ches, which I still
used and still needed. One day I went to a bath-room, and after remaining
in the bath for half an hour, with the water just as warm as I could bear
it, I resolved to change the programme, and, without further reflection, I
turned off the warm and turned on water as cold as ice could make it. It
almost caused my death. In an instant every pore of my body was closed, and
I was as numb as one would be if frozen. Even my sight was destroyed for a
few minutes, but I contrived to get out of the bath and put on my rags. I
found my way, with some difficulty, to the Union Depot, and boarded a
train, but I did not notice that it was not the train I wanted to travel on
until it was too late for me to correct the mistake. I went to Zionsville,
and lay there three days under the charge of two physicians. I then started
again to go home, expecting to die at any moment. At last I reached
Falmouth, and was carried to my father's, where I passed two weeks in
suffering only equaled by that which I had already borne.

On again recovering my health, I began to look about for something to do,
and hearing of a vacant school east of Falmouth, and about four miles from
my father's, I made application and was employed to teach it. It is with
pride (which, after the record of so many failures, I trust will readily be
pardoned) that I chronicle the fact that from the beginning to the end of
the term I never tasted liquor. I look back to those months as the happiest
of my life. I did what is seldom done, for in addition to keeping sober
(which I believe most teachers do without an effort), I gave complete
satisfaction to every parent, and pleased and made friends with every
scholar (a thing, I believe, that most teachers do not do). Very bright and
vivid in memory are those days, made more radiant by contrast with the
darkness and degradation which lie before and after them. As I dwell upon
them a ray of their calm light steals into my soul, and the faces of my
loved scholars come out of the intervening darkness and smile upon me,
until, for a brief moment, I forget my barred window, the mad-house, and my
desolation, and fancy that I am again with them. I boarded with Daniel
Baker, and can never forget his own and his good wife's kindness.

At the close of my school I was in better health and spirits than I had
ever before been. I began to feel that there was still a chance for me to
redeem the losses of the past, and I can not