The act of laying me in my little cot seemed to be the signal for waking me to a most unwonted energy.

Instead of burying my nose in the pillows, as most babies do, I must needs struggle into a sitting posture, and make night vocal with crows and calls.

I must needs chew the head of my indiarubber doll, or perform a solo on my rattle-- anything, in fact, but go to sleep like a respectable, well-conducted child.
If my mother came and rocked my cradle, I got alarmingly lively and entered into the sport with spirit.

If she, with weary eyes and faltering voice, attempted to sing me to sleep, I lent my shrill treble to aid my own lullaby; or else I lay quiet with my eyes wide open, and defied every effort to coax them into shutting.
Not that I was wilfully perverse or bad--I am proud to say no one can lay that to my charge; but I was a dawdler, one who from my earliest years could not find it in me to settle down promptly to anything--nay, who, knowing a certain thing was to be done, therefore deferred the doing of it as long as possible.
Need I say that as I grew older and bequeathed my long clothes and cot to another baby, I dawdled still?
My twin brother's brick house was roofed in before my foundations were laid.

Not that I could not build as quickly and as well as he, if I chose.