previous to
leaving home, he should make arrangements for staying at least a week or
two there. If none of these things be possible for him, he may have to
depend on the advice of the clergyman to whom his own pastor will have
given him a letter. Perhaps there is no better way of establishing a
headquarters for himself, a place and people to tie up to, than by
identifying himself at the start with the Y.M.C.A. A letter enclosing a
stamp for a reply to the Secretary of the New York Branch, Twenty-third
Street and Fourth Avenue, will soon put him in possession of a great
deal of useful information. Five dollars will make him a member for one
year, and give him many advantages, among others, what will be
immediately available, a directory of cheap but respectable
boarding-houses, and an employment bureau. Unless a boy has exceptional
facilities he will easily save the cost of joining in the first few
weeks after coming to the city in the advice and opportunities afforded
him.

The first thing that the country boy will have to consider is where and
how to live. As a matter of fact it is a question which rapidly resolves
itself into a choice of hall bedrooms in boarding-houses. For in no
other way can he live so well within the income that he is likely to
earn. The best way is to spend as little as is consistent with decency
and getting enough to eat, at least until employment is secured, and
then the style of living can be improved if the wages warrant it. They
probably will not warrant it until after a year or two. Good board and
clean beds can be secured in New York for as low as five dollars a week,
and an occasional landlady will be met who will put up a plain bread and
butter lunch to be taken to business without extra charge. This is the
kind of landlady for whom the country boy must look. Washing and car
fares will amount to a dollar or a dollar and a half more, depending on
the amount of clean clothes required, and the distance of his
boarding-house from his place of business when he gets one.

The young adventurer having now found a place to eat and sleep in, and
where he may leave his satchel, can start out with the knowledge that he
must find a place where he can earn at least six or seven dollars a week
to begin on. And then he will have nothing over for clothes, repairs,
emergencies, and last of all for spending money. Eight dollars a week is
about the smallest sum on which a self-respecting boy, well brought