were many and we would repay him for the fatherly care he had
given us. But he was a proud man (as all muscular men are), and
he could find no comfort in the thought of being supported by his
sons. I am glad he never had to be. Independence has made his old
age happy and he has proved that a worker, if he keeps his
health, can provide for his old age and bring up a big family
too.

We older boys left home and hunted work elsewhere. I was young
and not bothered about working conditions or living conditions. I
was so vigorous that I could work under any conditions, and old
age was so far away that I was not worried about a home for my
declining years. Wages was my sole problem. I wanted steady
wages, and of course I wanted the highest I could get. To find
the place where wages were to be had I was always on the go. When
a mill closed I did not wait for it to reopen, but took the first
train for some other mill town. The first train usually was a
freight. If not, I waited for a freight, for I could sleep better
in a freight car than in a Pullman--it cost less. I could save
money and send it to mother, then she would not have to sell her
feather beds.

All of this sounds nobler than it was. In those days workers
never traveled on passenger trains unless they could get a pass.
Judges and statesmen pursued the same policy. To pay for a ticket
was money thrown away; so thought the upper classes and the lower
classes. About the only people that paid car fare were the
Knights of Pythias on their way to their annual convention.
Railroad workers could get all the passes they wanted, and any
toiler whose sister had married a brakeman or whose second cousin