Out of his wage he supported my mother and my brother Henry, who was two years younger than I.My sister Pamela helped in this support by taking piano pupils.

Thus we got along, but it was pretty hard sledding.

I was not one of the burdens, because I was taken from school at once, upon my father's death, and placed in the office of the Hannibal "Courier," as printer's apprentice, and Mr.S., the editor and proprietor of the paper, allowed me the usual emolument of the office of apprentice--that is to say board and clothes, but no money.
The clothes consisted of two suits a year, but one of the suits always failed to materialize and the other suit was not purchased so long as Mr.S.'s old clothes held out.

I was only about half as big as Mr.S., consequently his shirts gave me the uncomfortable sense of living in a circus tent, and I had to turn up his pants to my ears to make them short enough.
There were two other apprentices.

One was Steve Wilkins, seventeen or eighteen years old and a giant.