“I never thought,” said Mrs. Whitman, “that he would talk so much as that; or that he knew so much about any kind of business.”
“Why mother, he knows more than I do, if I am his teacher.”
“I asked him why he, and the men who came over in the vessel with him, couldn’t work in England and get their living, instead of going to the poorhouse, or selling themselves to come over and work.”
“What did he say to that?” inquired the father.
“He said there were so many folks wanted to work, there was no work for them, and because there were so many, the farmers would only give those they did hire just enough to keep alive; and if they were taken sick, or lame, or had no work, they must go to the workhouse.
“He said they used to send him away to farmers, and they would keep him all summer, make him work very hard, and not give him half so much to eat as he had at the workhouse, and after they got their harvest all in, carry him back and say he was good for nothing, so as not to keep him in the winter.
“I asked him if the workhouse folks ever drove him off, he said no, but it seemed so much like begging to ask them, that rather than do it he had gone three days without anything but water and a little milk.
“I asked him how he came to think of coming here. He said he knew winter was coming on, he had no work, no clothes, and not a friend in the world, and one day after the rest of the boys had been abusing him and calling him a fool, and showing him things they had stolen, he put some stones in his pocket and went down to the water to kill himself, but something told him not to, and he flung ‘em away. And the next day Mr. Wilson came along and asked him to go to America, and he thought he couldn’t be in any worse place, and couldn’t suffer any more so he came.”
“What did you say to that?”
“Father, I’d rather not tell.”