ndering looks were directed
toward me as if they sought some explanation of my appearance. The day was
a long and weary one to me--a day, like many another since then, of most
intense wretchedness. About noon one of my feet became so swollen that it
was necessary for me to take off my boot, and by the time I dismissed
school it had got so bad that I could not draw on my boot, so that I had to
walk home, a distance of one mile, over the frozen ground with nothing to
protect my foot but a woolen sock. On entering the house, my mother burst
into tears at sight of me. I must have been a pitiable object, and yet how
little did I deserve the wealth of priceless sympathy lavished upon me.
That night, and many nights succeeding it, the only way I could get into
bed was to put an old-fashioned chair with rounds in the back, beside the
bed and crawl up round by round until I got on a level with the bed, and
then let go and fall over into the bed.

It is needless for me to say that I firmly resolved and honestly felt that
I would never again taste the liquor which leads to madness, misery, and
death. For some time I kept my resolution; and would to God that I could
here conclude by saying that I never again allowed a drop of it to pass my
lips. But I am writing an autobiography, and I have told you that I would
not shrink from telling the truth. So it will happen that other and still
more desperate and disgraceful episodes of drunkenness will have to be
recorded.

In the spring of 1867 I went to Connersville, and began the study of law
with the Hon. John S. Reid. Unfortunately, and I fear designedly, I made my
acquaintances among, and selected my companions from, the most dissolute,
idle, and intemperate class of young men in the town. Connersville then had
and still has among its citizens some very wealthy men, who suffered their
boys to grow up without much care, mostly in idleness. As might be expected
the indifference of the fathers, joined to the natural inclinations of the
sons, has proved the ruin of the latter. I now call to mind several of
those young men who are hopeless and complete wrecks. Idleness and
dissipation have done their terrible work in every case which I call to
mind.

I read a little law, and drank a great deal of whisky, and as a natural
consequence the time then passing was for the most part worse than lost. Up
to this period the duration of my sprees was not longer than a day and
night. They now were n