April morning I started
out towards the suburbs, and at every house in process of construction
approached the boss and asked for a job. Almost at once I found
encouragement. "Yes, but where are your tools?"

In order to buy the tools I must work, work at anything. Therefore, at
the next place I asked if there was any rough labor required around the
house. The foreman replied: "Yes, there is some grading to be done."
Accordingly I set to work with a wheelbarrow, grading the bank around
the almost completed building. This was hard work, the crudest form of
manual labor, but I grappled with it desperately, knowing that the pay
(a dollar and a half a day) would soon buy a kit of tools.

Oh, that terrible first day! The heavy shovel blistered my hands and
lamed my wrists. The lifting of the heavily laden wheelbarrow strained
my back and shoulders. Half-starved and weak, quite unfitted for
sustained effort of this kind, I struggled on, and at the end of an
interminable afternoon staggered home to my cot. The next morning came
soon,--too soon. I was not merely lame, I was lacerated. My muscles
seemed to have been torn asunder, but I toiled (or made a show of
toiling) all the second day. On the warrant of my wages I borrowed
twenty-five cents of a friend and with this bought a meat dinner which
helped me through another afternoon.

The third day was less painful and by the end of the week, I was able to
do anything required of me. Upon receiving my pay I went immediately to
the hardware store and bought a set of tools and a carpenter's apron,
and early on Monday morning sallied forth in the _opposite direction_ as
a carpenter seeking a job. I soon came to a big frame house in course of
construction. "Do you need another hand?" I asked. "Yes," replied the
boss. "Take hold, right here, with this man."

"This man" turned out to be a Swede, a good-natured fellow, who made no
comment on my deficiencies. We sawed and hammered together in very
friendly fashion for a week, and I made rapid gains in strength and
skill and took keen pleasure in my work. The days seemed short and life
promising and as I was now getting two dollars per day, I moved out of
my charity bed and took a room in a decayed mansion in the midst of a
big lawn. My bearing became confident and easy. Money had straightened
my back.

The spring advanced rapidly while I was engaged on this work and as my
crew occasionally took contracts in the country I have vivid