There's nobody so mean as a father.

Mine makes me work every day an' never gives me a penny an' licks me whenever I do anything that I want to.

I've made up my mind to run away from home." After a moment of silence he exclaimed: "Gosh! It's awful lonesome here! Gee whittaker! this is the worst place I ever saw!" I tried to think of something that I could say for it.
"We have got a new corn sheller," I said, rather timidly.
"I don't care about your corn shellers," he answered with a look of scorn.
He took a little yellow paper-covered book from his pocket and began to read to himself.
I felt thoroughly ashamed of the place and sat near him and, for a time, said nothing as he read.
"What's that ?" I ventured to ask by and by.
"A story," he answered.

"I met that ragged ol' woman in the road t'other day an' she give me a lot of 'em an' showed me the pictures an' I got to readin' 'em.

Don't you tell anybody 'cause my ol' dad hates stories an' he'd lick me 'til I couldn't stan' if he knew I was readin' 'em." I begged him to read out loud and he read from a tale of two robbers named Thunderbolt and Lightfoot who lived in a cave in the mountains.
They were bold, free, swearing men who rode beautiful horses at a wild gallop and carried guns and used them freely and with unerring skill, and helped themselves to what they wanted.
He stopped, by and by, and confided to me the fact that he thought he would run away and join a band of robbers.
"How do you run away ?" I asked.
"Just take the turnpike and keep goin' toward the mountains.