When large enough to handle a hoe, or a bundle of rye, I was kept at work on the farm.

The only opportunity I had for attending school was in the winter season, and then only about three months in the year, and at a very poor school.
When I was nine years old, my father took me into the shop to work, where I soon learned to make nails, and worked with him in this way until his death, which occurred on the fifth of October, 1804.

For two or three days before he died, he suffered the most excruciating pains from the disease known as the black colic.

The day of his death was a sad one to me, for I knew that I should lose my happy home, and be obliged to leave it to seek work for my support.

There being no manufacturing of any account in the country, the poor boys were obliged to let themselves to the farmers, and it was extremely difficult to find a place to live where they would treat a poor boy like a human being.
Never shall I forget the Monday morning that I took my little bundle of clothes, and with a bursting heart bid my poor mother good bye.
I knew that the rest of the family had got to leave soon, and I perhaps never to see any of them again.