After reaching New York we went to mother’s house and stayed there until we got rooms, which we did in a few days.  Mary’s brother got work in a lumberyard.  I hunted as usual for a job, praying I wouldn’t get it.  I went hustling lumber and worked two days, leaving because it took the skin off my hands.  Finally I could not pay the rent, was dispossessed, and then went to live in “Hell’s Kitchen,” in Thirty-ninth Street, where my son was born.  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.  I had quite a few adventures while there.  I had struck up an acquaintance with a New York boy, and one evening after work we were sitting on the grass in front of one of the hotels, and seeing the patrol wagon passing, I made the remark, “Some poor bum is going to get a ride,” when it pulled up in front of us and we were told to get in.  I tried to argue the point with the captain, but it was of no use.  We were taken to the station, and the others were sent below while I was kept up for examination.  They put me through a light “third degree,” measuring me and noting the color of hair and eyes, size of feet, etc.

Finally they stopped measuring and asking questions, and I waited.  I saw my friend come up and go out of the door; he did not take time to bid me good-by.  I asked the captain if he was through with me, and he did not know what to say.  He apologized, and explained that I had been arrested because I looked like a man that had escaped from Auburn.

I felt rather sorry for the captain, not because I was not the escaped prisoner, but because he was so nervous.  I could not leave him without a jolly, so I said, “Captain, if you’ll come up to the corner I’ll treat,” patting my pocket in which I had a few pennies.  He thanked me and said, “No.”  I met the captain every night taking his men as far as Salina Street, and we always saluted one another.