“Nonsense, what are you picking at me for?  I’m not harming anybody, am I?”

“No, but you’re a God damned fool!”

“Look here, what have I ever done to you?”

“Nothin’, only you’re a white-livered stinker, an’ I’m jest a-spoilin’ foh a fight with you-all.”

“But I don’t want to fight with you.”

“I’ll make you,” he replied, striding in; and fetching me a cuff on the ear ... then, in a far-away voice that did not seem myself, I heard myself pleading to be let alone ... by this time all the other boys had crowded down about the cell to see the fun.

I was humiliated, ashamed ... but, try as I would, the thought and vision of my uncle came on me like a palsy.

Bud stepped up.  He had always been so meek and placid before that what he did then was a surprise to me.

“I’ll fight!”

“What! you?” glowered the young farmer, surprised.

“Yes, I’ll give you all the fighting you want, you dirty cotton thief!”

Instantly the farmer made at him.  Bud ran in, fetched him two blows in the face, and clinched.

It was not going very well for the desperado.  From somewhere on his person he whipped forth a knife, and, with a series of flashes through the air, began stabbing Bud again and again in the back.

I thank God for what came over me then.  Too glad of soul to believe it, I experienced a warm surge of angry courage rushing through me like an electric storm.  All the others were panic-stricken for the moment.  But I burst through the group, rushed back to the toilet, and, with frenzied strength, tore loose a length of pipe from the exposed plumbing.  I came rushing back.  I brought down the soft lead-pipe across “Jack’s” ear, accompanying the blow with a volley of oaths in a roaring voice.

The farmer whipped about to face his new antagonist, letting Bud drop back.  Bud sank to the iron floor.  The farmer was astonished almost to powerlessness to find facing him, with a length of swinging pipe in his hand, the boy who had a few minutes before been afraid.

But he rapidly recovered and came on at me, gibbering like an incensed baboon.

By this time all the humiliations I had suffered in the past, since succumbing to the fear-complex that my uncle had beaten into me—­all the outrage of them was boiling in me for vengeance.  I saw the blood bathing the torn ear of my antagonist.  It looked beautiful.  I was no longer afraid of anything.  Yelling my uncle’s name I came on ...  I beat the knife out of the other’s hand and bloodied his knuckles with the next blow.  I beat him down with rapid blows, threshing at him, shouting and yelling exultantly.

The other men thought me gone crazy.  I had, for the time, gone crazy.  The fellow lay at my feet, inert.  I stopped for the moment.

In that moment the gang began to close in on me, half frightened themselves.  I threatened them back.