Then the greatest light of all came--flooded me. _Leave the mill at any cost!_ Stop right where I was; quibble no more, offend all, risk all, but _get away from the mill_! It was all so simple after all! Why had I not worked it out before? _Leave home! Have all I earned to save for my education!_ That was my emancipation proclamation, and I started to follow it. First of all, I went to the overseer in that dingy room and told him frankly that the work he had given me to do was too hard for me. I could not keep it up. I also told him I did not care to leave just then, but, if he had any easier work in the room--doffing, for instance--I should like to continue. He did not receive this declaration with any expression of reproach, as I had expected, but said simply: “You go to work back-boying on those first three mules. You’ll make as much money by it as at anything in here.” This first break made, how easily all others followed, as if they had been waiting around all the time! It was just at this time that I met a young fellow who had come back to the city to spend his vacation from study at a university in the Middle West. To him I told all my thoughts concerning getting away from the mill. I said: “I wonder if I went out where you go to college, and worked at something for a time, just to be away from mills, whether in time I might not have money enough on hand to be able to start on _my_ way towards an education?” “How much do you think you would have to save?” he asked, smilingly. “Why--why, hundreds of dollars, isn’t it?” “Do you think so, Al?” “Why, certainly.” “And how long would you work to save up?” “Oh,” I replied, “that depends upon what I get to do and how much I could put by.” “Suppose, Al, that you could go right out and start right in with school at the university--it has a preparatory course--and work your way along, what would you say?” “You mean, jump right in now, this year?” He nodded. “But it’s all I can do to board and clothe myself by working hard in the mill. I couldn’t by any means work hard enough to pay for going through a school.” “How much would you be willing to--oh, Al, you’re all wrong about the cost. I tell you, old fellow, you can get through a year at my place on a hundred dollars: board, tuition--” “What’s that?” “Teaching and room and heat. All the rest of your expenses won’t amount to over fifty dollars, if you’re careful.” I gazed on him, open-mouthed, for I thought he was laughing at me. “Say--you aren’t kidding me, are you? All that is straight--about being so--so cheap?” “Why, yes, it’s all true enough. I think you can manage it too, Al. I’ll do my best to speak a word for you. Get ready to go in three weeks, no matter how much money you have. I think you’ll be able to get some outside work to do at the university, to work your way through and meet expenses.”