He grubbed on a tiny ancestral farm, for a living for himself and wife and four children, young as he was.

He had never had enough to eat, at least of proper food.

He did not come to the "Tonsorial Parlor" to be shaved, for he hacked away at his innocent cheeks at home with his deceased father's old razor, but he loved a little gossip.

In fact, John Flynn's barber-shop was his one dissipation.
Sometimes he looked longingly at a beer-saloon, but he had no money, unless he starved Minna and the children, and for that he was too good and too timid.

His Minna was a stout German girl, twice his size, and she ruled him with a rod of iron.