instead of stamping on him and finishing him at once, I ran upstairs
as fast as my legs could carry me, so that when they came with their
stones they had only their champion to carry out.

On the holidays there were generally stone-fights between the boys of
our quarter and one of the adjoining quarters, and I shall carry to
my grave the scars on my head of cuts received in one of these field
combats, in which I refused to follow my party in flight, and took the
onslaught of the whole vanguard of the enemy, armed with stones,
and had my head pounded yellow, being only saved from worse by the
intervention of the men of the vicinity. This fight gave me the
unmerited reputation of courage and fighting power, and I was
thereafter unmolested by the young roughs, though, in fact, I was
timid to a degree and only stood my ground from nervous obstinacy; I
never provoked a quarrel, and only revolted against a bully when
the position became intolerable. I can remember the amazement of a
companion older than myself, who had been in the habit of bullying me
freely, until one day he went too far and I took him by the collar and
shook and swung him till he was dizzy and begged for mercy, for of
downright pugilistics I knew nothing, and a deliberate blow in the
face with my fist in cold blood was a measure too brutal to enter into
my mind.

The dreariness of this portion of my life was beyond description. The
oppression of my sister-in-law at home, the severities of the teachers
at school, and the exclusion from the influences of nature, in which
I had so long lived without restraint, resulted in an attack of
nostalgia which, when the coming of the first wildflowers brought it
to a crisis, induced my brother to send me home.

My brother was attached to me, but the jealousy of his wife towards
anybody who seemed to have any influence over him made it impossible
for him to show any feeling even to me, for it brought on furious
attacks of hysteria, to appease which he had sometimes to resort to
humiliating devices. One day she became so excited that she fell into
an extreme prostration and declared that she was dying. She had every
indication, indeed, of approaching dissolution, and made her last
dispositions, when my brother Charles, who was the family physician,
seeing that the danger was real, assured her husband that unless some
diversion of her humor was effected she would die. He advised
exciting her jealousy, and her husband,