Again he met my laughing gaze, and again he grinned. Then after studying me once more, he came to a decision. He rheumatically pulled himself to his feet and said:-
“Well, take off your coat and go to work.”
And that ended our conference. We made no sort of bargain, said nothing whatever about the pay I was to get, or what I was expected to do. It was like Ben Hutchins-that snap sort of conclusion. But once he has made up his mind, you may be sure that he will carry his part of the bargain to the end. Of course, I had to learn this about him. I thought then that he was just going to try me out, give me a chance to make good if I could.
I took off my overcoat and other coat, and hung them up with my hat. Then I found another printer’s dirty apron, and started in to work.
It may be hard to understand how a man, after having been employed for years in one of New York’s big printing-plants, should have finally found his life’s opportunity in that little country junk-shop of a printing-office. But that is what I did. I could not have done so, however, without having had the experience of the previous few days, as well as the new lessons I was learning all the time from the Voice.
It was because I was finding youth that I found my opportunity. Youth, which is courageous, venturesome, progressive, optimistic, and creative! Cowardly old age, pessimistic, stagnant, and traveling in ruts, never finds a big life-opportunity.
V
I had been at my new job two weeks. We had issued two editions of the weekly paper. I had done the work of editor, reporter, compositor, proof-reader, pressman, and mailing clerk. Every day I was growing more and more in love with my job. I whistled again like a boy, at my work-this, in spite of the fact that I was taking that long trip each night and morning to and from New York. It is not work-the kind that is made creative-but stagnation, which wearies.
New demands were stirring every part of my being into new activities. My faculties were all alert. So were my emotions, my imaginations, and my sense of humor. Values were being aroused in me that, for lack of something to call them into use, had all my life been lying dormant. I had never known that I could do some of the things which I now did. I had begun to take an interest in national and world affairs, about which I had to furnish copy. I also had begun to take more interest in people.
For years, when making my daily trips on the Elevated, I had most of the time kept my eyes glued to the latest criminal sensation in the newspapers. When I was not reading a newspaper, my thoughts were occupied with my own small interests.