that I could see. But I dissembled.

"Well, Jack?" I asked gently.

"You're a nice one," he muttered, "you pale-faced Yankee son of a b----
... think you're better 'n the rest of us, don't ye?... readin' in yore
books?"

"Nonsense, what are you picking at me for? I'm not harming anybody, am
I?"

"No, but you're a God damned fool!"

"Look here, what have I ever done to you?"

"Nothin', only you're a white-livered stinker, an' I'm jest a-spoilin'
foh a fight with you-all."

"But I don't want to fight with you."

"I'll make you," he replied, striding in; and fetching me a cuff on the
ear ... then, in a far-away voice that did not seem myself, I heard
myself pleading to be let alone ... by this time all the other boys had
crowded down about the cell to see the fun.

I was humiliated, ashamed ... but, try as I would, the thought and
vision of my uncle came on me like a palsy.

Bud stepped up. He had always been so meek and placid before that what
he did then was a surprise to me.

"_I'll_ fight!"

"What! you?" glowered the young farmer, surprised.

"Yes, I'll give you all the fighting you want, you dirty cotton thief!"

Instantly the farmer made at him. Bud ran in, fetched him two blows in
the face, and clinched.

It was not going very well for the desperado. From somewhere on his
person he whipped forth a knife, and, with a series of flashes through
the air, began stabbing Bud again and again in the back.

I thank God for what came over me then. Too glad of soul to believe it,
I experienced a warm surge of angry courage rushing through me like an
electric storm. All the others were panic-stricken for the moment. But I
burst through the group, rushed back to the toilet, and, with frenzied
strength, tore loose a length of pipe from the exposed plumbing. I came
rushing back. I brought down the soft lead-pipe across "Jack's" ear,
accompanying the blow with a volley of oaths in a roaring voice.

The farmer whipped about to face his new antagonist, letting Bud drop
back. Bud sank to the iron floor. The farmer was astonished almost to
powerlessness to find facing him, with a length of swinging pipe in his
hand, the boy who had a few minutes before been afraid.

But he rapidly recovered and came on at me, gibbering like an incensed
baboon.

By this time all the humiliations I had suffered in the past, since
succumbing to the fear-complex that my uncle had beaten into me--all the
outrage of them was boiling