I took up arithmetic, but
reading was still a great passion with me. My mornings and
forenoons during that slack season were mostly spent over
Dickens or Thackeray
I now lived in a misshapen attic room which I rented of an Irish
family in what was then a Gentile neighborhood. I had chosen that
street for the English I had expected to hear around me. I had
lived more than two months in that attic, and almost the only
English I heard from my neighbors were the few words my
landlady would say to me when I paid her my weekly rent.
Yet, somehow, the place seemed helpful to me, as though its very
atmosphere exuded a feeling for the language I was so eager to
master. I made all sorts of advances to the Irish family, all sorts of
efforts to get into social relations with them, all to no purpose.
Finally, one evening I had a real conversation with one of my
landlady's sons. My window gave me trouble and he came up to
put it in working order for me. We talked of his work and of mine.
I told him of my plans about going to college.
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