ely she deemed me unappreciative--I cried
all the way home on the three-mile tramp from the school to the ranch. I
waited and yearned for her to lend me another book. Scores of times I
nerved myself almost to the point of asking her, but never quite reached
the necessary pitch of effrontery.

And then came the city of Oakland, and on the shelves of that free
library I discovered all the great world beyond the skyline. Here were
thousands of books as good as my four wonder-books, and some were even
better. Libraries were not concerned with children in those days, and I
had strange adventures. I remember, in the catalogue, being impressed by
the title, "The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle." I filled an application
blank and the librarian handed me the collected and entirely unexpurgated
works of Smollett in one huge volume. I read everything, but principally
history and adventure, and all the old travels and voyages. I read
mornings, afternoons, and nights. I read in bed, I read at table, I read
as I walked to and from school, and I read at recess while the other boys
were playing. I began to get the "jerks." To everybody I replied: "Go
away. You make me nervous."

And so, at ten, I was out on the streets, a newsboy. I had no time to
read. I was busy getting exercise and learning how to fight, busy
learning forwardness, and brass and bluff. I had an imagination and a
curiosity about all things that made me plastic. Not least among the
things I was curious about was the saloon. And I was in and out of many
a one. I remember, in those days, on the east side of Broadway, between
Sixth and Seventh, from corner to corner, there was a solid block of
saloons.

In the saloons life was different. Men talked with great voices, laughed
great laughs, and there was an atmosphere of greatness. Here was
something more than common every-day where nothing happened. Here life
was always very live, and, sometimes, even lurid, when blows were struck,
and blood was shed, and big policemen came shouldering in. Great
moments, these, for me, my head filled with all the wild and valiant
fighting of the gallant adventurers on sea and land. There were no big
moments when I trudged along the street throwing my papers in at doors.
But in the saloons, even the sots, stupefied, sprawling across the tables
or in the sawdust, were objects of mystery and wonder.

And more, the saloons were right. The city fathers sanctioned them and