and yet feel that resenting it would cause me more pain than the affront
did. Strife and contention kill me, yet come easy to me, and did to all
my family. My sense of personal dignity, personal honour, is not a plant
of such tender growth that it cannot stand rough winds and nipping
frosts. That is a flattering way of saying that we are a very non-
chivalrous tribe and would rather run away than fight any time. During
the anti-rent war in Delaware County in 1844, Father, who was a "down
renter," once fled to a neighbour's house when he saw the posse coming
and took refuge under the bed, leaving his feet sticking out. Father
never denied it and never seemed a bit humiliated when twitted about it.
Grandfather Kelly seems to have used up all our fighting blood in
campaigning with Washington, though I more than half suspect that our
noncombativeness comes from the paternal side of the family. As a school
boy I never had a fight, nor have I ever dealt or received a hostile
blow since. And I never saw but one of my brothers fight at school, and
he fought the meanest boy in school and punished him well. I can see him
now, sitting on the prostrate form of the boy, with his hands clinched
in the boy's hair and jamming his face down into the crusty snow till
the blood streamed down his face. The nearest I ever came to a fight at
school was when, one noontime, we were playing baseball and a boy of my
own age and size got angry at me and dared me to lay my hand on him. I
did it quickly, but his bite did not follow his bark. I was never
whipped at school or at home that I can remember, though I no doubt
often deserved it. There was a good deal of loud scolding in our family
but very few blows.

Father and Mother had a pretty hard struggle to pay for the farm and to
clothe and feed and school us all. We lived off the products of the farm
to an extent that people do not think of doing nowadays. Not only was
our food largely home grown but our clothes also were home grown and