kitchen hearth and sprinkled sand over the kitchen floor, I went out to greet the Scotch bagpiper, who, with his wheezy pibroch puffed out like a roasted Christmas goose, walked so sedately down the street that the feather in his bonnet hardly quivered. There were Sunday-schoof walks, when we paraded down Railway Road to the music of a band; there were Sunday-school treats, when we played cricket, ran, jumped, and frolicked, and feasted on currant buns and coffee. There were several weeks a year spent at Clethorpes, a watering-place, where I made castles of the pebbles and waded into shallow water after cockles in the sand. There were merry larks at Glossop fair, where "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Dick Whittington and His Cat" were acted under a tent, before which, on gigantic canvases, were depicted lurid giants, a princely youth in tights, and a monstrous mewing cat, against which a noisy showman tapped with a long whip-handle as he shouted; "'Ere you are, good people. All the scenes of your childhood on view. The real and original' Jack and the Beanstalk' and Dick Whittington and His Cat, Lord Mayor o' Lunnon!' Grown-ups a penny, childer half price! 'Ere you are !" My tenth birthday marked the end of my boyish, merry play life. Across its threshold I was to meet with, and grip, the calloused hand of Labor. Not

the labor which merely keeps a healthy lad out of mischief and inculcates habits of thrift, but the more forbidding form of it; the labor from which even strong men cringe in fear, the labor from which men often seek escape by selfinflicted death, the labor of tears, of sweat, of pitiless autocracy-the labor of necessity! The necessity which is not induced by reasonable and excusable circumstances, nor the result of a merely mistaken judgment of events, such as comes to the family betrayed through overconfidence in friends' advice; but the necessity which has its root in carelessness, squandering, drunkenness.

For in this tenth year what had appeared to be the strong walls of my uncle's house collapsed entirely. The undermining had been unseen, unthought of. In that tenth year the parlors of the Linnet's Nest and the Blue Sign were

unusually enticing. They enticed my uncle within when he should have been looking after his fish and poultry "and everything in its season." They enticed the profits from the money drawer. They enticed all the business acumen from my Uncle Stanwood's brain. They enticed what little of family joy had centered around our fender. In its simplest phrase, my uncle had become a confirmed drunkard.

Then for many days our home was filled with bickerings, hiccoughs, and piggish snortings. The temple of man that had been even so imperfectly built was henceforth profaned. The intelligent gleam shone less and less from those gray eyes. The fluent words passed and an incoherent gurgle took their place. Those firm strides which had indicated not a little pride became senile, even childish. There was written over the lintels of our doorway, "Lost, A Man!"

All this was not one hundredth part so momentous to the creditors who clamored around us as it was to Aunt and me. To see that slouching, dull-eyed, slavering creature cross the kitchen threshold and tumble in a limp heap on the sanded floor was a sword-thrust which started deep and unhealing wounds. I, a boy of ten, became the man of the house. We had not changed places at all, for that strange, repulsive, huddled thing was not my uncle. He did not meet the exigencies even of a ten-year-old. I could put myself to bed. That man could not. I could talk sensibly. That man could not. I could take my place behind the counter and wait on customers. That man could not. My uncle was lost indeed.

He came back for several hours a week, but it was not the same uncle we had lost. He came back with a new and discouraging note in his voice. He echoed the language of those who fail. Our gleaming fire no longer licked its tongue over the old stories and merry sayings. That black maw of a fireplace, ghostly with ruby coals, no longer took skyward family prayers. My uncle met us with an ashamed face. He looked furtively at

me, just as a guilty man would look on some one he had deeply wronged. His shoulders stooped, as do the shoulders of a man who for the first time carries a heavy burden of shame.

sober aunt. All the bulldog of the British roared and yelped in her. If contradicted, she attained to a veritable fury and threw the first thing that came to hand-knife, saucer, or coal. On such occasions so fearful was I that murder would ensue that I would whisper to my uncle to go off to the public-house in the interests of peace.

"Stanwood S. Brindin, Fish and Poultry Dealer, Everything in its Season," no longer could be depended upon to have the fish and poultry or to have everything in its season. Customers could no longer depend upon hearing his cry through the streets, "Fish alive! Buy them alive! Kill them as you want 'em!" Our trade fell away, and the Manchester merchants' bills could not be met. We had to beg credit from the tradesmen on Railway Road. Failure was inevitable.

One spring day in that year my uncle came in the house, sober, and visibly excited. He had borrowed enough money with which to take passage to America. After my aunt had concluded the long, wild, insulting stream of abuse this news aroused, my uncle proved to her that such a course was best. It was best, he said, because in the new country he would be away from the Linnet's Nest and the Blue Sign and their seductions. In the new country he could start some profitable business which would put us on our feet. In the new country it would be like beginning life anew. So lavishly did he spread the winsome colors that it was not long before my aunt was sitting with her arm around his neck and looking into his hopeful eyes with that same hope lighting hers. My uncle continued, that as soon as he had something profitable started he would send for us and take us out of our straitened circumstances.

So completely did my uncle's new plan prevail that in a few days he had arranged to have Aunt and myself conduct the shop as best we could, and we had gone with him up to the station, where, when on the train, he had broken down, had kissed my aunt fervently and tearfully, and had given me his parting word. Then the guard shouted, "Aboard!" and the train clattered from under the shed on its way to Liverpool, leaving my aunt and me dazed at our new loneliness.

CHAPTER II

Once more that apple branch which dangled over the garden wall had a rosy apple bobbing in the air; but I did not see it. My boy friend, Chaddy, told me that he had seen it. Then came the autumn, and he also told me that the apple had been plucked and that the leaves were gone. In all this time not a word had come from my uncle in the United States.

My aunt had done what she could with the shop. That little had just kept us in rent and food, food of a simple kind. There were red herrings and bloaters with which my uncle had stocked the shop. On these we made many and many a meal until the lace-bordered boxes were empty or until the smoked fish had become moldy and withered. Our credit was gone. The grocer, across the road, troubled us by his angry importunities. There were many unpaid bills in Manchester; every post brought demands for settlement. We sold the horse and cart, and out of the proceeds bought some new stock. This I tried to sell in a hand-cart over the same route where, in years past, my uncle had wakened the echoes and made the housewives laugh by his humorous " "Fish alive! Buy them alive! Kill them as you want 'em!" But by all such shifts and efforts we could not mend our fortunes; the house of Brindin seemed doomed to fail.

Chilly rain and north winds which whistled dismally past our chimney and sent their echoes down our fireplace made us think of winter. My aunt saw that she was engaged in a losing fight, and, in order not to lose too much by it, she determined to have an auction and settle the debts.

In that corner shop where Uncle had fed the hungry weavers with mussels on the half-shell, in whose windows had grinned so many clownishly attired rays, at whose stall "everything had been sold in its season," stood a crowd larger than had ever gathered within its narrow walls before. There were blood-sucking neighbors, forgetting the demands of true friendship, not thinking of the miserable woman and boy sitting behind the window plants in the next house; vampire neighbors, ready to glut their jaws with our blood. It was one-tenth the price for this and

Some

one-fifteenth the price for that! thing for nothing. Everything for a miserable penny ! So the bids came and were accepted. That was the kind of friend we found in our dismal extremity. My poor dog was tied to a lamp-post, the very one from which I had seen the cricket games and looked off to the Cheshire moors, and there before my eyes he went to Chaddy.

When the last of the curious crowd had gone and the shop had passed from our control, there came anxious shopmen for their pay. None stopped to ask us how we would get along. None played the benefactor. And when the last item had been taken from the proceeds of the sale, hardly a shilling was left. We had merely succeeded in settling the honor of our house. We had not put anything in the larder.

The next week, then, the old towncrier came up Railway Road on a Saturday morning when the hearthstones were being sanded and the fenders polished. Before every row of houses he stopped, took his stand in the middle of the street, and loudly clanged his bell. When the aproned housewives stood in their front doorways and were all attention, the old bell-ringer announced in his drawling way: "To be sold at auction this day at two in the afternoon, a piano, several articles of parlor furniture, at the home of Stanwood Brindin. All come if you don't want to stay away-y-y-y-ay!'

Once more the blood-suckers came to get something for nothing. The sale of those items only gave us a mere fraction of their worth. When the bidders had carted away their "bargains," my aunt shut up what had been a pleasant room, and we went to live in the kitchen.

No

Into the heart of winter were we plunging, no coals in the cellar, only a few shillings in the treasury, no prospects ahead for our solace. We were prisoners of hope, daily expecting to receive the word from America that would deliver us. word came, however, and speculation about Uncle added one more burden to our overloaded shoulders. Behind that door, which opened very little now to a friendly knock, a real struggle with hunger and pride ensued. Dry bread and unsweetened tea, bread without tea; these

were all we could afford. My aunt felt sure that Uncle would not desert us, so she tried to hold fast to the family pride

as tightly as she could. word, nourishing food, would have been ours. would not say the word.

Had we said the

and plenty of it,

But my aunt

Finally we came to the middle of December, and there was no coal for the fire; even dry bread had failed. My aunt kept me at home from school, had me chop some herring-boxes into kindling, and sent me down to Dripping Row to sell them at two bundles for a penny. This wood kept us in bread and treacle for about a week, and then we had to make new plans.

This time there was no other solution than to announce our conditions to our friends. When we did, kindly women brought warm dishes and tasty sweet

meats.

After a church tea-party baskets of cake and sandwiches were left at our door.

Before these potato pies, rabbit stews, dishes of mashed potatoes, and brown meat pies one youngster stood with more excitement than usually attends a presentation from a Christmas tree. It was the first time in my life that I had ever heard my Aunt Millie say in tears, "Aren't we blessed, Al?"

But after the first enthusiasm had passed off, fewer and fewer dishes were brought in. Then we had to gather stale crusts and dip them in thin milk. Still we had no word from America. Yet we never doubted for a moment that word would come. We had such faith in America and such confidence in the promises of Uncle Stanwood. There was no need of going hungry, however, if we would let the town know our circumstances. The lowest state was reached when our names were put on the paupers' list by the parish clerk, and every Monday thereafter I had to stand in line with the town paupers, pass before the parish committee, and receive the shilling due us.

The lowest reach of the tide is the token of its turn. Like the magic wand of story-book fairy, transfusing night into day, hunger into feasting, came a letter from Uncle Stanwood inclosing money to live on and tickets for passage to America!

What are the feelings of our immigrants when the prospect of a home in America

offers itself? Long before we had the boxes packed Aunt Millie and I interpreted life in the light of "the States." There was a tradition in our town-harking back to some citizen who had returned from" the States "for a brief visit--which caused us to believe that the Americans talked in a flat, shrill, nasal tone. With the aid of my companions, therefore, I prepared myself to be able to speak in the same way. The same tradition had left us a half-dozen real Yankee words, among which we boys remembered candy." Daily I was drilled by the fellows until I could pronounce the word in accomplished "Yankee" fashion, laying particular stress upon the tin-pannish tone which we thought was the acme of American conversation. Coming fresh from such a drill, I used to stand in front of the fireplace, dig my hands deep in my trousers pocket, tip my hat back-an attempt at Yankee swagger-and inflect through my nose, Saay, Ha'nt, want to buy two cents' wuth of kaandy?”

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I can imagine no more perfect fame than the United States had gained in the minds of the men and women of our little English town. The center of human desire, the pivot of worldly wealth, the mirror of a blissful paradise-these were some of the fancies emphasized by our neighbors. Though we were tearing up the family history by the root and were breaking off relationships with church and friends which ran back into the distant centuries, more striking still, though we hardly knew what prospects were waiting for us across the seas, our friends had not a word of pity or regret at our going. The impression prevailed that in America lingers a peculiar magic capable of bringing abundant good fortune to the shabbiest pauper. After the day's packing was done, when aunt and the neighbors who had been helping her were tired, while Mrs. Girion made a hot brew of porter and passed it around, an America was constructed for us rivaling the most extravagant fairy tale Grimm ever told. "Yes," chattered old Scroggs, the town butcher, "they's wunnerful likely things over theer in Hammerica! People just roll in gold. I heers 'at they spends all ther coppers for toffy an' such like morsals. Dunno think o' usin' less than

gold-real gold! they saay."

Load on loads o' it,

"That's so," put in Maggie, our nextdoor neighbor. Everybody has a chance, too. Double wages for little work. All sort of apples and good things to eat. Fine streets, too. Everybody on bicycles ; they're so cheap there. They say the sun is always out, too, and not much rain !"

On the street and in the school-yard my maties regarded me with envious affection. I must have mortgaged a small fortune in promises. I would send little Clara Chidwick a fine gold watch, and when her sister Eline cried at this, I vowed to send her a diamond brooch. To Harry Lomick I would ship five brand-new American dollars, and to Jimmy Hedding two cases of American "candy.”

Filled with incidents like these, the days of our English life rapidly drew to an end. Ahead of me, tinting my world with rose-color, lay the great city Liverpool, the big ocean ship, the Atlantic Ocean, and-America! The good-bys were given us at the station. The guard shouted, "All aboard!" and I settled myself in the compartment, wondering why my aunt was crying, and counting the pennies in my pocket, with which I intended to buy some oranges in Liverpool.

That night we slept in a cheap hotel, where I recollect eating an uncountable number of hard-boiled eggs. A tram-car carried us to the dock, and before ten o'clock in the morning we were leaning over the side of the ship watching the fluttering handkerchiefs fade as a snow flurry fades. Then the tugs left us alone on the great deep.

Twelve days in a crowded steerage. Twelve days of rough February weather. The voyage is a memory of rice with currants in it, stifling berths, flat drinkingwater, dismal evening concerts, fearful shrieks from the fog whistles, and finally the golden band in the distance-Nantasket Beach.

CHAPTER III

On my arrival in America I looked eagerly about for the glint of gold. It certainly was not to be seen on the black pilings of the dock or on the splintered planks of the customs shed. Neither