Being but a boy and naturally very sympathizing, it really seemed as if my heart would break to think of leaving my dear old home for good, but stern necessity compelled me, and I was forced to obey.
The first year after leaving home I was at work on a farm, and almost every day when alone in the fields would burst into tears--not because I had to work, but because my father was dead whom I loved, and our happy family separated and broken up never to live together again.

In my new place I was kept at work very hard, and at the age of fourteen did almost the work of a man.

It was a very lonely place where we lived, and nothing to interest a child of my age.

The people I lived with seemed to me as very old, though they were probably not more than thirty-six years of age, and felt no particular interest in me, more than to keep me constantly at work, early and late, in all kinds of weather, of which I never complained.

I have many times worked all day in the woods, chopping down trees, with my shoes filled with snow; never had a pair of boots till I was more than twenty years old.