During a lull in the work, one of the married students, who had been given his Ph.B. at commencement asked me to go with him to the outskirts of the village where some eight-inch gas pipes were to be laid. He wanted me to join him at the shovel! At the time I weighed but one hundred and twenty pounds. The foreman put us in a clay ditch under a scalding July sun with a gang of knotted-muscled, tanned Irishmen to whom the picking of dried lumps of clay and the shovelling of heaps of it were mere items of a day’s work to be done mechanically, but for my friend and myself tasks for Titans. The Irishmen at my heels kept passing me, doubling on me, until, after a two days’ attempt, with the lure of twenty-five cents an hour for the prize, my friend with his Ph.B. and I with my ambitions fell out of the race and rode wearily back to the village and to the University, where for days neither of us was fit for even so simple a task as lifting a pound weight; the excessive strain had undermined our strength. While recuperating, I was given food by the superintendent and spent most of my time wandering into the woods or through the sheep pastures where my uppermost thought was: “What is the use of all this? It is weariness and a vanity of the flesh. Give up your education! You must have money and strength, money and strength, money and strength!” And then the thought of my classmates would obtrude itself and I saw them in visions at their tasks, at their homes, in the full enjoyment of work, companionship, and wages. I seemed to hear, borne on the summer wind, above the bleating of the sheep, the exhortations of the evangelists in their tents which were crowded with farmers, paying heed to the gospel, and I was envious of them. I thought of the miners deep under the earth, black with their toil but happy in earning a substantial wage; strong, oh, so strong! My fight for an education, when contrasted with their natural endowments of strength and friendships, seemed puny, futile. In such a way did the black demon Despair lay its sharp claws on my spirit and make it bleed. I would start back across the field, not heeding the innocent, questioning gaze of the sheep as they packed off and watched me go, not watching the swift circlings of the sombre vultures high above my head, but going back to my lonely room feeling that I should never have another flash of happiness flood my life again. Then I would get out the can-opener, uncover a can of beans, and warm them on the stove for supper.