My first job was milking a cow and taking care of a horse, for board and room.... The man for whom I worked was an old, retired farmer. The disagreeable part of taking care of horses and cows is the smell. My clothes, my room, even the skin of my body, soon reeked with the faint yet penetrating odour of stable and barn. But I was happy. Many great men had done as I was doing. Always trust me to dramatise every situation! I arranged my meagre row of text-books on the shelf in my attic. I set Keats apart in a sacred nook by himself. I sat humming softly to myself, studying my first lessons. * * * * * "Look," cried a girl, her voice vibrating with the hard sarcasm of youth, "look, there goes Abe Lincoln," to another girl and two boys, who lolled with her on the porch of the house next mine. I was stabbed with a bitter pang of resentment. For my face was thin and weather-beaten ... my sharp, bent knees never straightened as I walked along, like a man going through snow drifts. Yet I held my head erect, ridiculously erect ... and my chest was enormous through over-development, as my arms and legs were thin. * * * * * My first few days at Laurel University brought me that beginning of newspaper notoriety that has since followed me everywhere as a shadow goes with a moving object. And then originated the appellation which has since clung to me, that of "The Vagabond Poet." One morning, when I was hardly awake, there came a knock at my door. "Just a moment," I called, getting into my shirt and trousers, "who is it?" "A reporter to interview you." I opened the door to admit a pale, young chap, who expertly flirted the ashes off a cigarette as he said, leaning his head sidewise, that he represented the Kansas City _Star_. As he spoke his keen grey eyes looked me over impartially, but with intelligent, friendly interest. Though he was dressed in the student's conventional style, even to the curiously nicked and clipped soft hat then predominant, there was still about him an off-handedness, an impudent at-homeness that bespoke a wider knowledge, or assumed knowledge, of the world, than the average student possesses. The interview appeared the next afternoon. "VAGABOND POET ARRIVES. LAUREL ENROLLS BOX-CAR STUDENT." It made me a nine days' wonder with the students. I caught the men staring at me, the girls shyly observing me, as I strode from class room to class room.... But the reek of the stable. It went with me like a ghost everywhere. Maybe it was because I had no change of suits ... I saw that it was noticeable to others, and I sat 'way back, in a seat apart, by myself. * * * * * Langworth watched my progress narrowly the first few weeks. One afternoon as I was passing his house he beckoned me in.