A man who wants to see the world
Has little comfort there;
And there 'tis hard to pay the rent,
For all you dig and delve,
But there's hope beyond the Mountains
For a little Man of Twelve."
—From The Man of Twelve.
When the following May came round, I had been working at the turnip-thinning with a neighbouring man, and one evening I came back to my own home in the greyness of the soft dusk. It had been a long day's work, from seven in the morning to nine of the clock at night. A boy can never have too much time to himself and too little to do, but I was kept hard at work always, and never had a moment to run about the lanes or play by the burns with other children. Indeed, I did not care very much for the company of boys of my own age. Because I was strong for my years I despised them, and in turn I was despised by the youths who were older than myself. "Too-long-for-your-trousers" they called me, and I believe that I merited the nickname, for I wished ever so much to grow up quickly and be able to carry a creel of peat like Jim Scanlon, or drive a horse and cart with Ned O'Donnel, who lived next door but one to my father's house.
Sometimes I would go out for a walk with these two men on a Sunday afternoon, that is, if they allowed me to accompany them. I listened eagerly to every word spoken by them and used to repeat their remarks aloud to myself afterwards. Sometimes I would speak like them in my own home.
"Isn't it a shame the way Connel Diver of the hill treats his wife," I said to my father and mother one day. "He goes out in the evening and courts Widow Breslin when he should stay at home with his own woman."