er, and as my landlord did not actually evict me, I stayed on
shamelessly, fattening visibly on the puddings and roasts which Mrs.
Cross provided and dear old Mary cooked with joy. She was the true
artist. She loved to see her work appreciated.

My class in English literature that term numbered twenty and the money
which this brought carried me through till the mid-winter vacation, and
permitted another glorious season of Booth and the Symphony Orchestra.
In the month of January I organized a class in American Literature, and
so at last became self-supporting in the city of Boston! No one who has
not been through it can realize the greatness of this victory.

I permitted myself a few improvements in hose and linen. I bought a
leather hand-bag with a shoulder strap, and every day joined the stream
of clerks and students crossing the Common. I began to feel a
proprietary interest in the Hub. My sleeping room (also my study),
continued to be in the attic (a true attic with a sloping roof and one
window) but the window faced the south, and in it I did all my reading
and writing. It was hot on sunny days and dark on cloudy days, but it
was a refuge.

As a citizen with a known habitation I was permitted to carry away books
from the library, and each morning from eight until half-past twelve I
sat at my desk writing, tearing away at some lecture, or historical
essay, and once in a while I composed a few lines of verse. Five
afternoons in each week I went to my classes and to the library,
returning at six o'clock to my dinner and to my reading. This was my
routine, and I was happy in it. My letters to my people in the west
were confident, more confident than I ofttimes felt.

During my second summer Burton Babcock, who had decided to study for the
Unitarian ministry, came east with intent to enter the Divinity School
at Harvard. He was the same old Burton, painfully shy, thoughtful,
quaintly abrupt in manner, and together we visited the authorities at
Cambridge and presented his case as best we could.

For some reason not clear to either of us, the school refused to aid and
after a week's stay with me Burton, a little disheartened but not
resentful, went to Meadville, Pennsylvania. Boston seemed very wonderful
to him and I enjoyed his visit keenly. We talked inevitably of old
friends and old days in the manner of middle-aged men, and he told me
that John Gammons had entered the Methodist ministry and was stationed
in Decor