remember when my hair
was as red as yours." The boy stared at him and passed on.

Although Father lacked delicacy, he did not lack candor or directness.
He would tell a joke on himself with the same glee that he would on
any one else.... I have heard him tell how, in 1844, at the time of the
"anti-renters," when he saw the posse coming, he ran over the hill to
Uncle Daniel's and crawled under the bed, but left his feet sticking
out, and there they found him. He had not offended, or dressed as an
Indian, but had sympathized with the offenders.

He made a great deal of noise about the farm, sending his voice over the
hills (we could hear him calling us to dinner when we were working on
the "Rundle Place," half a mile away), shouting at the cows, the pigs,
the sheep, or calling the dog, with needless expenditure of vocal power
at all times and seasons. The neighbors knew when Father was at home; so
did the cattle in the remotest field. His bark was always to be dreaded
more than his bite. His threats of punishment were loud and severe, but
the punishment rarely came. Never but once did he take a gad to me, and
then the sound was more than the substance. I deserved more than I got:
I had let a cow run through the tall grass in the meadow when I might
easily have "headed her off," as I was told to do. Father used to say
"No," to our requests for favors (such as a day off to go fishing or
hunting) with strong emphasis, and then yield to our persistent coaxing.

One day I was going to town and asked him for money to buy an algebra.
"What is an algebra?" He had never heard of an algebra, and couldn't
see why I needed one; he refused the money, though I coaxed and Mother
pleaded with him. I had left the house and had got as far as the big
hill up there by the pennyroyal rock, when he halloed to me that I might
get the algebra--Mother had evidently been instrumental in bringing him
to terms. But my blood was up by this time, and as I trudged along to
the village I determined to wait until I could earn the money myself
for the algebra, and some other books I coveted. I boiled sap and
made maple-sugar, and the books were all the sweeter by reason of the
maple-sugar money.

When I wanted help, as I did two or three times later, on a pinch.
Father refused me; and, as it turned out, I was the only one of his
children that could or would help him when the pinch came--a curious
retribution, but one that gave me pleasure and him no pa