So my procedure would be this: After my entry in the diary, I would read a page from “The Life of Calvin,” then one of the romantic legends from the appendix to the Koran, always, of course, after I had dutifully read one of the chapters on “The Ant,” “Al Hejr,” “Thunder,” “The Troops,” “The Genii” or an equally exciting title like the “Cleaving Asunder,” the context of which, however, was generally very dull and undramatic. After the Koran I would pass to “The History of The Ancient World” and try to memorize a list of the islands of the Grecian group before the power of Hellas waned. By this time, though, I was usually unfit to proceed, save as I went into the kitchen and sprinkled water on my burning forehead; dizzy spells and weakness of the eyes would seize hold of me, and I would have to pause in utter dejection and think how grand it must be to be in college where one did not have to work ten and a half hours in a vitiated atmosphere, doing hard labor, before one sat down to study. Sometimes I would say: “No wonder college people get ahead so well--they have the chance. What’s the use of trying?” And at that dangerous moment of doubt, “Poor Boys who became Famous” would loom so large that I would renew my ambitions, and sit down once more to finish my study. The grammar and the arithmetic I studied in the mill during any minute that I could snatch from my work. I needed help on those subjects, and I could ask questions of the College Graduate Scrubber. Sometimes I would vary the order, and read the theological definitions from “Cruden’s Concordance,” or the scriptural proofs of great doctrines in “The Biblical Theology,” with a page or two from the law trial in which “Paul Revere” had a part. Whenever I managed to get in a good night of study without suffering in doing it, I would try to astonish the College Graduate Scrubber with a parade of what I had memorized. I would get him at a moment when he was especially indulgent with his time and say: “Did you ever read in the Koran about that legend of Abraham, when he saw the stars for the first time and thought about there being one God?” And the Scrubber would look at me in astonishment and confess, “I never read that book. What is it?” “Why, didn’t you have it to read in college?” I would ask in amaze. “It’s the Turk’s Bible, and has the word ‘God’ in it the most times you ever saw!” “They don’t read that in college,” he would answer. One day, when I was asking him to name over the islands of Greece, with their ancient names--to memorize which I had been working for some time--he lifted up his mop, made a dab at my bare legs, and stormed, “Sonny, you’re too fresh. Get away from here.” Seeing that he did not seem especially sympathetic towards my ambitious effort to be “learned,” I let him alone, consoling myself with the thought, “Well, how can you expect a college graduate to bother with you? Mind your own affairs, and some day you might get to college.”