My luck surprised me.
Only a few months had passed since the beginning of my transformation, but it had been noticed by men whom I had thought indifferent to my fate.
I can say, with all the conviction possible, that, if a man determines without compromise to do right, he will find friends, all willing to help along, among those he had expected to be nothing more than mere acquaintances. And another thing. I also claim—and it has never disproven itself to me—that the man who really wants to work can always find it, friends or no friends. The rub is that "suitable" work cannot always be found so easily. It is this lack of "suitable" work which sends men to Bowery lodging-houses, there to keep themselves in high collars and cuffs by begging instead of soiling their tender hands by the first work offered to them.
I started out to do my hustling turn and had no trouble in finding work. Happily it was of the—to me—"suitable" kind.
I went to work at one of the steamboat piers as a baggageman—sometimes lovingly referred to as a "baggage-smasher." The wages were eight dollars a week, and that was a smaller amount than I had often "earned" in one night while employed in the dives.
On my first pay day, those eight dollars were recounted by me innumerable times, not because I was dissatisfied with the smallness of the amount, but because I felt good, really good, at having at length earned a week's wages by honest toil. Every one of those bills had its own meaning for me.
My teacher knew of my new employment, and, with my first pay I bought a little gift for her. It also gave me a pretext for explaining to her my future plans.
Much of her time had been taken up with me, and I owed all of my new life to her endeavor. Persistently she claimed that all her efforts were only a small return for the favor done for her by me, and that, besides, it was her duty to help me to gain a foothold on my new road of life. This argument failed to convince me, as my favor amounted to nothing, and I understood without difficulty that all the benefit I received from her unceasing toil with me was inspired by nothing else than the sweet, Christian spirit which ruled every one of her actions. I insisted that it would have been an imposition for me to be a trouble and bother to her any longer, especially when I had steady employment, which afforded me the time and means to attend evening schools and to study at home in spare hours. I wanted to thank her, and not be quite so conspicuous where, because of social differences, I felt I did not belong.
I mentioned something about coming from the gutter. As always, she had an answer, and a flattering one, ready. As to coming from the gutter, she expostulated, why, many a coin is dropped there and remains until some one picks it up and, by a little polishing, makes it as good as it ever was.
It was just like her. She always claimed to have found in me something good, something I could never have discovered. On the other hand, as soon as we resumed the lessons, she found that quite often her pupil could be severely trying.