side.

"She was the kindliest of souls even when constrained to punish
us. After a whipping she invariably took me into the little
kitchen and gave me two great white slabs of bread cemented
together with layers of butter and jam. As she always whipped me
with the same slender switch she used for a pointer, and cried
over every lick, you will have an idea how much punishment I
could stand. When I was old enough to be lifted by the ears out
of my seat that office was performed by a pedagogue whom I
promised to 'whip sure, if he'd just wait till I got big enough.'
He is still waiting!

"There was but one book at school in which I found the slightest
interest: McGuffey's old leather-bound Sixth Reader. It was the
tallest book known, and to the boys of my size it was a matter of
eternal wonder how I could belong to 'the big class in that
reader.' When we were to read the death of 'Little Nell,' I
would run away, for I knew it would make me cry, that the other
boys would laugh at me, and the whole thing would become
ridiculous. I couldn't bear that. A later teacher, Captain Lee
O. Harris, came to understand me with thorough sympathy, took
compassion on my weaknesses and encouraged me to read the best
literature. He understood that he couldn't get numbers into my
head. You couldn't tamp them in! History I also disliked as a
dry thing without juice, and dates melted out of my memory as
speedily as tin-foil on a red-hot stove. But I always was ready
to declaim and took natively to anything dramatic or theatrical.
Captain Harris encouraged me in recitation and reading and had
ever the sweet spirit of a companion rather than the manner of an