letters were usually profusely decorated with illustrations of
the most striking incidents of the various escapades. Several
of these Swarthmore experiences he used afterward in short
stories, and both the letters and sketches he sent to his
parents at the time he regarded in the light of preparation
for his future work. In his studies he was perhaps less
successful than he had been at the Episcopal Academy, and
although he played football and took part in the track sports
he was really but little interested in either. There were
half-holidays on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and when my brother
did not come to town I went to Swarthmore and we spent the
afternoons in first cooking our lunch in a hospitable woods
and then playing some games in the open that Richard had
devised. But as I recall these outings they were not very
joyous occasions, as Richard was extremely unhappy over his
failures at school and greatly depressed about the prospects for
the future.

He finished the college year at Swarthmore, but so unhappy had
he been there that there was no thought in his mind or in that
of his parents of his returning. At that time my uncle, H.
Wilson Harding, was a professor at Lehigh University, and it
was arranged that Richard should go to Bethlehem the following
fall, live with his uncle, and continue his studies at
Ulrich's Preparatory School, which made a specialty of
preparing boys for Lehigh. My uncle lived in a charming old
house on Market Street in Bethlehem, quite near the Moravian
settlement and across the river from the university and the
iron mills. He was a bachelor, but of a most gregarious and
hospitable disposition, and Richard therefore found himself