odd jobs at coal shovelling and longshoring and also in a jute
factory, where I worked from six in the morning until seven at
night. I had planned to join the same lot for another sealing trip
the following year, but somehow I missed them. They sailed away on
the Mary Thomas, which was lost with all hands.

In my fitful school-days I had written the usual compositions, which
had been praised in the usual way, and while working in the jute
mills I still made an occasional try. The factory occupied thirteen
hours of my day, and being young and husky, I wanted a little time
for myself, so there was little left for composition. The San
Francisco Call offered a prize for a descriptive article. My mother
urged me to try for it, and I did, taking for my subject "Typhoon
off the Coast of Japan." Very tired and sleepy, knowing I had to be
up at half-past five, I began the article at midnight and worked
straight on until I had written two thousand words, the limit of the
article, but with my idea only half worked out. The next night,
under the same conditions, I continued, adding another two thousand
words before I finished, and then the third night I spent in cutting
out the excess, so as to bring the article within the conditions of
the contest. The first prize came to me, and the second and third
went to students of the Stanford and Berkeley Universities.

My success in the San Francisco Call competition seriously turned my
thoughts to writing, but my blood was still too hot for a settled
routine, so I practically deferred literature, beyond writing a
little gush for the Call, which that journal promptly rejected.

I tramped all through the United States, from California to Boston,
and up and down, returning to the Pacific coast by way of Canada,