The boy yielded his check, saw his trunk put on the dray, and, after getting directions from the negro, trudged across Railroad Avenue and turned eastward past the row of cheap stores and tenement houses that faced the tracks. There had been a good deal of snow since Christmas and it was still piled high between sidewalk and street. Overhead a gray morning sky threatened more, and there was a nip in the air that made the boy set his bag down before he had traversed a block and slip on a pair of woollen gloves. Behind him a door opened and an appealing odour of coffee and cooking was wafted out to him. As he took up his valise again he looked wistfully through the frost-framed window of the little eating-house and mentally counted up his change. Evidently the result prohibited refreshment, for he went on, the heavy valise dragging and bumping as he walked, and at last turned the corner and struck northward. Here, after a short distance, the buildings became comfortable homes, many of them surrounded by grounds of some extent. From chimneys the gray smoke was ascending in the frosty air and now and then the tantalising vision of a breakfast table met his sight. The sidewalks hereabouts had been cleaned of snow and walking was easier, something the boy was heartily glad of since that valise was gaining in weight at every step. It was not, he was thinking as he trudged along, a very inspiriting morning on which to arrive in a strange place. Perhaps if the sun had been shining Amesville would have seemed less gloomy and inhospitable to him, but as it was he found nothing to like about the city. On the contrary, he was convinced that it was far inferior in every way to Akron and that he would never care for it, no matter how long he stayed there. However, he forgot to take into consideration the fact that he was tired and hungry and cold, neglected to realise that almost any city, approached from its least attractive quarter and viewed in the dim light of a cloudy Winter morning, looks far from its best.