I was giving Nodelman his fifth lesson. We were spelling out some
syllables in a First Reader. Presently he grew absent-minded and
then, suddenly pushing the school-book from him, said: "Too
late! Too late! Those black little dots won't get through my
forehead.
It has grown too hard for them, I suppose."
I attempted to reassure him, but in vain
When the next cloak season came I slunk back to work. I felt
degraded. But I earned high wages and my good spirits soon
returned. I firmly made up my mind, come what might, to take the
college-entrance examination the very next fall. I expected to
have four hundred dollars by then, but I was determined to enter
college even if I had much less. "I sha'n't starve," I said to myself.
"And, if I don't get enough to eat, hunger is nothing new to me."
The very firmness of my purpose was a source of encouragement
and joy
[note: Ridley's]: A well-known department store in those days
[note: jingler]: Coin, money
BOOK VIII THE DESTRUCTION OF MY TEMPLE CHAPTER I
AN unimportant accident, a mere trifle, suddenly gave a new turn
to the trend of events changing the character of my whole life.
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