Langworth enrolled me as a special student. He himself paid my tuition fee, which was a nominal one. I enrolled in Philosophy, Economics, German, Latin.
My patron, furthermore, slipped a ten-dollar bill into my hand. "For the books you will need."
He directed me to the Y.M.C.A. employment bureau. "They will see that you get work at something, so you can be sure of board and room ... in the early days we did not have things so well arranged. I worked my way through college, too. I nearly perished, my first year. After you settle somewhere, come and see me once in a while and let me hear how you're getting on."
My first job was milking a cow and taking care of a horse, for board and room.... The man for whom I worked was an old, retired farmer.
The disagreeable part of taking care of horses and cows is the smell. My clothes, my room, even the skin of my body, soon reeked with the faint yet penetrating odour of stable and barn.
But I was happy. Many great men had done as I was doing. Always trust me to dramatise every situation!
I arranged my meagre row of text-books on the shelf in my attic. I set Keats apart in a sacred nook by himself.
I sat humming softly to myself, studying my first lessons.