hand a bit too long to suit me. He took me into his
office and offered me a chair. I told him briefly that I had just
moved down here and had a boy of ten whom I wished to keep off the
streets and keep occupied. I asked him what the boys around here did
during the summer.

"Most of them work," he answered.

I hadn't thought of this.

"What do they do?"

"A good many sell papers, some of them serve as errand boys and others
help their parents."

Dick was certainly too inexperienced for the first two jobs and there
was nothing in my work he could do to help. Then the man began to ask
me questions. He was evidently struck by the fact that I didn't seem
to be in place here. I answered briefly that I had been a clerk all my
life, had lost my position and was now a common day laborer. The boy,
I explained, was not yet used to his life down here and I wanted to
keep him occupied until he got his strength.

"You're right," he answered. "Why don't you bring him in here?"

"What would he do here?"

"It's a good loafing place for him and we have some evening classes."

"I want him at home nights," I answered.

"The Y.M.C.A. has summer classes which begin a little later on. Why
don't you put him into some of those?"

I had always heard of the Y.M.C.A., but I had never got into touch
with it, for I thought it was purely a religious organization. But
that proposition sounded good. I'd passed the building a thousand
times but had never been inside. I thanked him and started to leave.

"I hope this won't be your last visit," he said cordially. "Come down
and see what we're doing. You'll find a lot of boys here at night."

"Thanks," I answered.

I went direct to the Y.M.C.A. building. Here again I was surprised to
find a most attractive interior. It looked like the inside of a
prosperous club house. I don't know what I expected but I wouldn't
have been startled if I'd found a hall filled with wooden settees and
a prayer meeting going on. I had a lot of such preconceived notions
knocked out of my head in the next few years.

In response to my questions I received replies that made me feel I'd
strayed by mistake into some university. For that matter it _was_ a
university. There was nothing from the primary class in English to a
professional education in the law that a man couldn't acquire here for
a sum that was astonishingly small. The most of the classes cost
nothing after payment of the membership fee of ten dollars.