Our friends thought the baby would bring Mary and me
closer together, as it sometimes does. But what did I care for a baby!
I got work on Jake Sharp's Twenty-third Street cars, and Mary would
bring me my dinner and do everything she could for me. But when drink is
the idol--and it was mine--what does one care for love? Nothing. I
certainly led Mary a hard life. At last I came home one night and she
and the kid were gone. The baby was then two months old, and I never saw
him again until he was a boy of nine. I was not sorry at their going. I
wasn't any good in those days. I imagined I was "done dirty," as they
say, but I knew the girl couldn't do anything else for herself and baby.
I sold out the little furniture the rooms contained, got a few dollars,
and jumped the town.
WANDERINGS
I started out with every one's hand against me and mine against every
one's. I struck Marathon, N. Y., and had quite a time there. I worked in
Dumphy's tannery, got a few weeks' pay and a few other articles, and
jumped out for fear of being arrested. I reached Syracuse and struck a
job in McChesney's lumberyard, at $1.35 per day.
I stayed in Syracuse quite a while and learned a little of the lumber
business.
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