of my irregular attendance; so that I learned to read after a fashion,
and as for arithmetic, I seemed to understand that naturally. I was a
poor writer, though; and until I was grown I never could actually write
much more than my name. I could always make a stagger at a letter when I
had to by printing with a pen or pencil, and when I did not see my
mother all day on account of her work and mine, I used to print out a
letter sometimes and leave it in a hollow apple-tree which stood before
the house. We called this our post-office. I am not complaining, though,
of my lack of education. I have had a right good chance in life, and
have no reason to complain--except that I wish I could have had a little
more time to play and to be with my mother. It was she, though, that had
the hard time.

By this time I had begun to understand why John Rucker was always so
cross and cruel to my mother. He was disappointed because he had
supposed when he married her that she had property. My father had died
while a lawsuit for the purpose of settling his father's estate was
pending, and Rucker had thought, and so had my mother, that this lawsuit
would soon be ended, and that she would have the property, his share of
which had been left to her by my father's will. I have never known why
the law stood in my mother's way, or why it was at last that Rucker gave
up all hope and vented his spite on my mother and on me. I do not blame
him for feeling put out, for property is property after all, but to
abuse me and my mother shows what a bad man he was. Sometimes he used to
call me a damned little beggar. The first time he did that my mother
looked at him with a kind of lost look as if all the happiness in life
were gone. After that, even when a letter came from the lawyers who were
looking after the case, holding out hope, and always asking for money,
and Rucker for a day or so was quite chipper and affectionate to my
mother in a sickening sort of sneaking way, her spirits never rose so