chapter II 



S 



o THE boyhood days at Ithaca and at Cornell were finished, 

 and I was at last starting out on my own. It is true that I had 

 helped a little towards the earning o£ what was called my educa- 

 tion by working occasionally on the University farm at the 

 munificent wage of ten cents an hour, and that I had also worked 

 a bit in the University Library on the annual dusting of the 

 books, and a very litde at the delivery desk, at the same rate 

 of pay. 



One incident of the latter employment stands out in my 

 memory. A young student (I think he was a Sophomore) came 

 to the desk one day and asked me whether the Library contained 

 a periodical known as the Revue du Demi-Monde! 



But now I was to be entirely on my own. I stopped in New 

 York City on my way to Washington. Most of my mother's 

 family lived there. Two of her brothers, Horace K. and Francis 

 B. Thurber, were the heads of a great wholesale grocery house, 

 one of the largest in the world, with branches in London, 

 Bordeaux, Calcutta and elsewhere, and my brother George was 

 living with the head of the firm. There were three incidents con- 

 nected with my New York stop that may be worth telling. Uncle 

 Horace, austere, absorbed, religious man that he was, laid down 

 his breakfast newspaper, went with me to the front door and 



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