for the ability to read and write
well--by the way, a very important thing in life--is a sort of
inheritance in the family. But my mother was not easy to satisfy;
furthermore she acted on the assumption that recognition and praise
spoil character, a point of view which even now I do not consider
right. At the slightest mistake she brought into play the "quick hand"
always at her service. But she displayed no temper in doing it; she
was always merely proceeding in accordance with her principle,
"anything but coddling." One blow too many could never do any harm
and, if it turned out that I had really not deserved any particular
one, it was reckoned as offsetting some of my naughty pranks that had
happened to escape discovery. "Anything but coddling." That is indeed
a very good principle, and I do not care to criticise it, in spite of
the fact that its application did not help me, not even as a hardening
process; but whatever one may think of it, my mother now and then
carried her harsh treatment too far.

I had long blond hair, less to my own delight than to my mother's; for
to keep it in its would-be state of beauty I was subjected to the most
interminable and occasionally the most painful combing ordeals,
especially those with the fine comb. If I had been called upon at the
time to name the medieval instruments of torture, the "fine comb"
would have stood among those at the head of my list. Until the blood
came there was no thought of stopping. The following day the scarcely
healed spot was again scrutinized with suspicious eye, and thus one
torture was followed by another. To be sure, if, as may be possible, I
owe it to this procedure that I still have a fairly good head of hair,
I did not suffer in vain, and I humbly apologize.

This careful treatment of my scalp was accompanied by an equally
painstaking treatment of my complexion, and this painful care also
showed a tendency to apply too drastic remedies. If my skin was
chapped by the east wind or the severe heat of the sun, my mother was
immediately at hand with a slice of lemon as an unfailing remedy. And
it always helped. Cold cream and such things would have been more to
my fancy and would doubtless have accomplished the same end. But my
mother showed the same relentlessness toward herself, and one who
valiantly leads the way into the battle may properly command others to
follow.

During the time that we occupied the rented apartment I became seven
years of