nd a loving letter from his
mother, and some money, but he sent that back. It was only ten dollars,
but he objected to beginning that way. He thought he ought to earn his
own way, and he wanted to try, anyhow.

After ten days his funds were very low, a dollar and seventy-five cents,
and he decided that any job would have to do. Never mind about art or
type-setting now. He could not get the last without a union card, he
must take anything, and so he applied from store to store. The cheap
little shops in which he asked were so ugly they hurt, but he tried to
put his artistic sensibilities aside. He asked for anything, to be made
a clerk in a bakery, in a dry goods store, in a candy store. After a
time a hardware store loomed up, and he asked there. The man looked at
him curiously. "I might give you a place at storing stoves."

Eugene did not understand, but he accepted gladly. It only paid six
dollars a week, but he could live on that. He was shown to a loft in
charge of two rough men, stove fitters, polishers, and repairers, who
gruffly explained to him that his work was to brush the rust off the
decayed stoves, to help piece and screw them together, to polish and
lift things, for this was a second hand stove business which bought and
repaired stoves from junk dealers all over the city. Eugene had a low
bench near a window where he was supposed to do his polishing, but he
very frequently wasted his time here looking out into the green yards of
some houses in a side street. The city was full of wonder to him--its
every detail fascinating. When a rag-picker would go by calling "rags,
old iron," or a vegetable vender crying "tomatoes, potatoes, green corn,
peas," he would stop and listen, the musical pathos of the cries
appealing to him. Alexandria had never had anything like this. It was
all so strange. He saw himself making pen and ink sketches of things, of
the clothes lines in the back yards and of the maids with baskets.

On one of the days when he thought he was working fairly well (he had
been there two weeks), one of the two repairers said, "Hey, get a move
on you. You're not paid to look out the window." Eugene stopped. He had
not realized that he was loafing.

"What have you got to do with it?" he asked, hurt and half defiant. He
was under the impression that he was working with these men, not under
them.

"I'll show you, you fresh kid," said the older of the two, who was an
individual built on the order of "