THROUGH THE SCHOOL [Illustration: I APPEARED BEFORE THE PRESIDENT CONSIDERABLY UNNERVED] THROUGH THE SCHOOL _THE EXPERIENCES OF A MILL BOY IN SECURING AN EDUCATION_ BY AL PRIDDY _Author of: Through the Mill: The Life of a Mill Boy_ [Illustration] THE PILGRIM PRESS BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO COPYRIGHT, 1912 BY LUTHER H. CARY Published, September, 1912 THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS [W · D · O] NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A TO W. H. S. _In the same terms and pictures I would employ were I in the cheer of his parson’s study giving my experiences by word of mouth._ _Preface_ These forty chapters of absolutely real autobiography are intended to give the reader faith in American education and to reconstruct the human struggles and tests of character which attend the progress of the poor but ambitious lads through a formal education for life. _Contents_ CHAPTER I PAGE _Fifteen Dollars and Sixty-five Cents Worth of International Travel. An Inspiring Reception in Front of Chief Pungo Memorial Hall_ 3 CHAPTER II _I Help a Real Poet to Sing his Hymn. My First Chance and How I Succeeded with it_ 24 CHAPTER III _Thropper’s Puff Tie. Sounds That Passed in the Night. The Possible Advantages of Speaking Tubes. The Scroll of Divine History. The Meditations of a Saint. How Thropper Lost his Pious Reputation_ 36 CHAPTER IV _Thundering Gymnastics. How to Keep on the Good Side of the Young Women with Scriptural Quotations. The Establishment of Friendship. Carrying Water for Beauty. How Music may be Something More than Music. The Wonderful, Austere M an that Thropper led me to_ 44 CHAPTER V _Pungo Hall’s Occupants: Estes Who Planned to Take a Tent and Plant it in the Midst of The World’s Sin; of The Little Man Who Fled from the Chidings of a ‘D.D.’: of Calloused Hands and Showing How “Pa” Borden was Beaten by the Grass Widower with The Long Hair_ 58 CHAPTER VI _A Financial Pessimism Taken in Hand by Thropper and Shown in its Real Light. A Turkish Rug that Smoked. A Poet in Search of Kerosene. The Wonderful Antics of an Ironing-Board. Economy at a Tub and Three Waiting for it After Brock’s Bath. The Chemical Reduction of a Cauldron of Tomatoes into Something Sweet_ 67 CHAPTER VII