nians, Poles, Czechs, waiting for a local
train. He had never seen a really large factory plant, and here was one,
and another, and another--steel works, potteries, soap-factories,
foundries, all gaunt and hard in the Sunday evening air. There seemed to
be, for all it was Sunday, something youthful, energetic and alive about
the streets. He noted the streetcars waiting; at one place a small river
was crossed on a draw,--dirty, gloomy, but crowded with boats and lined
with great warehouses, grain elevators, coal pockets--that architecture
of necessity and utility. His imagination was fired by this for here was
something that could be done brilliantly in black--a spot of red or
green for ship and bridge lights. There were some men on the magazines
who did things like this, only not so vivid.

The train threaded its way through long lines of cars coming finally
into an immense train shed where arc lights were spluttering--a score
under a great curved steel and glass roof, where people were hurrying to
and fro. Engines were hissing; bells clanging raucously. He had no
relatives, no soul to turn to, but somehow he did not feel lonely. This
picture of life, this newness, fascinated him. He stepped down and
started leisurely to the gate, wondering which way he should go. He came
to a corner where a lamp post already lit blazoned the name Madison. He
looked out on this street and saw, as far as the eye could reach, two
lines of stores, jingling horse cars, people walking. What a sight, he
thought, and turned west. For three miles he walked, musing, and then as
it was dark, and he had arranged for no bed, he wondered where he should
eat and sleep. A fat man sitting outside a livery stable door in a
tilted, cane-seated chair offered a possibility of information.

"Do you know where I can get a room around here?" asked Eugene.

The lounger looked him over. He was the proprietor of the place.

"There's an old lady living over there at seven-thirty-two," he said,
"who has a room, I think. She might take you in." He liked Eugene's
looks.

Eugene crossed over and rang a downstairs bell. The door was opened
shortly by a tall, kindly woman, of a rather matriarchal turn. Her hair
was gray.

"Yes?" she inquired.

"The gentleman at the livery stable over there said I might get a room
here. I'm looking for one."

She smiled pleasantly. This boy looked his strangeness, his wide-eyed
interest, his freshness from the country. "Come in