side of the street. As
you entered, the bar was on the left. On the right, against the wall,
was the free lunch counter. It was a long, narrow room, and at the rear,
beyond the beer kegs on tap, were small, round tables and chairs. The
barkeeper was blue-eyed, and had fair, silky hair peeping out from under
a black silk skull-cap. I remember he wore a brown Cardigan jacket, and
I know precisely the spot, in the midst of the array of bottles, from
which he took the bottle of red-coloured syrup. He and my father talked
long, and I sipped my sweet drink and worshipped him. And for years
afterward I worshipped the memory of him.

Despite my two disastrous experiences, here was John Barleycorn,
prevalent and accessible everywhere in the community, luring and drawing
me. Here were connotations of the saloon making deep indentations in a
child's mind. Here was a child, forming its first judgments of the
world, finding the saloon a delightful and desirable place. Stores, nor
public buildings, nor all the dwellings of men ever opened their doors to
me and let me warm by their fires or permitted me to eat the food of the
gods from narrow shelves against the wall. Their doors were ever closed
to me; the saloon's doors were ever open. And always and everywhere I
found saloons, on highway and byway, up narrow alleys and on busy
thoroughfares, bright-lighted and cheerful, warm in winter, and in summer
dark and cool. Yes, the saloon was a mighty fine place, and it was more
than that.

By the time I was ten years old, my family had abandoned ranching and
gone to live in the city. And here, at ten, I began on the streets as a
newsboy. One of the reasons for this was that we needed the money.
Another reason was that I needed the exercise. I had found my way to the
free public library, and was reading myself into nervous prostration. On
the poor ranches on which I had lived there had been no books. In ways
truly miraculous, I had been lent four books, marvellous books, and them
I had devoured. One was the life of Garfield; the second, Paul du
Chaillu's African travels; the third, a novel by Ouida with the last
forty pages missing; and the fourth, Irving's "Alhambra." This last had
been lent me by a school-teacher. I was not a forward child. Unlike
Oliver Twist, I was incapable of asking for more. When I returned the
"Alhambra" to the teacher I hoped she would lend me another book. And
because she did not--most lik