e "aar Abe
may be mester hissen;" they however saw that it was of no use pressing
him to go back, and so they compromised the matter by setting about to
find him another master. Abe was again despatched from home with many
a kind word of advice, and the hope that he would mind his work, learn
the trade, and turn out to be a good man. But what was their surprise
and pain at the end of about a week to see Abe walk into the house
again with a bundle in his hand. "Oh, Abe, my lad, what's brought thee
here so sooin? what's ta gotton in th' bundle?" exclaimed his mother.
"Why, gotton my things to be sure; I couldn't leave them behind when
I'm going back no maar;" and sure enough he had come home with the
information as before, he didn't like being bound to any man.

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 youth to occupy, and certainly not one
to which a spirited lad would quietly submit. It may be that Abe,
during the short probations he had served at these two places, had
learnt too much of the ways of the establishments for so young a
hireling, and found they would not suit his peculiar tastes, and
therefore he decided twice over to return home, bringing his bundle of
clothes without giving any explanations or notice to any one.

Be that as it may, here he was at home again a second time, much to the
annoyance of his father, who was bent upon the lad learning some
handicraft. Abe remained at home a short time, when one day his father
told him he had got another place for him, with an excellent man, who
would take him a little while on trial, and if they liked each other he
might then be indentured. His father had been at some trouble to find
a master farther away from home, in the hope that when once Abe was a
good way off he might be induced to stay; in this he was acting on the
principle that the power of attraction is weakened by a wider radius,
which may be correct when app