I did not feel like playing, and had no playmates; but I used to go down by the canal and watch the boats go back and forth.

Sometimes the captains of the boats would ask me if I didn't want a job driving; but I scarcely knew what they meant.

I must have been a very backward child, and I surely was a scared and conquered one.

I used to sit on a stump by the tow-path, and so close to it that the boys driving the mules or horses drawing the boats could almost strike me with their whips, which they often tried to do as they went by.

Then I would scuttle back into the brush and hide.