by girl playmates. I fancy
I enjoyed listening to their talk and repeating what I knew on
account of the mystery and secrecy with which sex subjects are
surrounded rather than any sensual delight.

"I cannot recall any act of mine growing directly from sexual
feeling until I was 10 years old. Several other little girls and
myself two or three times exposed private parts of our bodies to
each other. In one instance, at least, I was the instigator. This
act gave me some pleasure, though no distinct physical sensation.
One incident I recall that happened when I was about 10. A girl
cousin and myself had been playing 'house' together. I do not
recall what immediately led to it, but we began to address each
other as boys and tried to urinate through long tubes of some
sort. I also recall feeling a vague interest in this process in
animals, and observing them closely in the act.

"From this time until I was about 14 I grew ruder, more
boisterous and uncontrollable. Prior to this I had been a quite
tractable child. When 12 I became interested in a boy in my grade
at school, and tried to attract him, but failed. Once at a
children's party where we were playing kissing games I tried to
get him to kiss me, but he was unresponsive. I do not recall
bothering myself about him after that. A year later I had a boy
chum about whom my schoolmaster teased me. I thought this
ridiculous. At the age of 13 I menstruated, a fact that caused me
shame and anger. Gradually I grew to feel myself peculiar, why, I
cannot explain. I did not seem to myself to be like other girls
of my acquaintance. I adopted, as a defense, a brusque and
defiant air. I spent a good deal of time playing alone in our
backyard, where I made a pair of stilts, practised rope-walking,
and such things. At school I felt I was not liked by the nicer
girls and began to associate with girls whom I now believe were
immoral, but whom I then supposed did nothing worse than talk in
an obscene manner. I copied their conversation and grew more
reckless and uncontrollable. The principal of the high school I
was attending, I learned afterward, said I was the hardest pupil
to control she had ever had. About this time I read a book where
a girl was represented as saying she had a 'boy's soul in a
girl's body.' The applicability of this to m