Little Abe

The probability is that there was something in the kind of treatment Abe met with in both those cases that helped to set his mind so much against the life of an apprentice away from home. All masters in those days were not particularly kind in their manners towards apprentices: some honourable exceptions could easily be found no doubt, but as a rule, boys in such positions were not very kindly used; hard work from early morning to late at night, hard fare at meal times, hard cuffs between meals, and a hard bed with scanty covering at nights,--it was no very enviable position for a you