NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



had no place to sleep nights, and for months 

 made his bed in a chicken-coop, unable to get 

 enough money ahead to pay for regular lodg- 

 ings. Occasionally, when work altogether 

 failed, he was reduced to absolute want. It 

 was his habit at such times to go to the village 

 meat market, secure the refuse bones saved for 

 dogs, and get from them what meat he could. 



He found steady employment at last in a 

 small nursery at a beggarly wage. Not being 

 able to hire lodgings, he slept in a bare, damp, 

 unwholesome room above the steaming hot- 

 house, where for days and nights at a time 

 his clothing was never dry. He was passing 

 through such privations as those through 

 which, in the strange allotments of fortune, 

 many another great man has passed. 



The constant exposure and lack of nourish- 

 ing food made rapid inroads upon a not too 

 strong constitution, and this, with overwork, 

 brought on an attack of fever. A woman in 

 the neighborhood, herself in straitened cir- 

 cumstances, found him one day in such a criti- 

 cal condition that she insisted on sharing with 

 him the small portion of milk which she could 

 afford to spare from the one cow that supplied 



12 



