He paid little attention to me, but I recollect that by the
time we had settled ourselves at Tempe I was afraid of him. Two or three
times he whipped me, but no more severely than was the custom among
parents. Other little boys were whipped just as hard, and still were not
afraid of their fathers. I think now that I was afraid of him because my
mother was. I can not tell how he looked then, except that he was a tall
stooped man with a yellowish beard all over his face and talked in a
sort of whine to others, and in a sharp domineering way to my mother. To
me he scarcely ever spoke at all. At Tempe he had some sort of a shop in
which he put up a dark-colored liquid--a patent medicine--which he sold
by traveling about the country. I remember that he used to complain of
lack of money and of the expense of keeping me; and that my mother made
clothes for people in the village.
Tempe was a little village near the Erie Canal somewhere between Rome
and Syracuse. There was a dam and water-power in Tempe or near there,
which, I think, was the overflow from a reservoir built as a
water-supply for the Erie Canal--but I am not sure. I can not find Tempe
on the map; but many names have been changed since those days. I think
it was farther west than Canastota, but I am not sure--it was a
long time ago.
2
Once, for some reason of his own, and when he had got some money in an
unexpected way, Rucker took my mother and me to Oneida for an outing.
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