96 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



wickedest city on earth for hair-raising stories 

 of New York used to come to us by way of the 

 canal, our dock being the terminal of a line of Erie 

 Canal boats. I now realize that if those stories 

 had come by fast mail instead of the " raging 

 canal " they would not have had time to grow so 

 large. Some strange things did happen to me but 

 at this distance of time they appear laughable 

 rather than terrifying. 



In that Hades to which I was hastening I knew 

 but one person, a former schoolmate who kept a 

 small fruit store on Broadway. As the train ap- 

 proached the city in the early evening the cars 

 stopped more frequently and passengers began to 

 get off ; but was this Broadway ? If not, where was 

 it? I hesitated to ask questions for fear they 

 might reveal my country breeding. I finally came 

 to this sage conclusion : the ocean must be here and 

 the cars cannot carry me beyond New York city 

 but I was fairly quaking with terror. At last the 

 train pulled into a great station, the last, ap- 

 parently; and as all the remaining passengers 

 arose, I went out also, not knowing whither I went. 



Again I reasoned that most of these passengers 

 must live on Broadway and so I trailed after the 

 largest crowd and soon came to a street that was 



