent beginning, as was the case
with so many of my truancies. Often as not the impulse which drove me to
the Open Road was, taken by itself, as laudable and worth while as many
of those other impulses which inhibited runaway trips. My ambition, for
instance, to go to some distant town, make my own way as a bread-winner
and student, and eventually become well-to-do and respected, was in
essentials a praiseworthy desire; but the trouble was that I insisted
that no one should hear from me or know about my progress until I had
really "arrived," as it were. I always demanded that the thing be done
secretly, and only as secrecy was an assured factor did such a runaway
project really appeal to me.
What broke up my college career, and eventually impelled me to vamose
was a simple trial contest of essayists in the literary society of which
I was a member. The winner in the contest stood a fair chance of being
chosen by his society to compete with the essayist of the rival society
in a general literary contest in the opera house; this was really the
event of its kind of the year. I was selected, along with two others, to
try my skill as an essayist in the preliminary family bout. Our society
was divided into two closely allied cliques, I belonging to the "Wash B"
coterie, and the most formidable contestant that I had to meet, being
connected with the "Camelites," as we used to call them. These two
really hostile camps made the society at election time and on occasions
when contestants for the preliminary and opera house contests were to be
chosen, literally a wrangling, backbiting and jealous collection of
schemers and wire-pullers. The "Wash B" set had all they could do to
secure for me the place in the preliminaries, which would doubtless
determine the selection for the real contest later on between the two
distant societies. But chosen I was, and for six weeks every spare hour
that I had was religiously devoted to that wonderful essay. I forget the
title of it now, but the matter dealt tritely enough, I make no doubt,
with the time-worn subject--"The Western March of Empire." The writing
finished, "Wash B" himself took me in hand, and for another month
drilled me in delivery, enunciation and gesture. My room-mate, when the
drilling was over, said that I was a perfect understudy of "Wash B," who
was considered at the time the finest reader our society, and the entire
college in fact, contained. This criticism naturally set me up a good
deal and I began seriously to entertain thoughts of winning the prize,
a small financial consideration. At last the fatal night arrived, and we
three contestants marched to our seats on the platform. In front of us
were the three judges, formidable looking men they seemed at the time,
although I knew them all as mild-mannered citizens of the town with whom
I had often had a pleasant chat. A neutral--one who was neither a "Wash
B" nor a "Camelite"--was the first to stand up and read his essay. As I
recall the reading and subject matter of this first effort I remember
that I thought that I had it beaten to a standstill if I could only
retain all the fine inflections and mild gentle gestures which "Wash B"
had been at such pains to drill into me. I was second, and stood up,
bowed, and, as friends afterwards told me, so far as delivery was
concerned I was "Wash B" from start to finish. The third man, an uncouth
fellow, but endowed with a wonderfully modulated voice--he was really an
orator--then got up and read almost faultlessly so far as intonation and
correct and timely emphasis were concerned, a dull paper on Trade
Unionism. This student was the one I particularly feared, but when he
was through and the three of us took our places in the audience so many
"Wash B's" told me that I had won hands down, as they put it, that I
gradually came to believe that I had acquitted myself remarkably well.
The judges, however, were the men to give the real decision, and they
thought so little of my effort that I was placed last on the list--even
the neutral with practically no delivery had beaten me. Later he came
to me and said that he never expected to take second place. The uncouth
"Camelite" with the banal paper, but wonderful voice, carried the day,
and was declared winner of the prize. My chagrin and disappointment
seemed tremendous for the moment, and the fact that a number of
"Camelites" came to me and said that I ought to have been given the
prize did not tend to lessen the poignancy of the grief I felt, but
managed to conceal until I was well within the four walls of my room.
There I vowed that never, never again would I submit an essay of mine to
the whims of three men, who, in my judgment, were such numbskulls that
they let themselves be carried away by a mere voice. "They never stopped
to consider the subject matter of our essays at all," I stormed, and for
days I was a very moody young man about the house. The "Wash B's" tried
to console me by promising to elect me essayist for the grand contest in
the opera house in the autumn, but although I deigned reconciliation
with my defeat, the truth was that I was brooding very seriously over
this momentous failure as it seemed to me. I shunned my former boon
companions, and was seen very little on the campus. The defeat had eaten
into my soul much more deeply than even I at first imagined possible,
and as the days went by, a deep laid plot for a runaway trip began to
take form and substance. As soon as I realized what was going on I
struggled hard to drive the plan out of my head, but while I had been
mourning over my failure as an essayist and particularly as a "Wash B"
essayist, the subtle, sneaking scheme had wormed its way into my very
sub-consciousness, and before I knew it I was entertaining the tempter
in no inhospitable manner. After all, it was a consolation to know that
at a pinch I could throw over the whole college curriculum, if
necessary, and quietly vamose and, perhaps, begin again in some other
institution where my crude, but by me highly prized, literary
productions would receive fairer treatment. I had a feeling that a
runaway trip would be the end of my college career, and there were
influences that struggled hard to hold me back; I have often wondered
what my later life would have been had they prevailed. Never before had
I been so near a complete victory over _Die Ferne_, and never before had
I felt myself the responsible citizen in the community that my college
life and self-supporting abilities helped to make me. Then, too, my good
friend and counselor, the lawyer, was a man who had made a very great
impression on me--an achievement by no means easy in those days of
rebellion and willful independence. I knew about the hard fight that he
had made in life before I went to his home. He had often visited in our
home, and I had been much impressed with his set, cleancut countenance.
Some would have called it hard unless they knew the man and what he had
been through. I studied it with particular interest, because I knew that
every now and then I also struggled hard to do right, and I wondered
whether my face after complete mastery of myself, if this should ever
come to pass, would some day take on the terrible look of determination
and victory which was so often present in that of the lawyer.
All of his victories I cannot report upon, because there must have been
many, very many, of a minor character, that he had to work for every day
of his life. But the one that took him out of the gutter, and gave him
strength to quit, at one and the same time, over-indulgence in liquor
and the tobacco habit, was _the_ one that took hold of me, although I
hardly knew what whisky tasted like myself and was only intermittently a
user of tobacco. The fact that the man had overcome these habits by
sheer will-power, "without getting religion," as had often been told me,
was what took hold of my sense of wonder. Both in my home, and in the
lawyer's, so far as his good wife was concerned, I had been taught to
believe, or, at any rate, had come partially to believe, that all such
moral victories, indeed, that all conquests over one's rebellious self,
had to come through prayer and Divine assistance, or not at all. I had
never wholly accepted this doctrine, although it probably had a stronger
hold on me than I knew. But the lawyer--ah, ha! here was at last a
living, breathing witness to the fact that prayer and Divine help were
not indispensable in gathering oneself together, putting evil habits
aside, and amounting to something in the world. I did not say anything
about the discovery I had made; but I studied my hero closely, and
treasured highly all facts and fancies which rather intimate contact
with him called forth, and which substantiated the original and primal
fact--_i.e._, that will-power and not "conversion" had made him one of
the noted citizens of his community and one of the prominent lawyers of
his State.
I do not know whether he knew in what great respect I held him or not.
This much is certain, however; he almost never looked at or spoke to me
severely, and he was constantly doing something kind or useful. I wish
now that I had been old enough to have had a square talk with him about
will-power and Divine help. He was not a very communicative man, and it
is possible that he would not have consented to enter into such an
interview, thinking perhaps that I was too young to discuss such matters
from his point of view. So I lived on, looking up invariably to him as
an example when it was necessary to grit my teeth and overcome some
slight temptation. His wife, who was really a second mother to me, saw
to it that I attended church and studied my Bible--the college
authorities demanded attendance at church, and on Mondays called the
roll of all those who had or had not been present at church the day
before--but somehow she never had the influence over me that her
white-haired, clean-shaven stalwart husband did. It was her constant
prayer and hope that "Gill," as she called him, would eventually get
religion and be assured of heavenly peace. He frequently attended church
with her, and certainly his efforts were as exemplary as the college
president's, but I have heard it said that, if he believed in any
theology at all, it was in that miserable, foolish doctrine--silly
creation of weak minds--that a certain number of souls are predestined
to damnation anyhow, and that his was one of them on account of the wild
life he had led in his younger manhood. This "story" about my hero also
took hold of me very perceptibly, and I often used to look at the man's
fine face surreptitiously, and wonder what could be going on in a mind
that had become resigned to eternal punishment. I could not follow him
this far in his philosophy, but I have long since come to the conclusion
that the man was too sensible to entertain any such theory, and that the
"story" was the mere patchwork of a number of wild guesses and
injudicious surmises on the part of relatives, and his lovable, but not
always careful, wife.
One day, a relative of mine, known as "The Deacon," came to the town at
my hostess's request, and held some revival meetings, or, perhaps, they
were called consecration meetings. "The Deacon," although an ardent
Methodist, I believe, and a determined striver for the salvation of
men's souls, was not one of the conventional boisterous revivalists whom
we all have seen and heard. He was quiet and retiring in his manner, and
seemed to rely on the sweet reasonableness of the Bible and his
interpretation of it to convince men of the need of salvation, rather
than on loud exhortation and still louder singing. He was very deaf, and
when I called him for breakfast, mornings, I had to go into his room and
shake him, when he would put his trumpet to his ear and ask "what was
up." I would tell him that it was time for him to be up, and he would
thank me in that strange metallic voice which so many deaf people have,
or acquire.
He spent much of his time talking with his hostess, and, one morning,
rather injudiciously, I think, he told her of a friend of his, "just
your own husband's size, weight and years," who had suddenly dropped
dead in Chicago. This incident took hold of the good woman in an
unfortunate way, and when I saw her, she had been crying, and was
bewailing the fact that her "Gill" might also drop off suddenly before
getting religion. There was nothing that I could say beyond the fact
that he seemed to me good enough to drop off at any time; but with this
his wife was not to be consoled. "Gill must give himself up to God," she
persisted, and I retreated, feeling rather guilty on these lines myself,
as I was not at all sure that I had given myself up to God, or would
ever be able to. He was such a myth to me, that I found it far more
practicable to study the character and ways of the lawyer whom I knew as
a visible, tangible living being.
It may be that my adoration for my benefactor--I really think it
amounted to that--was not the best influence that might have been
exercised over my mind; it has been suggested to me in later years, for
instance, that it was probably at this time that I laid the foundation
for that firm belief in will-power, which, for better or for worse, has
been about all that I have believed in seriously as a moral dynamic for
a number of years. Be this as it may, for years after leaving college
and the lawyer's home, my recollection of him, of his brave fight to do
right, and of the friendly interest he took in me, contributed more than
once to help tide me over a spell when _Die Ferne_ was doing her utmost
to persuade me to throw over everything and chase foolishly after her.
Now, that the good man is gone, I regret more than ever that I allowed
that miserable essay contest to stampede me as it did. The first
departure from college and the lawyer's home was a failure. I halted
foolishly an entire day at a town not far from the college, and the
lawyer, suspecting that I might do this, sent on two of my college
friends--older than I was--to scout about and try and locate me. They
succeeded in their mission--one of them was the noted "Wash B," who had
tried so hard to teach me how to read an essay. They did their utmost to
persuade me to return, but I was obdurate, and they went back without
me. In an hour or two the lawyer himself appeared on the scene, and then
I had to go back and knew it. He said very little to me, beyond asking
me to give to him such funds as I possessed. In the afternoon he called
on a brother lawyer who, as I could judge from the conversation, was in
some serious legal difficulty. When we were in the street again my
captor said: "Josiah, there is a man who is going to the penitentiary."
He spoke very slowly and impressively, but did not offer to tell me why
the man was going to be shut up or when, and I was sensible enough not
to ask.
Returned to our home the lawyer made no reference to my unconventional
leave-taking, and apparently considered the matter closed. It was
decided, for the sake of my feelings, that I should not return
immediately to college, and I hugged my room as much as possible,
anxious to keep out of sight of my classmates, who, I felt sure, knew
all about my escapade. There I brooded again over my poor success as an
essayist, my lack of will-power to bear up under defeat, and I also
tried to plan out another escape from what seemed to me a terrible
disgrace. One afternoon, when I was particularly gloomy, the fat,
cheerful president of the college knocked at my door. He had come to
have a heart-to-heart talk with me, I learned, and I was soon on the
defensive. He laughed at my bashfulness about going back into college,
pooh-poohed my assertion that I was "no good anyhow and might better be
let go," and in general did his utmost to cheer me up and make the
"slipping back" into my classes, as he put it, as simple and easy as
could be. But, good man, he labored with me in vain. The next day, some
funds coming to hand, I was off again, for good and all. The
well-meaning president has long since gone to his final rest. The
following morning I was in Chicago, and very soon after in my
grandmother's home. _Die Ferne_ was only indirectly to blame for this
trip because I made for the only home I had as soon as I decamped from
college, refusing to be lured away into by-paths. _Die Ferne_ was only
in so far to blame that she originally suggested the desertion of my
studies, offering no suggestions that I paid any attention to, about an
objective. I--poor, weak mortal--was terribly to blame in throwing away,
after two years' straight living, the chance that was offered me to
complete my college course, and later to go and become a lawyer. And
yet--balancing what was considered a golden opportunity at the time,
against the hard school of experience it has since been my lot to go
through, and what the teaching that I have had means to me now, I
confess to a leaning in favor of the hard knocks and trials and
tribulations of the road as the more thorough curriculum for me at the
time of life they were endured, than would have been the college course
and a lawyer's shingle. It is difficult, of course, to decide in such
matters, but somehow I think that the world means more to me in every
way to-day, in spite of what I have pulled out of, than it ever could
have meant on set academic and professional lines.
The stay in the home village was not a prolonged one, long enough,
however, to ponder over the change in my life which I had so
domineeringly brought about--to go back to college was out of the
question, and the lawyer did not want me back. My capriciousness had
exhausted his patience, and he frankly said that he washed his hands of
the "case." To remain in the home village was also out of the question,
according to my aunt. It was there that I had first shown my dare-devil
proclivities, and in her opinion it was best to get me as far away from
former village associations as possible. Besides, it was not thought
wise to have me in the care of my aging grandmother, who could only
incidentally keep track of me.
I wondered myself what was best to do, not caring for another runaway
trip right away, and temporarily regretting very much that I had been so
silly over that picayune essay. There was nothing I could think of that
seemed feasible, and it was just as well that I did not lose my head
over some personally cherished plan, because my resourceful aunt had
already found an asylum for me. It was a farm in western Pennsylvania,
owned by some distant relatives. Here I was to help care for crops and
stock, and see what living in the open would do for my over-imaginative
head. I was to receive my board and twenty-five dollars for the season's
work, a huge sum it seemed to me when first mentioned, for I never
before had possessed such wealth in actual cash. I went to work with
zeal, and determination to learn all I could about farming. For a number
of weeks all went well, in fact, until I made an excursion with an older
friend and his fiancée, and a girl, who was the first, I believe, that I
thought I really liked. I never told her name to my family, beyond
calling her "Jeminy Jowles," which was as much a real name as mine was.
For some reason, for years after this temporary attachment, which on my
part, at least, was genuine and spontaneous, I never wanted my family to
know that I was interested in any particular young lady, and as I told
above, I feigned indifference to nearly all girls rather than be thought
"teched" with admiration for any one or two. After our return from our
outing, "Jeminy" returned to the lake to help take care of one of the
villas there, as a number of girls did at that time, and are doing now,
I have no doubt. "Jeminy's" departure made the village very dull for me,
and the farm absolutely distasteful. So, one day, I asked my cousin to
give me what he thought was my due, out of the promised twenty-five
dollars. I told him that I was going to New York State to see if I could
earn more money. He knew about "Jeminy" being there, and as he thought
that something profitable might develop out of our friendship, I was
given my money and then hied away to the New York resorts, and "Jeminy."
The latter had to work so hard all day and well on into the evening that
I saw very little of her, but I remember dreaming and thinking about
her, when I had to wander about alone. I spent very little time in
looking for a job on account of my moving, and before long I determined
to look elsewhere for work. What was my chagrin, when returning on the
day that the faithless "Jeminy" was about to depart for her home, to see
her coming down the wharf from the boat with a former admirer, clothed
in fine raiment, whom I had ousted in "Jeminy's" affections in the
little farming village in Pennsylvania. I surmised him to be possessed
of a fat bank-roll, judging by his independence and "only board in this
sidewalk" manner of appropriating "Jeminy" for his very own, and of his
giving me a very distant and critical look, which my somewhat worn
clothes no doubt deserved. That was the end of my first and last real
love affair. Jilted, funds very low, and no employment in sight--here
was a situation worthy of any boy's best mettle. Perhaps the jilting
hurt worse for the time being, but the necessity of replenishing my
funds helped me to forget it somewhat. By rights I should have returned
to Pennsylvania and gone to work again on my relative's farm. But there
I should have seen the faithless "Jeminy," perhaps her old admirer as
well, and I was in no mood for such encounters. No! I was not going to
allow the village to make fun of me, even if I starved elsewhere.
Besides, what chance would my old clothes have in a competitive contest
with those of my rival? Obviously a very slim one. Fate was temporarily
against me in that direction, I was sure, and I cast my eyes toward the
north--probably because "Jeminy" and the farm meant south. The west did
not attract me just then, and the east--New York constituted the greater
part of the east to me in those days--seemed too complicated and full of
people.
One night I "hopped" a freight train bound for Buffalo, and secluded
myself among some Standard Oil Company's barrels in a box-car. In a
wreck I should probably have come to grief in the midst of all that oil,
but no wreck had been scheduled for that ride. My possessions consisted
of what I had on my back and a few nickels in my pocket. In this fashion
I hoped to impress the mighty north. That old dream about disappearing
from the view of friends, making my way alone in the world, and then
returning independent, successful and well-to-do, buoyed me up, even
when "Jeminy's" desertion of me was most tantalizing.
I finally fell asleep on top of the mighty Trust's property, to dream of
honest efforts to succeed, if not of wonderful triumphs. At heart I
desired that the realization of my dream of future prosperity and fame
should come through honorable toil and struggle. Indeed, during this
period of youth, and even earlier, I cannot recall any disappearance or
runaway trip on my part which did not presuppose a "square deal" in my
account with the world; theoretically, at any rate, honesty was as dear
an asset to me as to the boys who staid at home and were regular. That
sitting on the mighty Trust's barrels and "hooking" a ride in a car
which had been chartered and paid for by others was not a "square deal"
did not occur to me. And to deliver myself of a confession on this score
once and for all, I can say that I have never had any serious pricks of
conscience on this account. There is no defense to offer for such
obtuseness, any more than there was for my using half-fare tickets, when
I had the wherewithal to buy them, until I was over seventeen. I merely
report the fact as symptomatic of all passengers, good, bad and
indifferent, who "beat" their way on our railroads. I have read of a
"freak" who notified a railroad company that he had stolen a certain
number of rides on its trains, estimating the probable cost of tickets
for the computed mileage, and enclosing a post-office order for a small
amount of the entire sum, as his preliminary payment in making good.
Perhaps this man actually existed, but it is more likely than not that
he was either a reporter's invention or, if real, that he merely
tantalized the railroad company with a statement of his indebtedness,
omitting to enclose the post-office order. No "hang-out" gathering of
hoboes would ever believe such a yarn--not even about a "gay-cat."
My freight train stopped very early in the morning in the railroad yards
at East Buffalo, and there I got out. Stumbling over tracks and dodging
switch engines, I made my way to what turned out to be the yardmaster's
headquarters; his office was upstairs in the dingy wooden building,
while below was a warm room where switchmen could rest. It was a cold
September morning, the sun not yet up, and that warm room looked very
inviting. I finally screwed up enough courage to enter, and I found
myself all alone. Switchmen came in later, but they barely noticed me
until I excused my bold entrance, and frankly confessed that I was
looking for work. My clothes--they were not good enough to court
"Jeminy" in, but never mind! They saved the day or the situation in that
shanty. It was plain to the switchmen that I was not a tramp, and my
subdued manners evidently made a good impression also. Later the night
yardmaster, a jovial German, came in and learned of my plight. He looked
me over carefully, quizzed me rather minutely about my last job and my
travels, and finally told me to make myself comfortable near the fire
until quitting time, when he promised to have another talk with me. That
second talk was the beginning of a series of mishaps, which, could the
good yardmaster have foreseen them, would certainly have made him
hesitate before securing for me the position which his influence enabled
him to do. The mishaps will be described later on, but I must refer to
them here on account of that second interview with the German. Whatever
else we may or may not wonder about in life, it has always seemed to me
interesting to speculate about what might have happened to us of a
momentous nature had certain very trivial and insignificant
circumstances in earlier life only been different. How many men and
women, for instance, on looking back over their lives, discover just
such slight events in their early careers, and realize, long years
after, how important these events were, after all. Only the other day I
made the acquaintance of a man, now a resident of Hawaii, who explains
his present success and permanent home there by a much-advertised
eruption of a local volcano. He was a poorly paid telegraph operator in
Oregon at the time of the eruption, which occurred just as he was
thinking about what to do with his vacation. He finally decided to see
the volcano, even if it cost him all his savings, and off to Hawaii he
sailed--and there he stayed. Opportunity after opportunity came to him,
and he had succeeded. Why? The man says, "On account of that derned old
spouter." _Qui lo sa?_
What would have happened later if that yardmaster had not looked me up
again and put me through another series of questions I, of course,
cannot say. But it is easily possible that something very different from
what I have to report upon in Part Second might have happened. The
immediate result of that second interview with the yardmaster was that
he promised me a position as "yard car reporter," and took me into his
own home at the very cheap rate of $15.00 a month for board and lodging,
there remaining for me to save or spend, as I saw fit, $20.00 out of the
$35.00 which was my monthly stipend--a princely sum I thought, at the
time, not exceeded in its wonderful effect as a salary, until years
after, when $300.00 a week, for two months or so, once again gave me
more or less the same inflated sense of joy which the $35.00 a month
had formerly also been able to achieve.
The car reporting proved more difficult for me than the yardmaster had
anticipated. First of all I had to learn the names and location of all
the different tracks in the yards at East Buffalo. I studied them mainly
at night, because this was when I was on duty. It ought to be stated
immediately that I never mastered their geography or nomenclature
satisfactorily, and that my reports about the numbers and ownership of
the cars were very faulty. As I recall these reports to-day I fear that
officially I sent many a car out of the yards that remained at home, and
that I unintentionally reported as safe in port an equal number of cars
that, for aught I know, may to this day be wandering about aimlessly
over the prairies. However, I was not to hold this position long, so no
great damage was done, I hope.
Writing about my early years and bidding good-bye to them here in print
has been a harder task than I expected. Bidding good-bye to them
formally and physically years ago was not difficult. To reach
twenty-one, then thirty, then--I always looked on thirty as a satisfying
goal, the years seemed to come and go so slowly. Then, too, I realized,
after a fashion, that my youth was considered pretty much of a fiasco,
and I wanted to get just as far away from failure and disaster as
possible. Now--well, perhaps it is better that I keep my thoughts to
myself. I will say, however, that retrospection can bring with it some
of the most mournful hours the mind has to wallow in.