Billy wanted to answer sharply and escape. But the very unusualness of the attack aroused his curiosity. "Of course I thought I could get it," he answered. "Why?" Billy found himself at a momentary loss for an answer. "You told Andy Jaynes, the manager, that you'd had no experience, didn't you?" "You didn't like the idea of getting to the gate at seventhirty in the morning, did you?" "No; you only looked it. You were surprised that you would have to stay till six-thirty at night, weren't you?" Billy stopped answering. He was angry; but he felt the blood rise slowly in a hot wave over his cheeks and neck, and he found it hard to continue looking resentfully into the brown eyes. "And you resented the idea that the timekeeper had to help in the shipping-room when he was off the gate, didn't you?" Billy backed away against the fence. He wanted to shout aloud a denial of these charges; but he could not say a word. He knew that there was truth in every one of them. "Jaynes knew how you felt," went on his new acquaintance. "Both he and I saw you were trying to cheat him." "Cheat him!" "Certainly. You had nothing to sell, had you? Neither experience, nor knowledge, nor willingness to work. All you wanted was to get his ten dollars a week and get it easy; you had no notion of being worth ten dollars a week, had you?" The young man stood silent a moment, waiting. Billy Lanford was raging. He was angry enough to strike; but he knew that what had been said was true, and that fact held his tongue and hand. "Do you know what you have done this morning?" asked his accuser. "You've started a reputation!" Then the man turned away. Billy was left alone, standing with his back to the fence, his hands gripping the pickets behind him, his face and his heart burning as he had never known them to burn before. A reprimand from an utter stranger! It was some minutes before Billy turned and walked slowly away down the street, hardly knowing where he meant to go. It had been bad enough to think of going home and reporting his failure. Now, he felt as if he had been whipped, and for something too downright disgraceful to report at all. Who the man might be, or how he had happened to see and hear the application to Mr. Jaynes, Billy did not know. It was very strange that he should have gone out of his way to denounce an action that did not concern him. It was certainly very officious of him. The town in which Billy lived was a large one. It seemed improbable that he would ever meet the stranger again. He would be unlikely ever again to see Mr. Jaynes of the Carrigan Construction Company. Billy had heard of the vacant position through a man his father knew in the Carrigan office. That man need hear only that Billy had not secured the place. What did the fellow mean when he said, "You've started a reputation!"? "A reputation as a cheat!" Billy said half aloud involuntarily. "It's so. They saw; both of them saw through me. I'm a cheap little shirk, and I'm not worth any one's ten dollars a week. And they both know it." The boy was stung to the quick. His conscience was stirred. "I must go and get a place to work somewhere, now," he thought. "I must! I've got to prove that chap wrong." He hurried on, thinking, planning, squirming under the memory of the rebuke he had received. Then it occurred to him that the criticism, if not merely an ill-natured affront, must have had a friendly impulse. "He told me where my mistake was," he said to himself. "What did he do it for?" As he remembered it now, there appeared to have been no contempt in the young man's tone. There had been only a sharp incisiveness and an earnest effort to convince. Billy's ideas grew clearer. That last phrase about reputation he must go back and try to change the impression he had created at Carrigan's. He was two miles from the construction company's offices when he reached this conclusion. He remembered Andrew Jaynes's shrewd gaze, and shrank from the prospect of facing it again. But an hour and a half after the talk at the picket fence Billy Lanford stood again at the railing beside Mr. Jaynes's desk. "I came back, Mr. Jaynes," he said. The manager's gray eyes narrowed in puzzled fashion for an instant; then he asked: "What for?" "Because I - I'm ashamed of having applied as I did of thinking only about the salary, and not about the work. I a man who heard me talk to you told me I showed what I was thinking of, by that. And I came back to square myself." Mr. Jaynes leaned back in his chair. "And you came back here to tell me this?" "Yes, sir." Billy flushed. "The timekeeper's job was filled this morning." "Then why do you suppose I care anything about you or your application?” Billy felt rebuffed. "I haven't any idea you do,” he answered. "But I'd like you to know that I did have a decent idea of earning the money I want to get." Mr. Jaynes wrote a few words on a slip of paper and then pointed to a glass door across the office. "Take this to Mr. Walter Carrigan, in that room," he said. Billy took the slip and obeyed the direction. He knocked at the glass door and opened it. Then he stood still with amazement. The man standing by a window was the man who had talked to him in the street. "Are you are you Mr. Carrigan?" stammered Billy. "I knew you would if you had any self-respect. That's why I said what I did to you. I thought you looked like a boy who only needed waking up." Billy stood silent a moment. Then he said, “Mr. CarriI know the timekeeper's job is filled, but I want a chance to show you gan, to Mr. Carrigan smiled, as Billy hesitated and stopped. "I am quite sure you do," he answered. "That's why you came back. And I think I can find a place for a boy who feels that way." CLASS ACTIVITIES 1. What qualities in Billy led the younger Carrigan to employ him? Was Carrigan a wise employer? Explain. Read the paragraph which contains Carrigan's strongest criticism of Billy. 2. Give examples of some good reputations started by boys and girls while they were in your school. What had they to sell? What qualities that Billy lacked have you to sell? 3. Did Billy expect to get the job when he went back? Read parts to support your answer. 4. What traits would have attracted an employer in Ernest of “The Great Stone Face," p. 411, Book One; Abraham Lincoln; George Washington; Sheard's "Postmen," p. 256; Henry Monk; Gannet; Cyrus McCormick; Michael Pupin; Benjamin Franklin? 5. Volunteer work. Applicant's list; make a place in your note-book for "What an applicant should remember." Put down all the suggestions that you get during the next few weeks; you should have at least three entries from the preceding selections. ADDITIONAL READINGS. 1. “Finding a Life Work," H. Munsterberg, in McClure's Magazine, 32:389–395. 2. "The Ripe Peach," R. S. Spears, in Scribner's Magazine, 71: 163–173. 3. "My Vocation," G. S. Drury, in The Thoughts of Youth, 168-178. 4. "Finding a Job," E. W. Burgess, in Lessons in Community and National Life, B-8. 2. TO-DAY THOMAS CARLYLE Can you see a reason for including this poem after the preceding selection? So here hath been dawning Another blue Day: Slip useless away? Out of Eternity This new Day is born; Into Eternity, At night, will return. Behold it aforetime No eye ever did: So soon it forever From all eyes is hid. Here hath been dawning Another blue Day: 3. KATHERINE MINNIE J. REYNOLDS Read the story quickly. When you have finished, suggest another title which will show the fitness of this story to be in "Finding One's Work." Katherine seemed to be a sort of leader among her playmates. I used to see them in groups clustered around her, sometimes perfectly silent while she did the talking, again all talking at once, apparently excited. Sometimes she seemed |