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From North Carolina to Southern California Without a Ticket and How I Did It

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<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> Get a Job in a Law Office—Dirty, Ragged Clothes Put Off—Smallpox Starts Me Off Again. It was an afternoon in July that I strolled into Bennett & Williams' law office on Brewery Gulch and asked for a job. A sign in the window read: "Stenographer Wanted." It was in response to this ad I had entered. Right here a description of me might not be out of place. My spring suit had been ruined, and long since discarded for a suit of overalls that I had purchased in Dallas. Hard knocks had rent them in several places, and they were full of train grease. My shoes were worn completely out. For a hat I was wearing a wide-brimmed sombrero, purchased from a Mexican merchant at Alamogordo. I was strapped again, but that was a thing I was getting used to. Taken all in all, I'm sure I looked anything but a stenographer. Williams was typewriting when I entered and asked for the job. He refused to look at the various references I produced, saying they would have no weight with him, but glancing up at me, broke out into a broad smile. [Pg 106] "So you are a shorthand writer, eh! Well, come back to-morrow morning and I'll give you a trial," was the promise, but it was quite easy to see he thought I was more of a tramp than a shorthand writer. Needless to say, though, I went back at the appointed time, and though I failed miserably in getting down the first letters he dictated, I was given the job. "You'll soon get back in practice," he said, "and when you do, your salary will be $125.00 per month." Three days later, as I began to improve, Williams bought me $17.00 worth of clothes and a nice dress suit case. I was also given a $5.00 meal ticket on the English Kitchen, and room rent was paid for me one month in advance at the LeGrand Hotel. Both my employers provided me with spending money from time to time, but the most of this money I saved. I had been in Bisbee nearly three weeks when several cases of smallpox and typhoid fever broke out. Two cases of smallpox broke out in the LeGrand Hotel. Several people deserted the town post-haste, and among the number was myself. I resigned my position as stenographer, and bidding my kindhearted employers and other friends good-bye, I purchased a ticket to Tucson.[Pg 107] It took nearly all my money to buy this ticket, but I didn't like the idea of hoboing to the town I was to make my future home in. I would, at least, have plenty of nice clothes when I got there, and if it came to a pinch about getting something to eat, I could sell some of my clothing. The first thing that met me when I stepped from the train in Tucson was a sandstorm, filling my eyes, ears and nose full of fine dust and covering my clothes. (Sandstorms are of common occurrence in this section.) It is a good deal warmer in Tucson at all times than at Bisbee, for Tucson is 2,000 feet lower. Tucson is on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and is but a few miles from the line of Old Mexico. Climatic conditions render it a most desirable place to live, but owing to Mexican labor competition wages are not as good as at Bisbee. In Tucson the laboring man receives but $2.50 per day for eight hours. (This is just twice what is paid a laborer in North Carolina, South Carolina, or Virginia, however.) Board is cheap in Tucson, $5.00 per week and up. In the West Tucson is called the "lunger" town. The name comes from the large number of people who visit Tucson every winter from all parts of the United States for lung troubles. [Pg 108] It is never cold enough in Tucson to wear an overcoat. There are more hotels and boarding-houses there than in any other city of its size on the globe. One hotel has a large sign up which reads: "Any Day that the Sun Fails to Shine Upon this Hotel, we will Give Our Guests Free Board." It's very seldom they have to give away any of their free board. <hr /> [Pg 109] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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