67

VI I BECOME A DAY LABORER 82

VII NINE DOLLARS A WEEK 94

VIII SUNDAY 112

IX PLANS FOR THE FUTURE 125

X THE EMIGRANT SPIRIT 146

XI NEW OPPORTUNITIES 165

XII OUR FIRST WINTER 183

XIII I BECOME A CITIZEN 200

XIV FIFTEEN DOLLARS A WEEK 216

XV THE GANG 234

XVI DICK FINDS A WAY OUT, TOO 252

XVII THE SECOND YEAR 266

XVIII MATURING PLANS 283

XIX ONCE AGAIN A NEW ENGLANDER 298

ONE WAY OUT

ONE WAY OUT

CHAPTER I

A BORN AND BRED NEW ENGLANDER

My great-grandfather was killed in the Revolution; my grandfather
fought in the War of 1812; my father sacrificed his health in the
Civil War; but I, though born in New England, am the first of my
family to emigrate to this country--the United States of America. That
sounds like a riddle or a paradox. It isn't; it's a plain statement of
fact.

As a matter of convenience let me call myself Carleton. I've no desire
to make public my life for the sake of notoriety. My only idea in
writing these personal details is the hope that they may help some
poor devil out of the same hole in which I found myself mired. They
are of too sacred a nature to share except impersonally. Even behind
the disguise of an assumed name I passed some mighty uncomfortable
hours a few months ago when I sketched out for a magazine and saw in
cold print what I'm now going to give in full. It made me feel as
though I had pulled down the walls of my house and was living my life
open to the view of the street. For a man whose home means what it
does to me, there's nothing pleasant about that.

However, I received some letters following that brief article which
made the discomfort seem worth while. My wife and I read them over
with something like awe. They came from Maine and they came from
Texas; they came from the north, they came from the south, until we
numbered our unseen friends by the hundr