I am no coward, never was, but I was scared that night for fair. About
midnight I must have dozed off to sleep when something seemed to be
pushing at my feet. I was wide awake now, and shook Mike, but he only
turned over and seemed to sleep all the sounder. I could hear the
grunting and pushing outside all the time. My head was under and my feet
covered with the hay, when something took hold of my foot and began to
chew. My hair stood on end, and I gave a yell that would have awakened
"The Seven Sleepers." It woke Mike, and the last I heard of him that
night he was laughing as though he would split his sides, and all he
could shout was, "Pigs, pigs!" as I went flying toward home. I got there
as soon as my feet would carry me. I found the house up and mother and
sister crying, while father was trying to make them stop. When I shook
the door it opened and I was home again, and I was mighty glad.

The reason for the crying was that when it got late and the folks began
to look for me, one of the boys said that the last time he saw me I was
swimming with Mike ----. When I did not come home they thought surely I
was drowned, but I was born for a different fate. Sometimes in my years
of roaming afterwards I wished I had been drowned as they thought. They
were so glad to see me again that there was no whipping, and I went to
school next morning promising to be a better boy.


A BASEBALL GAME

I was fast becoming initiated in the ways of the Devil. There was
nothing that I would not do. I remember one time when mother thought I
was going to school but found out I was "on the hook." She decided to
punish me, and that night after I had gone to sleep she came into my