Once when we were nine years old he went a long errand of nearly two
miles for the fruiterer, who gave him a splendid big apple for reward,
and he was flying home with it, almost beside himself with astonishment
and delight, and I met him, and he let me look at the apple, not thinking
of treachery, and I ran off with it, eating it as I ran, he following me
and begging; and when he overtook me I offered him the core, which was
all that was left; and I laughed. Then he turned away, crying, and said
he had meant to give it to his little sister. That smote me, for she was
slowly getting well of a sickness, and it would have been a proud moment
for him, to see her joy and surprise and have her caresses. But I was
ashamed to say I was ashamed, and only said something rude and mean, to
pretend I did not care, and he made no reply in words, but there was a
wounded look in his face as he turned away toward his home which rose
before me many times in after years, in the night, and reproached me and
made me ashamed again. It had grown dim in my mind, by and by, then it
disappeared; but it was back now, and not dim.

Once at school, when we were eleven, I upset my ink and spoiled four
copy-books, and was in danger of severe punishment; but I put it upon
him, and he got the whipping.

And only last year I had cheated him in a trade, giving him a large
fish-hook which was partly broken through for three small sound ones.
The first fish he caught broke the hook, but he did not know I was
blamable, and he refused to take back one of the small hooks which my
conscience forced me to offer him, but said, "A trade is a trade; the
hook was bad, but that was not your fault."

No, I could not sleep. These little, shabby wrongs upbraided me and
tortured me, and with a pain much sharper than one feels when the wrongs