One night when I came back from the laundry, I missed him.  Nobody had seen him.  All night I searched for him, but did not find him.  In the early morning I met him coming home.  He said a man who kept a bowling alley had hired him at fifty cents a week to set up the pins, and it was in the bowling alley he had been all night.  He said the man let him take a nap on his coat when he got sleepy.  I went at once to see this man, and told him not to hire my nephew again.  A lady who kept a hotel offered me two dollars a week for Lawrence’s services in helping the cook and serving in the help’s dining-room.  When the season closed, the lady who hired Lawrence was very reluctant to let him go.

We went back to Newport to see the landlady from whom I had hired the house, and I paid such part of the rent as I could.  Then I packed my things and started for Boston.  On reaching there, I kept such of my things as I needed, and stored the rest, and took a furnished room.  In about a week’s time I went to see the husband of the lady for whom I had worked at Wellesley Hills just previous to my departure for the South.  He had told me to let him know when I returned to Boston.  He said a man and his wife were at present employed at his farm, but he didn’t know how long they would stay.  Before another week had passed, this gentleman sent for me.  He said his wife wanted me to go out to the farm, and that I could have Lawrence with me.  The boy, he said, could help his wife with the poultry, and could have a chance to go to school.  I was promised three dollars and a half a week, and no washing to do.  I was told that the farm had been offered for sale, and of course it might change hands any day.  I was promised, however, that I should lose nothing by the change.

Lawrence was very lonely at the farm, with no companions, and used to sit and cry.

The place was sold about ten weeks after I went there, and I came into Boston to look about for a restaurant, leaving Lawrence at the farm.  When the home was broken up, the owners came to the Revere House, Boston.  Barrels of apples, potatoes and other provisions were given to me.

I found a little restaurant near the Providence depot for sale.  I made arrangements at once to buy the place for thirty-five dollars, and the next day I brought Lawrence and my things from Wellesley Hills.  I paid two dollars a week rent for my little restaurant, and did very well.  The next spring I sold the place for fifty dollars, in time to get a place at the beach for the summer.

Lawrence got a position in a drug store, and kept it four years.  Then he went to Hampton College, Hampton, Va.  After finishing there, he came back and then went to the World’s Fair in Chicago.  After that he took a position on one of the Fall River line boats.  At the outbreak of the Spanish War, he enlisted in Brooklyn as powderman on the battleship Texas.  He was on the Texas when the first shot was fired.  He was present at the decoration of the graves of the American soldiers in Havana, and also at the decoration of the battleship Maine after she was raised.  After the war, he came to Brooklyn and got an honorable discharge.  Then he served as valet to a rich New York man, who travelled a good deal.  About the middle of last November (1906) Lawrence came to Boston to see me.  He is now in Atlantic City, a waiter in the Royal Hotel.