A large bee, with a broad light-yellow band,
was the ugliest customer to deal with. It was a fighter and
would stick to its enemy like grim death, following me across
the meadow and often getting in my hair, and a few times up my
trousers leg, where I had it at as great a disadvantage as it
had me. It could stab, and I could pinch, and one blow followed
the other pretty rapidly.
As a child I was always looked upon and spoken of as an "odd one"
in the family, even by my parents. Strangers, and relatives from
a distance, visiting at the house, would say, after looking us all
over, "That is not your boy," referring to me, "who is he?" And I
am sure I used to look the embarrassment I felt at not being as the
others were. I did not want to be set apart from them or regarded
as an outsider. As this was before the days of photography, there
are no pictures of us as children, so I can form no opinion of how
I differed in my looks from the others. I remember hearing my
parents say that I showed more of the Kelly--Mother's family.
I early "took to larnin'," as Father used to say, differing from
my brothers and sisters in this respect. I quickly and easily
distanced them all in the ordinary studies. I had gone through
Dayball's Arithmetic while two of my older brothers were yet in
addition.
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