I do not propose to convey to the reader the idea that I was naturally better than other boys, on the contrary, I frequently deserved the rod when I did not get it, but more frequently received a cruel drubbing when I did not deserve it, that, too, at the hands of the old negro crone who was exceedingly violent as well as unjust.  This, of course, cultivated in me a hatred against the vile creature which was little short of murderous.

However, I stayed on and bore up under my troubles as there was nothing else to do, so far as I knew then, but “grin and bear it.”  This until I was fifteen years old.

At this time, however ignorant, illiterate, wild as I was, a faint idea of the need of education dawned upon me.  I saw other white boys going to school; I saw the difference between them and myself that education was rapidly making and I realized that I was growing up as ignorant and uncultured as the slave boys who were my only attainable companions.

Somehow I had heard of a great city called St. Louis, and little by little the determination grew upon me to reach that wonderful place in some way.

I got a few odd jobs of work, now and then, from the neighbors and in a little while I had accumulated four dollars, which seemed a great deal of money to me, and I thought I would buy about half of St. Louis, if I could only get there.  And yet I decided that it would be just as well to have a few more dollars and would not leave my present home, which, bad it was, was the only one I had, until I had acquired a little more money.  But coming home from work one evening I found the old negress in an unusually bad humor, even for her.  She gave me a cruel thrashing just to give vent to her feelings, and that decided me to leave at once, without waiting to further improve my financial condition.  I was getting to be too big a boy to be beaten around by that old wretch, and having no ties of friendship, and no one being at all interested in me, I was determined to get away before my tormentor could get another chance at me.

I would go to St. Louis, but I must get even with the old hag before starting.  I did not wish to leave in debt to anyone in the neighborhood and so I cudgeled my brain to devise a means for settling old scores with my self-constituted governess.

Toward evening I wandered into a small pasture, doing my best to think how I could best pay off the black termagant with safety to myself, when with great good luck I suddenly beheld a huge hornet’s nest, hanging in a bunch of shrubbery.  My plan instantly and fully developed.  Quickly I returned to the house and hastily gathered what little clothing I owned into a bundle, done up in my one handkerchief, an imitation of bandanna, of very loud pattern.  This bundle I secreted in the barn and then hied me to the hornet’s nest.  Approaching the swinging home of the hornets very softly, so as not to disturb the inmates, I stuffed the entrance to the hornet castle with sassafras leaves, and taking the great sphere in my arms I bore it to a back window of the kitchen where the black beldame was vigorously at work within and contentedly droning a negro hymn.