one
can't fight one's milkman! I did not care for what he or any of that
class could say; I was surprised to find that they thought at all! But
I resented it as an insult as coming from Mr. Carter, until with tears
in his eyes fairly, and in all humility, he swore that, if it had been
anything that could reflect on me in the slightest degree, he would
thrash the next man who mentioned my name. I was not uneasy about a
milkman's remarks, so I let it pass, after making him acknowledge that
he had told me a falsehood concerning the remark which had been made.
But I kept my revenge. I had but to cry "Milk!" in his hearing to make
him turn crimson with rage. At last he told me that the less I said on
the subject, the better it would be for me. I could not agree. "Milk" I
insisted was a delightful beverage. I had always been under the
impression that we owned a cow, until he had informed me it was a
milkman, but was perfectly indifferent to the animal so I got the milk.
With some such allusion, I could make him mad in an instant. Either a
guilty conscience, or the real joke, grated harshly on him, and I
possessed the power of making it still worse. Tuesday I pressed it too
far. He was furious, and all the family warned me that I was making a
dangerous enemy.

Yesterday he came back in a good humor, and found me in unimpaired
spirits. I had not talked even of "curds," though I had given him
several hard cuts on other subjects, when an accident happened which
frightened all malicious fun out of me. We were about going out after
cane, and Miriam had already pulled on one of her buckskin gloves,
dubbed "old sweety" from the quantity of cane-juice they contain, when
Mr. Carter slipped on its mate, and held it tauntingly out to her. She
tapped it with a case-knife she held, when a stream of blood shot up
through the glove. A vein was cut and was bleeding profusely.

He laughed, but panic seized the women. Some brought a basin, some
stood around. I ran after cobwebs, while Helen Carter held the vein and
Miriam stood in silent horror, too frightened to move. It was, indeed,
alarming, for no one seemed to know what to do, and the blood flowed
rapidly. Presently he turned a dreadful color, and stopped laughing. I
brought a chair, while the others thrust him into it. His face grew
more deathlike, his mouth trembled, his eyes rolled, his head dropped.
I comprehended that these must be symptoms of fainting, a phenomenon I
had never behe