not want him to miss school. He later wrote in his memoir about being at the slaughterhouse with his stepfather: I couldn't stand to see what I saw at the slaughterhouse. I would watch wide-eyed as the squealing pigs slid down the iron rails to the cutter where they were slashed through the middle, with the two halves falling into a tank of hot water. The kill sometimes went to as many as four hundred pigs a night. It was a sickening sight to watch. But the cries from the pigs brought forth an emotional excitement. It was another weird but musical sound that I can still hear in my head. The squeaks, the squeals, the dipping them in hot water, they put them on a hook, take off the head, the legs, going down an aisle—I hear it on an oboe. That's what you hear in a symphony: destruction, war, peace, beauty, all mixed. In 1907, the family moved to 90 Bloome Street in Newark. They moved again around 1912, when his stepfather got a new job at Crucible Steel Company, across the Passaic River in Harrison, New Jersey. The job paid more, and Willie was assigned to get him away from work before his bosses got him drunk on his own money. He attended the Baxter School, rumored to be a school for bad children. The school was notorious for brawls among the ethnic Irish, Italian, and African-American children. One day Willie was in Mrs. Black's fruit store and was caught with his hand in her register. According to his memoir, Smith had wanted to borrow a dime to see S.H. Dudley's traveling road show at Blaney's Theater. The owner shocked Willie by turning him over to the police. Mrs. Black's son-in-law was the number three tough guy in Newark; reportedly the family hated policemen and generally wouldn't allow them into their store. Willie was charged in children's court and sentenced to a ten dollar fine and probation. After that incident, he was transferred to Morton School (which had a lot less brawling), and began sixth grade. He attended Barringer High School (then known as Newark High School). In an effort to get the attention of girls, he attempted a variety of sports, including swimming, skating, track, basketball, sledding, cycling, and boxing. He learned to swim in the Morris Canal. Prizefighting was the sport he was most interested