at the Great Northern hotel and received the job of carrying the dishes 

 from the dining room. This gave me access to the dining room and 

 kitchen and I soon picked up the essentials of waiting in a high 

 class place. 



I then purchased a waiter's outfit and went to the Victoria Hotel 

 and applied for a place and got it. I had a pretty hard time for a few 

 days, but by the help of some good-natured waiters I pulled through 

 and could soon serve table as well as the best. I was getting experience 

 in city ways and had a good chance to observe the people as they dined. 

 I studied city life from various angles and often tried to compare the 

 two lives, that of the ordinary city man and that of the country. The 

 life in this great city seemed so hollow and false as compared to that 

 I had known in the country. 



After spending one year in Chicago I went to New York and worked 

 there two years in some of the best eating houses in the city. This gave 

 me a very cosmopolitan idea of the world. I had opportunity to study 

 very notable people who came to dine at my table. In visiting different 

 parts of the city it was appalling to observe the poverty and squalor. 



I was astonished that people should be crowded together in such 

 unhealthy quarters. Then there was the vice that always disgusted 

 me, for I was reared a clean, virtuous lad, and things low and mean 

 were loathsome. I studied the city from every angle. On every 

 opportunity I spent long hours in Central Park enjoying the trees and 

 grass and flowers and the animals. It was here that I felt at home and 

 that old longing for that free, healthful life that I had once known 

 came back again and again. I had not found it in college, neither in 

 the busy city. I took excursions up the Hudson River. I walked 

 miles in the country recalling the good, honest, freed life of early days. 

 I began to doubt all mankind in the large cities. I had no close, 

 staunch friend like I had known in the country. It seemed hard to 

 find the sincerity. Every one seemed so trivial. I became sick and 

 tired of this artificial life and longed for the old farm back in Indiana. 

 If I could only walk out over the old farm with father as we used to do 

 and view the crops. Thus musing one day, I strolled past Madison 

 Square Garden. From inside there came the sound of a crowing cock. 

 Then another and another. The cackle of a hen instantly called to 

 mind my boyhood pets. These familiar sounds made my sore, hungry 

 heart beat with rapture. 



I bought a ticket and passed in to view the Great Madison Square 

 Poultry Show. With tears in my eyes and a great lump at my throat, 

 I walked down the aisles and viewed the grand fowls, so much grander 

 than my boyhood had ever known. How I revelled all day long among 

 that glorious collection of perfect birds. Such a day! It seemed that 

 my school days had been for naught and that my city life had been 

 a trance. 



I then and there dedicated my life to my first love. 



19 



