His pursuit drove me from corner to corner, till I lost my mischievous boldness and began to act timid and fearful.
Whenever I failed to obey Granma, that was his opportunity. (Millie would cry triumphantly, "Now you have someone to make you be good!") The veins on his handsome, curly forehead would swell with delight, as he caught me and whipped me ... till Granma would step in and make him stop ... but often he would over-rule her, and keep it up till his right arm was actually tired. And he would leave me to crawl off, sobbing dry sobs, incapable of more tears.
A black hatred of him began to gnaw at my heart ... I dreamed still of what I would do when I had grown to be a man ... but now it was not any more to be a great traveller or explorer, but to grow into a strong man and kill my uncle, first putting him to some savage form of torture ... torture that would last a long, long while.
He would often see it in my eyes.
"Don't you look at me that way!" with a swipe of the hand.
Out in the woods I caught a dozen big yellow spiders, the kind that make pretty silver traceries, like handwriting with a flourish—on their morning webs.
I brought these spiders home in a tin can and transferred them to some empty fruit jars in the cellar, keeping them for some boyish reason or other, in pairs, and putting in flies for them.
Aunt Millie came upon them and set up a scream that brought Uncle "Lan," as we called him, down to see what was the matter....
I took my beating in silence. I would no longer beg and plead for mercy. After he had finished, I lay across the sloping cellar door, lumpish and still, inwardly a shaking jelly of horror.