ies of Chautauqua
lectures, I spoke at the Chautauqua in Pontiac, Illinois. The State
Reformatory for Boys was situated in that town, and, after the lecture
the superintendent of the Reformatory invited me to visit it and say a
few words to the inmates. I went and spoke for half an hour, carrying
away a memory of the place and of the boys which haunted me for
months. A year later, while I was waiting for a train in the station
at Shelbyville, a lad about sixteen years old passed me and hesitated,
looking as if he knew me. I saw that he wanted to speak and dared not,
so I nodded to him.

"You think you know me, don't you?" I asked, when he came to my side.

"Yes'm, I do know you," he told me, eagerly. "You are Miss Shaw, and
you talked to us boys at Pontiac last year. I'm out on parole now, but I
'ain't forgot. Us boys enjoyed you the best of any show we ever had!"

I was touched by this artless compliment, and anxious to know how I had
won it, so I asked, "What did I say that the boys liked?"

The lad hesitated. Then he said, slowly, "Well, you didn't talk as if
you thought we were all bad."

"My boy," I told him, "I don't think you are all bad. I know better!"

As if I had touched a spring in him, the lad dropped into the seat by
my side; then, leaning toward me, he said, impulsively, but almost in a
whisper:

"Say, Miss Shaw, SOME OF US BOYS SAYS OUR PRAYERS!"

Rarely have I had a tribute that moved me more than that shy confidence;
and often since then, in hours of discouragement or failure, I have
reminded myself that at least there must have been something in me
once to make a lad of that age so open up his heart. We had a long
and intimate talk, from which grew the abiding interest I feel in boys
today.

Naturally I was sometimes inconvenienced by slight misunderstandings
between local committees and myself as to the subjects of my lectures,
and the most extreme instance of this occurred in a town where I arrived
to find myself widely advertised as "Mrs. Anna Shaw, who whistled before
Queen Victoria"! Transfixed, I gaped before the billboards, and by
reading their additional lettering discovered the gratifying fact that
at least I was not expected to whistle now. Instead, it appeared, I was
to lecture on "The Missing Link."

As usual, I had arrived in town only an hour or two before the time
fixed for my lecture; there was the briefest interval in which to clear
up these painful misunderstandings. I re