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54

That summer of 1914, for some reason never explained to me, we did not return to Lake Clear but went to Richfield Springs, N.Y., a sort of health resort and watering place a few miles south of Herkimer, N.Y., where we put up at one of the big resort hotels right on the main street where you could sit on the big, long porch and watch the town go by. There was nothing at all to do there as I remember the place [[underlined]]except[[/underlined]] that it had a excellent golf course and this may have been the attraction. We took the train to Utica and then took an interurban car from there to Richfield Springs. I don't think that we stayed there long, maybe a couple of weeks, and I believe my father stayed with us the entire time because I find none of the usual letter in connection with this trip. It was a most unmemorable trip, which was too bad because it was the last trip the three of us ever took together. I realize this trip occurered right at the start of World War I but I can't see how that could have had any appreciable effect on where we took our vacation that summer. On the other hand, I should recognize that what was an unmemorable vacation to me, may have been a very memorable one to my parents, and particularly to my father if the golf was good. At any rate, Richfield Springs was the last of the long series of trips and vacations we took together. 

IX

During these formative years, I was gradually acquiring what I suppose might be called a social consciousness as well as an awareness of some of the unpleasant realities of life. In fact, I'm aafraid I was becoming a bit of a snob in some respects although getting away from that attitude in others. I was too young on McLennan Avenue to have such notions but after moving to Highland Avenue, I was getting old enough to beign to absorb ideas and get impressions. While we weren't rich, we lived quite well for the times, always having a cook who lived in, as well as part time help for the other domestic chores. And next door, at the Halsteds, where I spent a lot of time and ate with the,m periodically, I was exposed directly to the very top of upper middle-class life. The Halsteds had a seamstress named Katherine Koppel who lived in a very modest little house on Butternut Street in the German section. She was a fine young woman how, I should judge, was trying to help support her elderly parents and who was always very nice to Jimmie and me. On at least one occasion, Katherine took Jimmie and me down to her house for a brief visit, an hour or so, and that little home, which contrasted so strongly with the homes I had become used to, was my first introduction to how the other half lives; it began driving home a feeling of class consciousness such as nothing else had done up to that time. I was fond of Katherine Koppel but I recognized that she was of another segment of society. I was too young to have such ideas about our Indian cook, Annie Chubb, although I have the haziest recollection of once having at least