two shirts. I discarded my trunk and crammed what
little I owned into my battered suitcase.
That night, the story of my dismissal from school having travelled about
from mouth to mouth, and the tale of my poets' auction--the boys
cheered me, as I came into the dining hall--cheered me partly
affectionately, partly derisively.
* * * * *
In the morning mail I received a letter from the New York _Independent_,
a weekly literary magazine. Dr. Ward, the editor, informed me that I
possessed genuine poetic promise, and he was taking two of the poems I
had recently submitted to him, for publication in his magazine.
* * * * *
Like the vagrant I was, I considered myself indefinitely fixed, with
that ten dollars. I went to Boston ... hung about the library and the
waterfront ... stayed in cheap lodging houses for a few days--and found
myself on the tramp again.
* * * * *
I freighted it to New York, where I landed, grimy and full of coal-dust.
And I sought out my uncle who lived in the Bronx.
I appeared, opportunely, around supper time. I asked him if he was not
glad to see me. He grimaced a yes, but wished that I would stop tramping
about and fit in, in life, somewhere.... He observed that my shirt was
filthy and that I must take a bath immediately and put on a clean one of
his.
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