spending them with Ruth
meant to me. My muscles had become as hard and tireless as those of a
well-trained athlete so that at night I was as alert mentally as in
the morning. It made me feel lazy to sit around the house after an
hour's lesson in Italian and watch Ruth busy with her sewing and see
the boy bending over his books. Still I couldn't think of anything
that was practicable until I heard Giuseppe talk one evening about the
night school. I had thought this was a sort of grammar school with
clay modeling thrown in for amusement.

"No, Signore," he said. "You can learn anything there. And there is
another school where you can learn other things."

I went out that very evening and found that the school he attended
taught among other subjects, book keeping and stenography--two things
which appealed to me strongly. But in talking to the principal he
suggested that before I decided I look into the night trade school
which was run in connection with a manual training school. I took his
advice and there I found so many things I wanted that I didn't know
what to choose. I was amazed at the opportunity. A man could learn
here about any trade he cared to take up. Both tools and material
were furnished him. And all this was within ten minutes' walk of the
house. I could still have my early evenings with Ruth and the boy even
on the three nights I would be in school until a quarter past seven,
spend two hours at learning my trade, and get back to the house again
before ten. I don't see how a man could ask for anything better than
this. Even then I wouldn't be away from home as much as I often was in
my old life. There were many dreary stretches towards the end of my
service with the United Woollen when I didn't get home until midnight.
And the only extra pay we salaried men received for that was a
brighter hope for the job ahead. This was always dangled before our
eyes by Morse as a bait when he wished to drive us harder than usual.

I had my choice of a course in carpentry, bricklaying, sheet metal
work, plumbing, electricity, drawing and pattern draughting. The work
covered from one to three years and assured a man at the end of this
time of a position among the skilled workmen who make in wages as much
as many a professional man. Not only this but a man with such training
as this and with ambition could look forward without any great
stretch of the imagination to becoming a foreman in his trade and
eventually winning i