ed in boarding-houses, but father
has. He knows that it's a rough life, and they don't feed you on
delicacies. Hotel cookery is not like the cookery in the Old World. Over
there they make each dish as tasty as they can, and good eating is
one of the main objects in life. But Americans don't like to eat. They
begrudge the time they have to spend at the table. They get it over
as soon as they can. They seem to take it like medicine; the worse the
medicine tastes, the better it is for them. An egg is something that is
pretty hard to spoil in the cooking. Yet some of these boarding-house
cooks are such masters of the art that they can fix up a plate of steak,
eggs and potatoes and make them all as tasteless as a chip of wood. I've
had this kind of fare for the last few years, and getting back to your
table is the best part of home-coming."

Father was still a puddler, and to show my appreciation of all he had
done for me, I went into the mill every afternoon that summer and worked
a heat or two for him while he went home and rested in the shade.

The workout did me good. It kept my body vigorous and cleared my brain
so that my studies were easy for me, and I advanced with my education
faster than ever before.

This proved to me that schooling should combine the book stuff with the
shop work. Instead of interfering with each other, they help each other.
The hand work makes the books seem more enjoyable.

CHAPTER XLI. A PAVING CONTRACTOR PUTS ME ON THE PAVING

I was the only Republican elected that year. But for this exception the
Democrats would have made a clean sweep of the city. If the editor had
not charged me with being illiterate I would neither have been nominated
nor elected. When I appeared before audiences in the "swell end" of town
and wrote my lessons on my little slate, I gained their sympathy. They
believed in fair play. And I found I had not lost their support by
thrashing the editor.

Nearly all of the mill workers in Elwood voted for me. I supposed that
I had made many personal enemies among the men by refusing to take their
grievances up with the bosses when I thought the men were wrong. But the
election proved they were my friends after all. The confidence of my
own fellows pleased me greatly. Later on, the men as a further token of
their good will clubbed together and gave me a gold watch. This gave me
greater joy, no doubt, than Napoleon felt when, with his own hand, he
placed a gold crown up