.
After he returned he told my mother that we had been invited to join the
colony, and argued that it would be a good thing for us all; but my
mother got very mad at him, and started to walk home leading me by the
hand. She sobbed and cried as we walked along, especially after it grew
late in the afternoon and Rucker had not overtaken us with the horse and
democrat wagon. She seemed insulted, and broken-hearted; and was angry
for the only time I remember. When we at last heard the wagon clattering
along behind us in the woods, we sat down on a big rock by the side of
the road, and Rucker meanly pretended not to see us until he had driven
on almost out of sight. My mother would not let me call out to him; and
I stood shaking my fist at the wagon as it went on past us, and feeling
for the first time that I should like to kill John Rucker. Finally he
stopped and made us follow on until we overtook him, my mother crying
and Rucker sneering at both of us. This must have been when I was nine
or ten years old. The books say that the Oneida Community was
established there in 1847, when I was nine.

Long before this I had been put out by John Rucker to work in a factory
in Tempe. It was a cotton mill run, I think, by the water-power I have
mentioned. We lived in a log house on a side-hill across the road and
above the cotton mill. We had no laws in those days against child labor
or long hours. In the winter I worked by candle-light for two hours
before breakfast. We went to work at five--I did this when I was six
years old--and worked until seven, when we had half an hour for
breakfast. As I lived farther from the mill than most of the children
who were enslaved there, my breakfast-time was very short. At half past
seven we began again and worked until noon, when we had an hour for
dinner. At one o'clock we took up work once more and quit at half past
five for supper. At six we began our last trick and worked until
eight--thirteen hours of actual labor.

I began this so young and did so much of it that I feel sure my growth
was stunted by it--I never grew above five feet seven, though my mother
was a good-sized woman, and she told me that my father was six feet
tall--and my children are all tall. Maybe I should never have been tall
anyhow, as the Dutch are usually broad rather than long. Of course this
life was hard. I was very little when I began watching machines and
tending spindles, and used to cry sometimes because I was s