The following morning, an early breakfast over, Hamilton started on the
journey to his enumeration district, stopping at the office for a
moment's chat with his friend the supervisor, and receiving his
good-luck wishes before he went. The mare was a delight, being
well-paced, and the horseman from whom Hamilton had bought the animal
had taken a great deal of pains to get him a saddle tree that fitted
him, so that the boy enjoyed every minute of the ride. He reached the
first point in his district about one o'clock, and after a hasty dinner
started to work. The place was a tiny village, containing about forty
houses.
The population work, as Hamilton had expected, proved to be
comparatively simple, and the first house he visited was a fair sample
of the greater number of those he tabulated all through the month. As a
typical example it impressed itself upon his memory. He began next door
to the house where he had eaten dinner. The natural privacy of a home
was quite different from the public nature of a factory, and Hamilton
felt a little strange as he walked up to the door and knocked.
"Good-morning," he said, as soon as the door was opened, "I'm the
census-taker and I called for the paper that was sent for you to fill
in.
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