MacGregor had sandy, scanty hair, a tiny white shadow of a moustache, kindly, weak eyes, a forehead prematurely wrinkled with minute, horizontal lines. Burns ... of course ... he knew and quoted every line to me. And _Sentimental Tommy_ and _Tommy and Grizel_. * * * * * In a week I was left in full possession of the nature restaurant. Barton had been rendered slightly paring and mean, in matters of money,--by smooth individuals who came to him, glowing with words of what they could effect for him, in this or that project--individuals who soon decamped, leaving Barton the poorer, except in experience. In return he had to retrench. But the retrenchments fell in the place where the penny, not the dollar, lay. He practised economy on me. He gave me only ten dollars a week, board and room free, as cook; and also I was to wait on the diners, as well as prepare the meals. Nevertheless the fault for having two jobs at once thrust on me, rested partly with me: when he asked me if I was able to do both, I fell into a foolish, boasting mood and said "yes." MacGregor figured out my menu for me a week ahead, the day he left: "Anyhow, you'll only last a week," he joked. The night before the first breakfast I lay awake all night, worrying ... hadn't I better just sneak away with daylight?... no, I must return to Mt. Hebron in the fall. Though all I wanted to return for was to show the school, that, in spite of my spindly legs, I could win my "H" in track athletics. I must make good at this job, and save ... my grandmother, who had sent me money the previous year, I must not call on her again. And I did not count on my father ... for he was strenuously in the saddle to a grass widow, the one who had lured him to change boarding houses, and she was devouring his meagre substance like the Scriptural locust. * * * * * That first breakfast was a nightmare. I "practised breakfast" from three o'clock till six ... by six I had started another breakfast, and by seven, after having spoiled and burned much food, I was tolerably ready for customers ... who seemed, at that hour, to storm the place. * * * * * It is not necessary to go into detail. In three days I was through. And I had my first fight with Barton. * * * * * I was back in my army tent once more, free, with my Shelley, my Keats, my manuscript.... In despair of ever returning to Hebron, once more I lay under starry nights, dreaming poetry and comparing myself to all the Great Dead.... With the top of the tent pulled back to let the stars in, I lay beneath the gigantic, marching constellations overhead--under my mosquito netting--and wrote poems under stress of great inspiration ... at times it seemed that Shelley was with me in my tent--a slight, grey form ... and little, valiant, stocky Keats, too. * * * * *