I received the flogging instead of the thanks I anticipated for the
wages I was bringing her, the haste with which my mother administered
it lest my father should anticipate her and beat me after his fashion,
are as vivid in my recollection as if it had taken place last year.
This was a sample of the family discipline. I was forbidden to walk
with other boys when I drove the cow to pasture; forbidden to bathe
in the mill-pond near by except at stated times, to play with certain
children, to amuse myself on the Sabbath, and other similar doings,
all to my childish apprehension harmless in themselves, and the
punishment never failed to follow the discovery of the transgression.
Naturally I learned to lie, a thing contrary to my inclination and
nature, and a torture to my conscience, but I had not the courage
to meet the flogging, or the firmness to resist temptation and the
persuasion of my young companions who rejoiced in a domestic freedom
of which I knew nothing. My father's severity finally brought
emancipation by its excess. He used to follow me to see if I obeyed
his orders, and one day when I had been persuaded by some boys of our
neighborhood to go and bathe in the forbidden hours, he found me in
the pond, led me home, and, cutting two tough peartree switches about
the thickness, at the butt, of his forefinger, he took me down into
the cellar, and making me strip off my jacket, broke them up to the
stumps over my back, protected only by a cotton shirt. This was the
deciding event which determined me to run away from home, which I did
the next week, and though my escapade did not last beyond ten days, on
my return the rod was buried.




CHAPTER II