* * * * *
"Look," cried a girl, her voice vibrating with the hard sarcasm of
youth, "look, there goes Abe Lincoln," to another girl and two boys, who
lolled with her on the porch of the house next mine.
I was stabbed with a bitter pang of resentment. For my face was thin and
weather-beaten ... my sharp, bent knees never straightened as I walked
along, like a man going through snow drifts. Yet I held my head erect,
ridiculously erect ... and my chest was enormous through
over-development, as my arms and legs were thin.
* * * * *
My first few days at Laurel University brought me that beginning of
newspaper notoriety that has since followed me everywhere as a shadow
goes with a moving object. And then originated the appellation which has
since clung to me, that of "The Vagabond Poet."
One morning, when I was hardly awake, there came a knock at my door.
"Just a moment," I called, getting into my shirt and trousers, "who is
it?"
"A reporter to interview you."
I opened the door to admit a pale, young chap, who expertly flirted the
ashes off a cigarette as he said, leaning his head sidewise, that he
represented the Kansas City _Star_. As he spoke his keen grey eyes
looked me over impartially, but with intelligent, friendly interest.
Though he was dressed in the student's conventional style, even to the
curiously nicked and clipped soft hat then predominant, there was still
about him an off-handedness, an impudent at-homeness that bespoke a
wider knowledge, or assumed knowledge, of the world, than the average
student possesses.
The interview appeared the next afternoon.
"VAGABOND POET ARRIVES.