rawled on my knees, with fear
that I was doing wrong, and pushed a little aside the curtains where
they met at the bottom of the bed. I recollect their being quite tight
by the tucking in and that I could not easily make an opening to peep
through.

There was a girl, or young woman with her back to me, brushing her hair,
another was standing by her, one took a night gown off the chair, shook
it out, and dropped it over her head, after drawing off her chemise. As
this was done I saw some black at the bottom of her belly, a fear came
over me, that I was doing wrong and should be punished if found looking,
and I laid down wondering at it all, I fancy I again slept.

Then there was a shuffling about, and again it seems as if I heard a
noise like piddling, the light was put out, I felt agitated, I heard the
women kiss, one say hish! you will wake that brat, then one said listen,
then I heard kisses and breathing like some one sighing, I thought some
one must be ill and felt alarmed and must then have fallen asleep. I do
not know who the women were, they must have been my cousins, or young
ladies who had come to the dance. That was the first time I recollect
seeing the hair of a cunt, though I must have seen it before, for I
recollect at times a female (most likely a nursemaid) stand naked, but
don't recollect noticing anything black between her thighs, nor did I
think about it at all afterwards.

In the morning my mother came and took me up to her room, where she
dressed me, as she left the room, she said to the females in bed, they
were not to hurry up, she had only fetched Wattie.

But all this only came vividly to my mind when, a few years after, I
began to talk about women with my cousin, and we told each other all we
had seen, and heard, about females.

Until I was about twelve years old I never went to school, there was
a governess in the house who instructed me, and the other children, my
father was nearly always at home. I was carefully kept from the grooms
and other men servants; once I recollect getting to the stable yard and
seeing a stallion mount a mare, his prick go right out of sight in what
appeared to me to be the mares bottom, of father appearing and calling
out "What does that boy do there," and my being hustled away. I had
scarcely a boy acquaintance excepting among my cousins, and therefore
did not learn as much about sexual matters, as boys early do at schools.
I did not know what the stallion was