of factory whistles. Everybody was aroused. Some of the people lying
around were going to work there; and I thought I might get a job also,
so I followed them. On the way we came to a coffee stall, and as I was
nearly fainting with hunger, I stood in front of it to get the smell
of the coffee and fresh bread, for that does a fellow a heap of good
when he's got nothing in his stomach. A man with a square paper hat on
looked at me, and said:

"'What's up, little 'un?'

"I said nothing was up except that I was hungry. Then he stepped up to
the coffee-man and gave him some money, and I got a bun and a mug of
coffee. It seemed to me that I had never been so happy in all my life
as with the feeling I got from that bun and coffee--but then, I had
been a good many days without food.

"There was no work to be had at the factory near the bridge, so I went
back to the docks. At night I slept with a lot of other fellows under
a big canvas cover that kept the rain from some goods lying at the
docks ready to be shipped. I think there must have been as many
fellows under that big cover as there were piles of goods. It was
while there that I thought for the first time very seriously about my
mother, and I began to cry. The other fellows heard me and kicked me
from under the cover; but that did not help my crying, however. I
smothered a good deal of it and walked up and down by the side of the
river all night. My eyes were swollen, and I was feeling very badly
when a sailor noticed me. He had been to sea and had just returned
home. He talked a lot about life on a ship--said if he were a boy, he
would not hang around the docks; he would go to sea.