skate at night. Almost before we got fairly started we heard a cry for
help, and found a neighbour, who had broken through the ice, was in
danger of drowning. By pushing a pole to him we succeeded in fishing
him out, and restored him safe and sound to his grateful family. As we
were not generally expected to save a man's life every time we skated,
my brother William and I felt that there were mitigating circumstances
connected with this particular disobedience which might be taken into
account in the final judgment, but this idea proved to be erroneous.


STARTING AT WORK

Although the plan had been to send me to college, it seemed best at
sixteen that I should leave the high school in which I had nearly
completed the course and go into a commercial college in Cleveland for
a few months. They taught bookkeeping and some of the fundamental
principles of commercial transactions. This training, though it lasted
only a few months, was very valuable to me. But how to get a job--that
was the question. I tramped the streets for days and weeks, asking
merchants and storekeepers if they didn't want a boy; but the offer
of my services met with little appreciation. No one wanted a boy, and
very few showed any overwhelming anxiety to talk with me on the
subject. At last one man on the Cleveland docks told me that I might
come back after the noonday meal. I was elated; it now seemed that I
might get a start.

I was in a fever of anxiety lest I should lose this one opportunity
that I had unearthed. When finally at what seemed to me the time, I
presented myself to my would-be employer: