indentations in a child's mind. Here was a child, forming its
first judgments of the world, finding the saloon a delightful and
desirable place. Stores, nor public buildings, nor all the
dwellings of men ever opened their doors to me and let me warm by
their fires or permitted me to eat the food of the gods from
narrow shelves against the wall. Their doors were ever closed to
me; the saloon's doors were ever open. And always and everywhere
I found saloons, on highway and byway, up narrow alleys and on
busy thoroughfares, bright-lighted and cheerful, warm in winter,
and in summer dark and cool. Yes, the saloon was a mighty fine
place, and it was more than that.

By the time I was ten years old, my family had abandoned ranching
and gone to live in the city. And here, at ten, I began on the
streets as a newsboy. One of the reasons for this was that we
needed the money. Another reason was that I needed the exercise.
I had found my way to the free public library, and was reading
myself into nervous prostration. On the poor ranches on which I
had lived there had been no books. In ways truly miraculous, I
had been lent four books, marvellous books, and them I had
devoured. One was the life of Garfield; the second, Paul du
Chaillu's African travels; the third, a novel by Ouida with the
last forty pages missing; and the fourth, Irving's "Alhambra."
This last had been lent me by a school-teacher. I was not a
forward child. Unlike Oliver Twist, I was incapable of asking for
more. When I returned the "Alhambra" to the teacher I hoped she
would lend me another book. And because she did not--most likely
she deemed me unappreciative--I cried all the way home on the
three-mile tramp from the school to the ranch. I waited and
yearned for her to lend me another book. Scores of times I nerved