"After my father died, my mother stayed where she was till Christmas.
Then she moved back to the place she came from. We went to farming. My
brother and my uncle went and farmed up in Hancock County; so the next
year we moved up there. We stayed there and farmed for a long while. My
mother married three years afterwards. We still farmed. After awhile, I
got to be sixteen years old and I wouldn't work with my stepfather, I
told my mother to hire me out; if she didn't I would be gone. She hired
me out all right. But the old man used all my money. The next year I
made it plain to her that I wanted her to hire me out again but that
nobody was to use a dollar of my money. My mother could get as much of
it as she wanted but he couldn't. The first year I bought a buggy for
them. The old man didn't want me to use it at all. I said, 'Well then,
he can't use my money no more.' But I didn't stop helping him and giving
him things. I would buy beef and give it to my mother. I knew they would
all eat it. He asked me for some wheat. I wouldn't steal it like he
wanted me to but I asked the man I was working for for it. He said,
'Take just as much as you want.' So I let him come up and get it. He
would carry it to the mill.