forgive. But so it was always. My mother never failed to understand me,
which my father seemed rarely able to do. If I did ill he used the strap
with little mercy, but neither in these early years, nor in those which
followed, did he ever give me a word of praise. Many years afterward I
found a guinea in a folded paper, laid away in my father's desk. On the
outer cover he had written, "This belongs to Hugh. He were better without
it."

My mother scarce ever let slip her little French expletives or phrases in
my father's hearing. He hated all French things, and declared the language
did not ring true--that it was a slippery tongue, in which it was easy to
lie. A proud, strong man he was in those days, of fixed beliefs, and of
unchanging loyalty to the king. In his own house he was feared by his son,
his clerks, and his servants; but not by my mother, who charmed him, as she
did all other men, and had in most things her desire.

Outside of his own walls few men cared to oppose him. He was rich, and
coldly despotic; a man exact and just in business, but well able, and as
willing, to help with a free hand whatever cause was of interest to
Friends. My Aunt Gainor, a little his senior, was one of the few over whom
he had no manner of control. She went her own way, and it was by no means
his way, as I shall make more clear by and by.

Two days later I was taken to the academy, or the college, as some called
it, which is now the university. My father wrote my name, as you may see it
in the catalogue, and his own signature, with the date of 6th month 4th,
1765. Beneath it is the entry of John Warder and his father, Joseph; for
Jack had also been removed from Dove's dominion because of what my father
said to Joseph, a man always pliable, and advised to do what larger men
thought good. Thus it came about that my friend Jack and I were by good