We told him our names and our fathers' names, where we lived, and the rest that the reader knows.
"I don't think you're telling the truth," said the man.
"We have told you the exact truth," I answered, "and my friend David will say the same thing."
"Of course he would do so," was the answer, "but that won't make it true. I believe you're a pair of runaway apprentices, and I'm going to arrest you!"
"We are nothing of the sort," I answered, "we have never been apprenticed to anybody, and we're not running away."
"We'll see about that," was his reply, "get into the hind part of my wagon, and come back to the village."
David and I exchanged glances momentarily, and each shook his head. David said, in a low whisper, "We won't go. It will lose us too much time."
Thereupon I spoke up and answered, "We don't want to ride in your wagon back to the village or anywhere else, and we won't do it. We will keep on our road, and if you choose to bring the sheriff to arrest us you may do so. We warn you beforehand, that we shall demand that our expenses shall be paid if you find out that we have told the truth."
"Get into the wagon, I say. Do as I tell you!"
David was about to speak up, when I shook my head and warned him to be silent. I briefly replied, "Good-day, sir," David doing the same, and we proceeded on our journey.
The man called after us two or three times. In fact, he got down from his wagon, throwing the reins into the hands of the boy that accompanied him. We quickened our pace, and I suppose he realized that he would have a very difficult task to coerce two able-bodied youths of seventeen into entering his wagon against their wills. At all events, he did not follow us, and, looking over my shoulder, I saw him remount his wagon-seat and proceed on his way.
Perhaps I ought to explain that it was the custom of that time to apprentice, or bind out, boys to learn trades. According to law and practice, a boy was bound to serve his master for seven years, in return for learning the trade and being fed and clothed during the time of his apprenticeship. Sometimes the apprentice received wages for his services during the last year, or the last two or three years, of his time; and sometimes a premium was paid by the apprentice or on his behalf. A good deal depended on the character of the trade in which he was engaged, and also upon the excess or scarcity of boys wishing to learn trades.