Работа

I reached Boston late that night and got out at the South Station. I knew no one in Boston except Miss Bennet. She lived in Somerville', and I immediately started out for Somerville. Miss Bennet and her fa-mily did all they could to make me comfortable and help me to get myself established in some way. I had only six dollars and their hospitality was of utmost im-portance to me.

My first application for a job in Boston was made in accordance with an idea of my own. Every boy in the Western states knew the Pope Manufacturing Com-pany, which produced bicycles. When I published my first work "History of Western College Journalism" the Pope Company had given me an advertisement, and that seemed to be a "connection" of some kind. So I decided to go to the offices of the Pope Manufacturing Company to ask for a job. I walked into the general of-fice and said that I wanted the president of the com-pany.

"Colonel Pope?" asked the clerk. I answered, "Yes, Colonel Pope."

I was taken to Colonel Pope, who was then an alert energetic man of thirty-nine. I told Colonel Pope, by way of introduction, that he had once given me an ad-vertisement for a little book I had published, that I had been a College editor and out of a job. What I wanted was work and I wanted it badly.

He said he was sorry, but they were laying off hands³. I still hung on. It seemed to me that everything would be all up with me, if I had to go out of that room without a job. I asked him if there wasn't anything at all that I could do. My earnestness made him look at me sharply.

"Willing to wash windows and scrub floors?" he asked.

I told him that I was, and he turned to one of his clerks.

"Has Wilmot got anybody yet to help him in the downtown rink?" he asked.

The clerk said he thought not.

"Very well", said Colonel Pope. "You can go to the rink and help Wilmot out for tomorrow."

The next day I went to the bicycle rink and found that what Wilmot wanted was a man to teach begin-ners to ride. I had never been on a bicycle in my life nor even very close to one, but in a couple of hours I had learnt to ride a bicycle myself and was teaching other people.

Next day Mr. Wilmot paid me a dollar. He didn't say anything about my coming back the next morning, but I came and went to work, very much afraid that I would be told I wasn't needed. After that Mr. Wilmot did not exactly engage me, but he forgot to discharge me, and I came back every day and went to work. At the end of the week Colonel Pope sent for me and placed me in charge of the uptown' rink.