English boys were trained to imitate. It
was great sport. It was a tremendous spree. The distracted movements,
the scampering and pawing of the little pink forefeet of one squawking
little fugitive, that I hit with a stick and then beat to a shapeless
bag of fur, haunted my dreams for years, and then I saw the bowels of
another still living victim that had been torn open by one of the
terriers, and abruptly I fled out into the yard and was violently sick;
the best of the fun was over so far as I was concerned.

My cousin saved me from the uttermost shame of my failure by saying
that I had been excited too soon after my dinner....

And also I collected stamps and birds' eggs.

Mr. Siddons hypnotized me into believing that I really wanted these
things; he gave me an egg-cabinet for a birthday present and told me
exemplary stories of the wonderful collections other boys had made. My
own natural disposition to watch nests and establish heaven knows what
friendly intimacy with the birds--perhaps I dreamt their mother might
let me help to feed the young ones--gave place to a feverish artful
hunting, a clutch, and then, detestable process, the blowing of the egg.
Of course we were very humane; we never took the nest, but just
frightened off the sitting bird and grabbed a warm egg or so. And the
poor perforated, rather damaged little egg-shells accumulated in the
drawers, against the wished-for but never actually realized day of glory
when we should meet another collector who wouldn't have--something that
we had. So far as it was for anything and not mere imbecile
imitativeness, it was for that.

And writing thus of eggs reminds me that I got into a row with Mr.
Siddons for cruelty.

I discovered there was the nest of a little tit in a hole between two
stones in the rock bank that bordered the lawn. I found it out when I
was sitting on the garden seat near by, learning Latin irregular verbs.
I saw the minute preposterous round birds going and coming, and I found
something so absurdly amiable and confiding about them--they sat
balancing and oscillating on a standard rose and cheeped at me to go and
then dived nestward and gave away their secret out of sheer
impatience--that I could not bring myself to explore further, and kept
the matter altogether secret from the enthusiasm of Mr. Siddons. And in
a few days there were no more eggs and I could hear the hungry little
nestlings making the minutest of fairy hullabaloos, the ve