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New York Seventh Regiment/On Guard with Howitzer No. 2

Henry Bonnell is my fellow-sentry. He, like myself, is an old campaigner in such campaigns as our generation has known. So we talk California, Oregon, Indian life, the Plains, keeping our eyes peeled meanwhile, and ranging the country. Men that will tear up track are quite capable of picking off a sentry. A giant chestnut gives us little dots of shade from its pigmy leaves. The country about us is open and newly ploughed. Some of the worm-fences are new, and ten rails high; but the farming is careless, and the soil thin.
 * On Guard with Howitzer No. 2.

Two of the Massachusetts men come back to the gun while we are standing there. One is my friend Stephen Morris, of Marblehead, Sutton Light Infantry. I had shared my breakfast yesterday with Stephe. So we refraternize.

His business is, — “I make shoes in winter and fishin’ in summer.” He gives me a few facts, — suspicious persons seen about the track, men on horseback in the distance. One of the Massachusetts guard last night challenged his captain. Captain replied, “Officer of the night.” Whereupon, says Stephe, “The recruit let squizzle and jest missed his ear.” He then related to me the incident of the railroad station. “The first thing they know’d,” says he, “we bit right into the depot and took charge.” “I don’t mind,” Stephe remarked, — “I don’t mind life, nor yit death; but whenever I see a Massachusetts boy, I stick by him, and if them Secessionists attackt us to-night, or any other time, they’ll get in debt.”

Whistle, again! and the train appears. We are ordered to ship our howitzer on a platform car. The engine pushes us on. This train brings our light baggage and the rear guard.

A hundred yards farther on is a delicious fresh spring below the bank. While the train halts, Stephe Morris rushes down to fill my canteen. “This a’n’t like Marblehead,” says Stephe, panting up; “but a man that can shin up them rocks can git right over this sand.”

The train goes slowly on, as a rickety train should. At intervals we see the fresh spots of track just laid by our Yankee friends. Near the sixth mile, we began to overtake hot and uncomfortable squads of our fellows. The unseasonable heat of this most breathless day was too much for many of the younger men, unaccustomed to rough work, and weakened by want of sleep and irregular food in our hurried movements thus far.

Charles Homans’s private carriage was, however, ready to pick up tired men, hot men, thirsty men, men with corns, or men with blisters. They tumbled into the train in considerable numbers.

An enemy that dared could have made a moderate bag of stragglers at this time. But they would not have been allowed to straggle, if any enemy had been about. By this time we were convinced that no attack was to be expected in this part of the way.

The main body of the regiment, under Major Shaler, a tall, soldierly fellow, with a moustache of the fighting color, tramped on their own pins to the watering-place, eight miles or so from Annapolis. There troops and train came to a halt, with the news that a bridge over a country road was broken a mile farther on.

It had been distinctly insisted upon, in the usual Southern style, that we were not to be allowed to pass through Maryland, and that we were to be “welcomed to hospitable graves.” The broken bridge was a capital spot for a skirmish. Why not look for it here?

We looked; but got nothing. The rascals could skulk about by night, tear up rails, and hide them where they might be found by a man with half an eye, or half destroy a bridge; but there was no shoot in them. They have not faith enough in their cause to risk their lives for it, even behind a tree or from one of these thickets, choice spots for ambush.

So we had no battle there, but a battle of the elements. The volcanic heat of the morning was followed by a furious storm of wind and a smart shower. The regiment wrapped themselves in their blankets and took their wetting with more or less satisfaction. They were receiving samples of all the different little miseries of a campaign.

And here let me say a word to my fellow-volunteers, actual and prospective, in all the armies of all the States: —

A soldier needs, besides his soldierly drill,

I. Good.

II. A good Stomach.

III. And after these, come the good Head and the good Heart.

But Good Feet are distinctly the first thing. Without them you cannot get to your duty. If a comrade, or a horse, or a locomotive, takes you on its back to the field, you are useless there. And when the field is lost, you cannot retire, run away, and save your bacon.

Good shoes and plenty of walking make good feet. A man who pretends to belong to an infantry company ought always to keep himself in training, so that any moment he can march twenty or thirty miles without feeling a pang or raising a blister. Was this the case with even a decimation of the army who rushed to defend Washington? Were you so trained, my comrades of the Seventh?

A captain of a company, who will let his men march with such shoes as I have seen on the feet of some poor fellows in this war, ought to be garroted with shoe-strings, or at least compelled to play Pope and wash the feet of the whole army of the Apostles of Liberty.

If you find a foot-soldier lying beat out by the roadside, desperate as a sea-sick man, five to one his heels are too high, or his soles too narrow or too thin, or his shoe is not made straight on the inside, so that the great toe can spread into its place as he treads.

I am an old walker over Alps across the water, and over Cordilleras, Sierras, Deserts, and Prairies at home;. I have done my near sixty miles a day without discomfort, — and speaking from large experience, and with painful recollections of the suffering and death I have known for want of good feet on the march, I say to every volunteer: —

Trust in God; !


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User:Paolo81/Books/A Study in Scarlet

by Arthur Conan Doyle

 * A Study in Scarlet
 * A Study in Scarlet/Publishers' Note
 * A Study in Scarlet/Essay
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 1/Chapter 1
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 1/Chapter 2
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 1/Chapter 3
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 1/Chapter 4
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 1/Chapter 5
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 1/Chapter 6
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 1/Chapter 7
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 2/Chapter 1
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 2/Chapter 2
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 2/Chapter 3
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 2/Chapter 4
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 2/Chapter 5
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 2/Chapter 6
 * A Study in Scarlet/Part 2/Chapter 7

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Paolo81/Books/A Study in Scarlet


text:
New York Seventh Regiment/The Bridge

When the frenzy of the brief tempest was over, it began to be a question, “What to do about the broken bridge?” The gap was narrow; but even Charles Homans could not promise to leap the “J. H. Nicholson” over it. Who was to be our Julius Cæsar in bridge-building? Who but Sergeant Scott, Armorer of the Regiment, with my fellow-sentry of the morning, Bonnell, as First Assistant?
 * The Bridge.

Scott called for a working party. There were plenty of handy fellows among our Engineers and in the Line. Tools were plenty in the Engineers’ chest. We pushed the platform car upon which howitzer No. 1 was mounted down to the gap, and began operations.

“I wish,” says the petit caporal of the Engineer Company, patting his howitzer gently on the back, “that I could get this Putty Blower pointed at the enemy, while you fellows are bridge-building.”

The inefficient destructives of Maryland had only half spoilt the bridge. Some of the old timbers could be used, — and for new ones, there was the forest.

Scott and his party made a good and a quick job of it. Our friends of the Massachusetts Eighth had now come up. They lent a ready hand, as usual. The sun set brilliantly. By twilight there was a practicable bridge. The engine was despatched back to keep the road open. The two platform cars, freighted with our howitzers, were rigged with the gun-ropes for dragging along the rail. We passed through the files of the Massachusetts men, resting by the way, and eating by the fires of the evening the suppers we had in great part provided them; and so begins our night-march.

title: New York Seventh Regiment/The Bridge


text:
My Secret Life/Volume 1

 * Chapter 1
 * Chapter 2
 * Chapter 3
 * Chapter 4
 * Chapter 5
 * Chapter 6
 * Chapter 7
 * Chapter 8
 * Chapter 9
 * Chapter 10
 * Chapter 11
 * Chapter 12
 * Chapter 13
 * Chapter 14

title: My Secret Life/Volume 1


text:
My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 1

My earliest recollections of things sexual are of what I think must have occurred some time between my age of five, and eight years. I tell of them just as I recollect them, without attempt to fill in what seems probable.

She was I suppose my nursemaid. I recollect that she sometimes held my little prick when I piddled, was it needful to do so? I don't know. She attempted to pull my propuce back, when, and how often I know not. But I am clear at seeing the prick tip show, of feeling pain, of yelling out, of her soothing me, and of this occurring more than once. She comes to my memory as a shortish, fattish young female and that she often felt my prick.

One day, it must have been late in the afternoon, for the sun was low, but shining—how strange I should recollect that so clearly—but I have always recollected sunshine.—I had been walking out with her, toys had been bought me, we were both carrying them, she stopped and talked to some men, one caught hold of her and kissed her, I felt frightened, it was near a coach stand, for hackney coaches were there, cabs were not then known, she put what toys she had on to my hands, and went into a house with a man. What house? I don't know. Probably a public-house, for there was one not far from a coach stand, and not far from our house. She came out and we went home.

Then I was in our house in a carpeted room with her; it could not have been the nursery I know, sitting on the floor with my toys, so was she; she played with me and the toys, we rolled over each other on the floor in fun, I have a recollection of having done that with others, and of my father and mother, being in that room at times with me playing.

She kissed me, got out my cock, and played with it, took one of my hands and put it underneath her clothes. It felt rough there, that's all, she moved my little hand violently there then she felt my cock and again hurt me, I recollect seeing the red tip appear as she pulled down the prepuce, and my crying out, and her quieting me.

Then of her being on her back, of my striding across or between her legs, and her heaving me up and down, and my riding cock-horse and that it was not the first time I had done so; then I fell flat on her, she heaved me up and down and squeezed me till I cried. I scrambled off of her, and in doing so, my hand, or foot went through a drum, I had been drumming on, at which I cried.

As I sat crying on the floor besides her, I recollect her naked legs, and one of her hands shaking violently beneath her petticoats, and of my having some vague notion that the woman was ill, I felt timid. All was for a moment quiet, her hand ceased, still she lay on her back, and I saw her thighs, then turning round she drew me to her, kissed me and tranquillised me. As she turned round I saw one side of her backside, I leant over it and laid my face on it, crying about my broken drum, the evening sunbeams made it all bright, it had at some time been raining I recollect.

I expect I must have seen her cunt, as I sat beside her naked thigh. Looking towards her and crying about my broken drum, and when I saw her hand moving no doubt she was frigging. Yet I have not the slightest recollection of her cunt, nor of anything more than I have told. But of having seen her naked thighs, I am certain, I seem often to have seen them, but cannot feel certain of that.

The oddest thing is, that whilst I early recollected more or less clearly what took place two or three years later on, and ever afterwards, on sexual matters; and what I said, heard, and did, and nearly consecutively, this my first recollection of cock, and cunt, escaped my memory for full twenty years.

Then one day talking with the husband of one of my cousins, about infantine incidents he told me something which had occurred to him in his childhood; and suddenly, almost as quickly as a magic lantern throws a picture on to a wall, this which had occurred to me came into my mind. I have since thought over it a hundred times, but cannot recollect one circumstance relating to the adventure more than I have told.

My mother had been giving advice to my cousin about nursemaids. They were not to be trusted. "When Walter was a little fellow, she had dismissed a filthy creature, whom she had detected in abominable practices with one of her children," what they were my mother never disclosed. She hated indelicacies of any sort, and usually cut short allusion to them by saying, "It's not a subject to talk about, let's talk of something else." My cousin told her husband, and when we were together he told me, and his own experiences, and then all the circumstances came into my mind, just as I have told here.

I could not, as the reader will hear, thoroughly uncover my prick tip without pain, till I was sixteen years old nor well then when quite stiff unless it went up a cunt. My nursemaid I expect thought this curious, and tried to remedy the error in my make, and hurt me. My mother, by her extremely delicate feeling, shut herself off from much knowledge of the world, which was the reason why she had such implicit belief in my virtue, until I had seen twenty-two years, and kept, or nearly so, a French harlot.

I imagine I must have slept with this nurse-maid, and certainly I did with some female, in a room called the Chinese room, on account of the color of the wall papers. I recollect a female being there in bed with me, that I awoke one morning feeling very hot, and stifled, and that my head was against flesh; that flesh was all about me, my mouth and nose being embedded in hair, or some thing scrubby, which had a hot peculiar odour. I have a recollection of a pair of hands suddenly clutching, and dragging me up on to the pillow, and of daylight then. I have no recollection of a word being uttered. This incident I could not long have forgoten, having told my cousin Fred, of it before my father died. He used to say it was the governess. I suppose, I must have slipped down in my sleep, till my head laid against her belly, and cunt.

Some years afterwards when I got the smell of another woman's cunt on my fingers, it at once reminded me of the smell I had under my nose in the bed; and I knew at a flash, that I had smelt cunt before, and recollected where, but no more.

How long after, I have no idea, but it seems like two or three years, there was a dance in our house, several relations were to stop the night with us, the house was full, here was bustle, the shifting of beds, the governess going into a servant's room to sleep, and so on. Some female cousins were amongst those stopping with us; going into the drawing-room suddenly, I heard my mother saying to one of my aunts: "Walter is after all but a child, and its only for one night." Hish-hish both said, as they saw me, then my mother sent me out of the room, wondering why they were talking about me, and feeling curious, and annoyed at being sent away.

I had been in the habit then of sleeping in a room, either with another bed in it, or close to a room leading out of it, with another bed, I cannot recollect which; I used to call out to whoever might have been there when I was in bed: for being timid, the door was kept open for me. It could not have been a man who slept there, for the men servants slept on the ground-floor, I have seen their beds there.

The night I speak of, my bed was taken out, and put into the Chinese paper room, one of the maids who helped to move it, sat on the pot and piddled; I heard the rattle, and as far as I can recollect it was the first time I noticed anything of the sort, tho I recollect well seeing women putting on their stockings and feeling the thigh of one of them just above her knee. I was kneeling on the floor at the time, and had a trumpet, which she took angrily out of my hand soon afterwards, because I made a noise.

I recollect the dance, that I danced with a tall lady, that my mother contrary to custom as it seems to me, put me to bed herself, and that it was before the dance was over, for I felt angry and tearful at being put to bed so early. My mother closed the curtains quite tightly all round a small four post bed, and told me, I was to lie quietly, and not get up till she came to me in the morning; not to speak, nor undo my curtains, nor to get out of bed, or I should disturb Mr. and Mrs. ——— who were to sleep in the big bed; that it would make them angry if I did. I am almost certain she named a lady and her husband, who were going to stay with us; but can't be sure. A man then frightened me more than a woman, my mother I dare say knew that.

I dare say, for it was the same the greater part of my life, that I went to sleep directly I laid down, usually never awaking till the morning. Certainly I must have gone fast asleep that night; perhaps I had had a little wine given me, who knows; I have a sudden consciousness of a light, and hear some one say, he is fast asleep, don't make a noise; it seemed like my mother's voice. I rouse myself and listen, the circumstances are strange, the room strange, it excites me, and I rise on my knees, I don't know whether naturally, or cautiously, or how; perhaps cautiously, because I fear angering my mother, and the gentleman, perhaps a sexual instinct makes me curious, though that is not probable. I have not in fact the slightest conception of the actuating motive, but I sat up and listened. There were two females talking, laughing quietly, and moving about, I heard a rattling in the pot, then a rest, then again a rattle and knew the sound of piddling. How long I listened, I don't know, I might have dozed and awakened again, I saw lights moved about; then I crawled on my knees, with fear that I was doing wrong, and pushed a little aside the curtains where they met at the bottom of the bed. I recollect their being quite tight by the tucking in and that I could not easily make an opening to peep through.

There was a girl, or young woman with her back to me, brushing her hair, another was standing by her, one took a night gown off the chair, shook it out, and dropped it over her head, after drawing off her chemise. As this was done I saw some black at the bottom of her belly, a fear came over me, that I was doing wrong and should be punished if found looking, and I laid down wondering at it all, I fancy I again slept.

Then there was a shuffling about, and again it seems as if I heard a noise like piddling, the light was put out, I felt agitated, I heard the women kiss, one say hish! you will wake that brat, then one said listen, then I heard kisses and breathing like some one sighing, I thought some one must be ill and felt alarmed and must then have fallen asleep. I do not know who the women were, they must have been my cousins, or young ladies who had come to the dance. That was the first time I recollect seeing the hair of a cunt, though I must have seen it before, for I recollect at times a female (most likely a nursemaid) stand naked, but don't recollect noticing anything black between her thighs, nor did I think about it at all afterwards.

In the morning my mother came and took me up to her room, where she dressed me, as she left the room, she said to the females in bed, they were not to hurry up, she had only fetched Wattie.

But all this only came vividly to my mind when, a few years after, I began to talk about women with my cousin, and we told each other all we had seen, and heard, about females.

Until I was about twelve years old I never went to school, there was a governess in the house who instructed me, and the other children, my father was nearly always at home. I was carefully kept from the grooms and other men servants; once I recollect getting to the stable yard and seeing a stallion mount a mare, his prick go right out of sight in what appeared to me to be the mares bottom, of father appearing and calling out "What does that boy do there," and my being hustled away. I had scarcely a boy acquaintance excepting among my cousins, and therefore did not learn as much about sexual matters, as boys early do at schools. I did not know what the stallion was doing. I could have had no notion of it then, nor did I think about it.

The next thing I clearly recollected, was one of my male cousins stopping with us, we walked out and when piddling together against a hedge, his saying: "show me your cock, Walter, and I will show you mine." We stood and examined each others cocks, and for the first time, I became conscious, that I could not get my foreskin easily back, like other boys. I pulled his backwards and forwards. He hurt me, laughed and sneered at me, another boy came and I think another, we all compared cocks, and mine was the only one which would not unskin, they jeered me, I burst into tears, and went away, thinking there was something wrong with me, and was ashamed to show my cock again, then I set to work earnestly to try to pull the foreskin back, but always desisted fearing the pain, for I was very sensitive.

My cousin then told me that girls had no cock, but only a hole they piddled out of, we were always talking about them, but I don't recollect the word cunt, nor that I attached any lewd idea to a girl's piddling hole, or to their cocks being flat, an expression heard I think at the same period. It remained only in my mind that my cock and the girl's hole were to piddle out of, and nothing more, I cannot be certain about my age at this time.

Afterwards I went to that uncle's house often, my cousin Fred was to be put to school, and we talked a great deal more about girls' cocks which began to interest me much. He had never seen one he said, but he knew that they had two holes, one for bogging and the other to piddle from. They sit down to piddle said he, they don't piddle against a wall as we do, but that I must have known already, afterwards I felt very curious about the matter.

One day, one of his sisters left the room where we were sitting, she is going to piddle, he said to me. We sneaked into a bed room of one of them one day, and gravely looked into the pot to see what piddle was in it. Whether we expected to find anything different from what there was in our own chamber pot, I do not know. When talking about these things my cousin would twiddle his cock. We wondered how the piddle came out, if they wetted their legs and if the hole was near the bum hole, or where; one day Fred and I pissed against each others cocks, and thought it excellent fun.

I recollect being very curious indeed about the way girls piddled after this, and seeing them piddle became a taste I have kept all my life. I would listen at the bed room doors, if I could get near them unobserved, when my mother, sister, the governess, or a servant went in, hoping to hear the rattle and often succeeded: it was accompanied by no sexual desire, or idea, as far as I can recollect; I had no cockstand, and am sure, that I then did not know that the women had a hole called a cunt, and used it for fucking. I can recall no idea of the sort, it was simple curiosity to know something about those, whom I instinctively felt were made differently from myself. What sort of a hole could it be I wondered. Was it large? Was it round? Why did they squat instead of stand up, like men, my curiosity became intense.

How long after this the following took place, I can't say, but my cock was bigger. I have that impression very distinctly.

One day, there were people in one of the sitting rooms, where my mother and father were I don't know; they were not in the room, and were most likely out. There were one or two of my cousins, some youths, my big sister and one brother, besides others, our governess, and her sister, who was stopping with us, and sleeping in the same room with her. I recollect both going into the bed room together, it was next to mine. It was evening, we had sweet wine, cake, and snap-dragon, and played at something, at which all sat in a circle on the floor. I was very ticklish, it nearly sent me into fits, we tickled each other on the floor. There was much fun, and noise, the governess tickled me, and I tickled her. She said as I was taken to bed, or rather went, as I then did by myself, "I'll go and tickle you." Now at that time when in bed, a servant, or my mother, or the governess took away the light, and closed the door; for I was still frightened to get into bed in the dark, and used to call out, "Mamma, I'm going to get into bed." Then they fetched the light, they wished to stop this timidity, often scolded me about it, and made me undress myself, by myself, to cure me of it.

I expect the other children had been put to bed. My mother keeping all the younger ones in the room near her. The nursery was also upstairs, my room, as said, was next to the governess.

When in bed, I called out for some one to put out the light, up came the governess and her sister. She began to tickle me, so did her sister, I laughed, screeched, and tried to tickle them. One of them closed the door and then came back to tickle me. I kicked all the clothes off, and was nearly naked, I begged them to desist, felt their hands on my naked flesh, and am quite sure, that one of them touched my prick more than once, though it might have been done accidentally. At last I wriggled off the bed, my night-gown up to my armpits, and dropped with my naked bum on to the floor, whilst they tickled me still, and laughed at my wriggling about, and yelling.

Then what induced me, heaven alone knows; it may have been what I had heard about the piddling-hole of a woman, or curiosity, or instinct, I don't know; but I caught hold of the governess' leg as she was trying to get me up on to the bed again, saying, "that will do, my dear boy, get into bed, and let me take away the light." I would not; the other lady helped to lift me, I pushed my hands up the petticoats of the governess, felt the hair of her cunt, and that there was something warm, and moist, between her thighs. She let me drop on to the floor, and jumped away from me. I must have been clinging to her thigh, with both hands up her petticoats, and one between her thighs, she cried out loudly—oh!

Then slap-slap-slap, in quick succession, came her hand against my head, "You...rude...bad...boy," said she slapping me at each word, "I've a good mind to tell your mamma, get into bed this instant," and into bed I got without a word. She blew out the light, and left the room with her sister, leaving me in a dreadful funk. I scarcely knew that I had done wrong, yet had some vague notion, that feeling about her thighs was punishable; the soft hairy place my hand had touched, impressed me with wonder, I kept thinking there was no cock there, and felt a sort of delight at what I had done.

I heard them then talking, and laughing loudly, thru the partition. "They are talking about me, oh if they tell mamma, oh! what did I do it for?" Trembling with fear, I jumped out of bed, opened my door, and went to theirs listening; theirs was ajar,—heard: "right up between my thighs, felt it! he must have felt it; ah! ah! ah! would you ever have thought the little beast would have done such a thing." They both laughed heartily. "Did you see his little thing?" said one. "Shut the door, it's not shut;"—breathless I got back to my room, and into bed, and laying there, heard them through the partition roaring with laughter again.

That is the first time in my life, I recollect passing an all but sleepless night. The dread of being told about, and dread at what I had done, kept me awake. I heard the two women talking for a long time. Mixed with my dread was a wonder at the hair, and the soft, moist feel, I had had for an instant, on some part of my hand. I knew I had felt the hidden part of a female, where the piddle came from, and that is all I did think about it, that I know of, I have no recollection of a lewd sensation, but of a curious sort of delight only.

It must have been from this time, that my curiosity about the female form strengthened, but there was nothing sensual in it. I was fond of kissing, for my mother remarked it; when a female cousin, or any female kissed me, I would throw my arms round them, and keep on kissing. My aunts used to laugh, my mother corrected me, and told me it was rude. I used to say to the servants, kiss me. One day I heard my godfather say: "Walter knows a pretty girl from an ugly one doesn't he?"

I had a dread of meeting the governess, at breakfast, watched her, and saw her laugh at her sister, I watched my mother for some days after, and at length said to the governess, who had punished me for something. "Don't tell mamma." "I have nothing to tell about, Walter," she replied, "and don't know what you mean." I began to tell her what was on my mind. "What's the child talking about, you are dreaming, some stupid boy has been putting things into your head, your papa will thrash you, if you talk like that." "Why you came and tickled me," said I. "I tickled you a little when I put your light out," said she, "be quiet." I felt stupified, and suppose the affair must have passed away from my mind for a time, but I told my cousin Fred about it afterwards. He thought I must have been dreaming, and I began to wonder if it really had occurred, I never thought much about it until I began to recall my childhood for this history.

I must have been twelve years old, when I went to an uncle's in Surrey, and became a close friend of my cousin Fred, a very devil from his cradle, and of whom much more will be told: before then I had only seen him at intervals. We were then allowed, and it seems to me not before that time, to go out by ourselves. We talked boyish baudiness. "Ain't you green," said he, "a girl's hole isn't called a cock, it's a cunt, they fuck with it," and then he told me all he knew. I don't think I had heard that before, but can't be sure.

From that time a new train of ideas came into my head. I had a vague idea, though not a belief, that a cock and cunt, were not made for pissing only. Fred treated me as a simpleton in these matters, and was always calling me an ass; I have quite a painful recollection of my inferiority to him, in such things, and of begging him to instruct me. "They make children that way," said Fred. "You come up and we will ask the old nurse, where children come from, and she'll say 'out of the parsley-bed,' but it's all a lie." We went and asked her in a casual sort of way. She replied, "the parsley-bed," and laughed. The nurse at my house told me the same, when I asked afterwards about my mother's last baby. "Ain't they liars?" Fred remarked to me, "it comes out of their cunts, and it's made by fucking."

We both desired to see women piddling, though both must have before seen them at it often enough. Walking near the market-town with him just at the outskirts, and looking up a side-road, we saw a pedler woman squat down and piss. We stopped short and looked at her: she was a short-petticoated, thick-legged, middle-aged woman; the piss ran off in a copious stream, and there we stood grinning. "Be off, be off, what are you standing grinning at, yer dam'd young fools," cried the woman, "be off, or I'll heave a stone at yer," and she pissed on. We moved a few steps back, but keeping our face towards her, Fred stooped, and put his head down. "I can see it coming," said he jeeringly. He was rude from his infancy, bold in baudiness to the utmost, had the impudence of the devil. The stream ceased, the woman rose up swearing, took up a big flint and threw it at us. "I'll tell on yer," she cried. "I know yer, wait till I see yer again." She had a large basket of crockery for sale, it was put down in the main-road at the angle; she had just turned round into the side lane to piss. We ran off, and when well away, turned round and shouted at her, "I saw your cunt," Fred bawled out;—she flung another stone. Fred took up one, threw it, and it crashed into the crockery, the woman began to chase us, off we bolted across the fields home. She could not follow us that way; it was an eventful day for us. I recollect feeling full of envy at Fred's having seen her cunt. Though writing now, and having in my mind's eye, exactly how the woman squatted, and the way her petticoats hung, I am sure he never did see it; it was brag when he said he had, but we were always talking about girls' cunts, the desire to see one was great, and I then believed that he had seen the pedlar woman's.

Then one of Fred's companions showed us a bawdy picture, it was coloured. I wondered at the cunt being a long sort of gash, I had an idea that it was round, like an arse-hole. Fred told his friend I was an ass, but I could not get the idea of a cunt, not being a round hole quite out of my head, until I had fucked a woman. We were all anxious to get the picture, and tossed up for it, but neither I nor Fred got it, some other boy did.

Soon after that, Fred came to stop with us and our talk was always about women's privates, our curiosity became intense. I had a little sister about nine months old, who was in the nursery. Fred incited me to look at her cunt, if I could manage it. The two nurses came down in turns, to the servants dinner. I was often in the nursery, and soon after Fred's suggestion, was there one day, when the oldest nurse said: "Stop here, master Walter, while I go downstairs, for a couple of minutes, Mary (the other nurse) will be up directly, and don't make a noise." My little sister was lying on the bed asleep. "Yes, I'll wait." Down went nurse, leaving the door open; quick as lightning, I threw up the infant's clothes, saw her little slit, and put my finger quite gently on it, she was laying on her back most conveniently. I pulled one leg away to see better, the child awakened and began crying, I heard footsteps and had barely time to pull down her clothes, when the under nursemaid came in. I only had a momentary glimpse, of the outside of the little quim, for I was not a minute in the room with the child by myself altogether, and was fearful of being caught all the time I was looking.

There must have been something in my face, for the nursemaid said: "What it the matter, what have you been doing to the baby?" Nothing. "Yes, you are coloring up, now tell me." "Nothing. I have done nothing." "You wakened your sister." "No, I have not." The girl laid hold of me, and gave me a little shake. "I'll tell your mamma if you don't tell me, what is it now?" "No, I have done nothing, I was looking out of the window when she began to cry." "You're telling a story, I see you are," said the nursemaid; and off I went, after being impudent to her.

I told Fred and he tried the same dodge, but don't recollect whether he succeeded or not. His sisters were somewhat older, and we began to scheme how to see their cunts, when I was on a visit to his mother's (my aunt,) which was to come off in the holidays. The look of the little child's cunt, as I described it, convinced him that the picture was correct, and that a cunt was a long slit, and not a round hole. That cast doubt on males putting their pricks into them, and we clung somehow to the idea of a round hole, and we quarrelled about it.

It must have been about this time, that I was walking with my father, and read something that was written with chalk, on the walls. I asked him what it meant. He said he did not know, that none but low people, and blackguards wrote on walls; and it was not worth while noticing such things. I was conscious that I had done wrong somehow, but did not know exactly what. When I went out, which I was now allowed to do for short distances by myself, I copied what was on the walls, to tell Fred, it was foul, baudy language of some sort, but the only thing we understood at all, was the word cunt.

Just then, being out with some boys, we saw two dogs fucking. I have no recollection of seeing dogs doing that before. We closed round them, yelling with delight as they stuck rump to rump, then one boy said that was what men and women did, and I asked, did they stick together so, a boy replied that they did; others denied it, and all the remainder of the day, some of us discussed this; the impression left on my mind is, that it appeared to be very nasty; but it seemed at the same time to confirm me in the belief, that men put their pricks up into women's holes, about which I seemed at that time to have grave doubts.

After this time my recollection of events is clearer, and I can tell not only what took place, but better what I heard, said, and thought.

title: My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 1


text:
New York Seventh Regiment/The Night-March

O Gottschalk! what a poetic Marche de Nuit we then began to play, with our heels and toes, on the railroad track!
 * The Night-March.

It was full-moonlight and the night inexpressibly sweet and serene. The air was cool and vivified by the gust and shower of the afternoon. Fresh spring was in every breath. Our fellows had forgotten that this morning they were hot and disgusted. Every one hugged his rifle as if it were the arm of the Girl of his Heart, and stepped out gayly for the promenade. Tired or foot-sore men, or even lazy ones, could mount upon the two freight-cars we were using for artillery-wagons. There were stout arms enough to tow the whole.

The scouts went ahead under First Lieutenant Farnham of the Second Company. We were at school together, — I am afraid to say how many years ago. He is just the same cool, dry, shrewd fellow he was as a boy, and a most efficient officer.

It was an original kind of march. I suppose a battery of howitzers never before found itself mounted upon cars, ready to open fire at once and bang away into the offing with shrapnel or into the bushes with canister. Our line extended a half-mile along the track. It was beautiful to stand on the bank above a cutting, and watch the files strike from the shadow of a wood into a broad flame of moonlight, every rifle sparkling up alert as it came forward. A beautiful sight to see the barrels writing themselves upon the dimness, each a silver flash.

By and by, “Halt!” came, repeated along from the front, company after company. “Halt! a rail gone.”

It was found without difficulty. The imbeciles who took it up probably supposed we would not wish to wet our feet by searching for it in the dewy grass of the next field. With incredible doltishness they had also left the chairs and spikes beside the track. Bonnell took hold, and in a few minutes had the rail in place and firm enough to pass the engine. Remember, we were not only hurrying on to succor Washington, but opening the only convenient and practicable route between it and the loyal States.

A little farther on, we came to a village, — a rare sight in this scantily peopled region. Here Sergeant Keeler, of our company, the tallest man in the regiment, and one of the handiest, suggested that we should tear up the rails at a turnout by the station, and so be prepared for chances. So “Out crowbars!” was the word. We tore up and bagged half a dozen rails, with chairs and spikes complete. Here, too, some of the engineers found a keg of spikes. This was also bagged and loaded on our cars. We fought the chaps with their own weapons, since they would not meet us with ours.

These things made delay, and by and by there was a long halt, while the Colonel communicated, by orders sounded along the line, with the engine. Homans’s drag was hard after us, bringing our knapsacks and traps.

After I had admired for some time the beauty of our moonlit line, and listened to the orders as they grew or died along the distance, I began to want excitement. Bonnell suggested that he and I should scout up the road and see if any rails were wanting. We travelled along into the quiet night.

A mile ahead of the line we suddenly caught the gleam of a rifle-barrel. “Who goes there?” one of our own scouts challenged smartly.

We had arrived at the nick of time. Three rails were up. Two of them were easily found. The third was discovered by beating the bush thoroughly. Bonnell and I ran back for tools, and returned at full trot with crowbar and sledge on our shoulders. There were plenty of willing hands to help, — too many, indeed, — and with the aid of a huge Massachusetts man we soon had the rail in place.

From this time on we were constantly interrupted. Not a half-mile passed without a rail up. Bonnell was always at the front laying track, and I am proud to say that he accepted me as aide-de-camp. Other fellows, unknown to me in the dark, gave hearty help. The Seventh showed that it could do something else than drill.

At one spot, on a high embankment over standing water, the rail was gone, sunk probably. Here we tried our rails brought from the turn-out. They were too short. We supplemented with a length of plank from our stores. We rolled our cars carefully over. They passed safe. But Homans shook his head. He could not venture a locomotive on that frail stuff. So we lost the society of the “J. H. Nicholson.” Next day the Massachusetts commander called for some one to dive in the pool for the lost rail. Plump into the water went a little wiry chap and grappled the rail. “When I come up,” says the brave fellow afterwards to me, “our officer out with a twenty-dollar gold-piece and wanted me to take it. ‘That a’n’t what I come for,’ says I. ‘Take it,’ says he, ‘and share with the others.’ ‘That a’n’t what they come for,’ says I. But I took a big cold,” the diver continued, “and I’m condemned hoarse yit,” — which was the fact.

Farther on we found a whole length of track torn up, on both sides, sleepers and all, and the same thing repeated with alternations of breaks of single rails. Our howitzer-ropes came into play to hoist and haul. We were not going to be stopped.

But it was becoming a Noche Triste to some of our comrades. We had now marched some sixteen miles. The distance was trifling. But the men had been on their legs pretty much all day and night. Hardly any one had had any full or substantial sleep or meal since we started from New York. They napped off, standing, leaning on their guns, dropping down in their tracks on the wet ground, at every halt. They were sleepy, but plucky. As we passed through deep cuttings, places, as it were, built for defence, there was a general desire that the tedium of the night should be relieved by a shindy.

During the whole night I saw our officers moving about the line, doing their duty vigorously, despite exhaustion, hunger, and sleeplessness.

About midnight our friends of the Eighth had joined us, and our whole little army struggled on together. I find that I have been rather understating the troubles of the march. It seems impossible that such difficulty could be encountered within twenty miles of the capital of our nation. Bui we were making a rush to put ourselves in that capital, and we could not proceed in the slow, systematic way of an advancing army. We must take the risk and stand the suffering, whatever it was. So the Seventh Regiment went through its bloodless Noche Triste.


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hardecanute

HARDECANUTE, här-dė-kạ-nūt', HARDICANUTE or HARDY CANUTE, king of England and Denmark; son of ../Canute the Great/ (q.v.): b. about 1017; d. 8 June 1042. At the time of his father's death in 1035 he was in Denmark, where he was immediately recognized as king. His half-brother, Harold, however, who happelied to be in England at the time, laid claim to the throne of that part of their father's dominions. For a time the mother of Hardecanute succeeded in holding Wessex in his name, while Mercia and Northumbria were held by Harold, such an allotment having been made by a witenagemote held at Oxford. Hardecanute was about to make an armed descent upon England, when Harold died (1040), and his brother peacefully succeeded him. He reigned till 1042, but his reign was not marked by any important event. He left the government almost entirely in the hands of his mother and the powerful Earl ../Godwin/ (q.v.), while he gave himself up to feasts and carousals.


text:
New York Seventh Regiment/Morning

At last we issued from the damp woods, two miles below the railroad junction. Here was an extensive farm. Our vanguard had halted and borrowed a few rails to make fires. These were, of course, carefully paid for at their proprietor’s own price. The fires were bright in the gray dawn. About them the whole regiment was now halted. The men tumbled down to catch forty winks. Some, who were hungrier for food than sleep, went off foraging among the farm-houses. They returned with appetizing legends of hot breakfasts in hospitable abodes, or scanty fare given grudgingly in hostile ones. All meals, however, were paid for.
 * Morning.

Here, as at other halts below, the country-people came up to talk to us. The traitors could easily be distinguished by their insolence disguised as obsequiousness. The loyal men were still timid, but more hopeful at last. All were very lavish with the monosyllable, Sir. It was an odd coincidence, that the vanguard, halting off at a farm in the morning, found it deserted for the moment by its tenants, and protected only by an engraved portrait of our (former) Colonel Duryea, serenely smiling over the mantel-piece.

From this point, the railroad was pretty much all gone. But we were warmed and refreshed by a nap and a bite, and besides had daylight and open country.

We put our guns on their own wheels, all dropped into ranks as if on parade, and marched the last two miles to the station. We still had no certain information. Until we actually saw the train awaiting us, and the Washington companies, who had come down to escort us, drawn up, we did not know whether our Uncle Sam was still a resident of the capital.

We packed into the train, and rolled away to Washington.

title: New York Seventh Regiment/Morning


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/John X (pope)


text:
New York Seventh Regiment/Washington

We marched up to the White House, showed ourselves to the President, made our bow to him as our host, and then marched up to the Capitol, our grand lodgings.
 * Washington.

There we are now, quartered in the Representatives Chamber.

And here I must hastily end this first sketch of the Great Defence. May it continue to be as firm and faithful as it is this day!

I have scribbled my story with a thousand men stirring about me. If any of my sentences miss their aim, accuse my comrades and the bewilderment of this martial crowd. For here are four or five thousand others on the same business as ourselves, and drums are beating, guns are clanking, companies are tramping, all the while. Our friends of the Eighth Massachusetts are quartered under the dome, and cheer us whenever we pass.

Desks marked John Covode, John Cochran, and Anson Burlingame have allowed me to use them as I wrote.

title: New York Seventh Regiment/Washington


text:
Page:Best Russian Short Stories.djvu/133

Rh "But perhaps you snatched your inheritance from your father and threw him into prison?"

"Never! Why these insulting questions?"

"Wait, my friend. Perhaps we will both reach a conclusion. Tell me, would you have considered a man great who had done all these things of which I have spoken?"

"No no, no! I should have called such a man a scoundrel, and lodged public complaint against him with the judges in the market-place."

"Well, Elpidias, why did you not complain in the market-place against Zeus and the Olympians? The son of Cronos carried on war with his own father, and was seized with brutal lust for the daughters of men, while Hera took vengeance upon innocent virgins. Did not both of them convert the unhappy daughter of Inachos into a common cow? Did not Apollo kill all the children of Niobe with his arrows? Did not Callenius steal bulls? Well, then, Elpidias, if it is true that he who has less virtue must do honour to him who has more, then you should not build altars to the Olympians, but they to you."

"Blaspheme not, impious Socrates! Keep quiet! How dare you judge the acts of the gods?"

"Friend, a higher power has judged them. Let us investigate the question. What is the mark of divinity? I think you said, Greatness, which consists in virtue. Now is not this greatness the one divine spark in man? But if we test the greatness of the gods by our small human virtues, and it turns out that that which measures is greater than that which is measured, then it follows that the divine principle itself condemns the Olympians. But, then"

"What, then?"

"Then, friend Elpidias, they are no gods, but deceptive phantoms, creations of a dream. Is it not so?"

"Ah, that's whither your talk leads, you bare-footed philosopher! Now I see what they said of you is true. You are like that fish that takes men captive with its look. So you took me captive in order to confound my believing soul and awaken doubt in it. It was already beginning to


text: Index:The Bloody Banquet.djvu

title: Index:The Bloody Banquet.djvu


text: Page:The Bloody Banquet.djvu/1

title: Page:The Bloody Banquet.djvu/1


text:
My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 2

My godfather (whose fortune I afterwards inherited) was very fond of me; somewhere about this time he used perpetually to be saying, "When you get to school, don't you follow any of the tricks yourself, that other boys do, or you will die in a mad-house; lots of boys do." And he told me some horrible tales; it was done in a mysterious way. I felt there was a hidden meaning, and not having knowledge of what it was, asked him. I should know fast enough, said he, but mark his words. He repeated this so often, that it sunk deeply into my mind, and made me uneasy, something was to happen to me, if I did something—I did not know what—it was intended as a caution against frigging, and it had good effect on me I am sure in various ways in the after time.

One day talking with Fred, I recollected what I had done to the governess. I had kept it to myself all along for fear. "What a lie," said he. "I did really." "Oh! ain't you a liar," he reiterated, "I'll ask Miss Granger." The same governess was with us then.

At this remark of his, an absolute terror came over me, the dread was something so terrible, that the recollection of it is now painful. "Oh don't, pray don't, Fred," I said, "oh if Papa should hear!" He kept on saying he would. I was too young to see the improbability of his doing anything of the sort. "If you do, I'll tell him what we did when the pedler woman piddled." He did not care. "Now, it's a lie, isn't it, you did not feel her cunt?" In fear, I confessed it was a lie. "I know it was," said Fred. He had kept me in a state of terror about the affair for days, till I told a lie, to get quit of the subject.

I was evidently always secret, even then, about anything amorous, excepting with Fred (as will be seen) and have continued so all my life. I rarely bragged, or told anyone of my doings; perhaps this little affair with the governess, was a lesson to me, and confirmed me in a habit natural to me from my infancy. I have kept to myself everything I did with the opposite sex.

We now frequently examined our pricks, and Fred jeered me so about my prepuce being tight, that I resolved that no other boy should see it; and though I did not keep strictly to that intention, it left a deep-seated mortification on me. I used to look at my prick with a sense of shame, and pull the prepuce up and down, as far as I could constantly, to loosen it, and would treat other boys' cocks in the same way, if they would let me, without expecting me to make a return; but the time was approaching when I was to learn much more.

One of my uncles, who lived in London, took a house in the country for the summer near Hampton-Court Palace. Fred and I went to stay there with them. There were several daughters and sons, the sons quite young. People then came down from London in vans, carts, and carriages of all sorts, to see the Palace and grounds (there was no railway), they were principally of the small middle classes, and used to picnic, or else dine at the taverns when they arrived; then full, and frisky, after their early meal, go into the parks and gardens. They do so still, but times were different then, so few people went there comparatively; fewer park-keepers to look after them, and less of what is called delicacy, amongst visitors of the class named.

Our family party used to go into the grounds daily, and all day long nearly, if we were not on the river banks. Fred winked at me one day, "let's lose Bob," said he, "and we'll have such a lark." Bob was one of our little cousins, generally given into our charge. We lost Bob purposely. Said Fred, "if you dodge the gardiners, creep up there, and lay on your belly quietly, some girls will be sure to come, and piss, you'll see them pull their clothes up as they turn round, I saw some before you came to stay with us." So we went pushing our way among shrubs, and evergreens, till a gardiner, who had seen us, called out, "You there, come back, if I catch you going off the walks, you'll be put outside." We were in such a funk, Fred cut off one way, I another, but it only stopped us for that day. Fred so excited me about the girls' arses, as he called them, that we never lost an opportunity of trying for a sight, but were generally baulked. Once or twice only we saw a female squat down, but nothing more, till my mother and Fred's came to stop with us.

Fred's mother, mine, the girls, Fred and I went into the Park gardens, one day after luncheon. A very hot day, for we kept in the shady walks, one of which led to the place where women hid themselves to piss. My aunt said, "Why don't you boys go and play, you don't mind the sun," so off we went, but when about to leave the walk, turned round and saw the women had turned back. Said Fred, "I'm sure they are going to piss, that's why they want to get rid of us." We evaded the gardiners, scrambled through shrubs, on our knees, and at last on our bellies up a little bank, on the other side of which was the vacant place on which dead leaves and sweepings were shot down. As we got there, pushing aside the leaves, we saw the big backside of a woman, who was half standing, half squatting, a stream of piss falling in front of her, and a big hairy gash, as it seemed, under her arse; but only for a second, she had just finished as we got the peep, let her clothes fall, tucked them between her legs, and half turned round. We saw it was Fred's mother, my aunt. Off aunt went. "Isn't it a wopper," said Fred, "lay still, more of them will come."

Two or three did, one said, "you watch if anyone is coming," squatted and piddled, we could not see her cunt, but only part of her legs, and the piddle splashing in front of her. Then came the second, she had her arse towards us, sat so low, that we could not even see the tips of her buttocks. Fred thought it a pity they did not stand half up like his mother. On other occasions, we went to the same place, but though I recollect seeing some females' legs, don't recollect seeing any more. Nevertheless the sights were very delightful to us, and we used to discuss his mother's "wopper" and the hair, and the look of the gash, but I thought there must be some mistake, for it was not the idea I had formed of a cunt.

Fred soon after stopped with us in town, we had been forbidden to go out together, without permission, but we did, and met a boy bigger than either of us, who was going to bathe. "Come and see them bathing," he said. My father had refused to take me to the public baths. Disregarding this, Fred and I paid our six pence each, and in we went with our friend; we did not bathe, but amused ourselves with seeing others, and the pricks of the men. None, as far as I can recollect, wore drawers in those days, they used to walk about hiding their prides generally, with their hands, but not always. I was astonished at the size of some of them, and at the dark hair about them, and on other parts of their bodies. I wondered also at seeing one or two, with the red tip showing fully, so different from mine. All this was much talked over by us afterwards, it was to me an insight into the male make and form. Fred told me, he had often seen men's pricks in their fields, and in those days, living in the country as he did, I dare say it was true, but I don't recollect ever having seen the pricks of full grown men, or a naked man before in my life.

It must have been in the summer of that same year, that I went after this to spend some days at my aunt's at H...ds...e..., Fred's mother. We slept in the some room, and sometimes got up quite at daybreak to go fishing. One morning Fred had left something, in one of his sisters' rooms and went to fetch it, though forbidden to go into the girls' bedrooms. The room in question was opposite to ours. He was only partly dressed, and came back in a second, his face grinning. "Oh! come Wat, come softly, Lucy and Mary are quite naked, you can see their cunts, Lucy has some black hair on hers." I was only half dressed, and much excited by the idea of seeing my cousins' nudity. We both took off our slippers, and crept along through the door half open, then went on our knees! But why we did so, to this day I don't understand, and so crept to the foot of the bed, then raising ourselves, we both looked over the footboard.

Lucy, fifteen years old, was laying half on her side, naked from her knees to her waist, the bed-clothes kicked off (I suppose through heat), were dragging across her feet and partly laying on the floor; we saw her split, till lost in the closed thighs, she had a little dark short hair over the top of her cunt, and that is all I can recollect about it.

Mary-Ann by the side of her, a year younger only, laid on her back, nacked up to her navel, just above which was her night-gown in a heap and ruck; she had scarcely a sign of hair on her cunt, but a vermillion line, lay right through her crack. Projecting more towards the top, where her cunt began, she had what I now know was a strongly developed clitoris; she was a lovely girl and had long chestnut hair.

Whilst we looked she moved one leg up in a restless manner, and we bobbed down, thinking she was awaking; when we looked again, her limbs were more open, and we saw the cunt till it was pinched up, by the closing of her buttocks. In fear of being caught, we soon crept out, closed the door ajar, and regained our bedroom, so delighted that we danced with joy, as we talked about the look of the two cunts; of which, after all, we had only had a most partial, rapid glimpse.

Lucy was a very plain girl, and was so as a woman. She had, I recollect, a very red bloated looking face as she lay (it was so hot); she it was, who in afterlife my mother cautioned about leaving her infant son to a nursemaid.

Mary-Ann was lovely. I used afterwards to look and talk with her, thinking to myself: "Ah! you have but little idea, that I have seen your cunt." She was unfortunate; married a cavalry officer, went to India with him, was left at a station unavoidably by her husband, who was sent on a campaign, for a whole year; could not bear being deprived of cock, and was caught in the act of fucking with a drummer boy, a mere lad. She was separated from him, came back to England, and drank herself to death. She was a salacious young woman, I think from what I recollect of her, and am told, was afterwards fucked by a lot of men; but it was a sore point with the family, and all about her was kept quiet.

One of Lucy's sons, in after years, I saw fucking a maid in a summer-house: both standing up against a big table; I was on the roof. Many years before that, I fucked a nurse-maid, she laying on that table, in the very same summer-house, as I shall presently tell.

Fred and I used to discuss the look of his sisters' and mother's cunts, as if they had belonged to strangers. The redness of the line in Mary-Ann's quim astonished us. I do not recollect having even then, formed any definite notion of what a girl's cunt was, though we had seen the splits, but had still, and till much further on, the notion that the hole was round, and close to where the clitoris is, having no idea then of what a clitoris was, though we had got an Aristotle and used to read it greedily; the glimpse of the two cunts were but momentary, and our excitement confused our recollections.

Fred and I then formed a plot to look at another girl's cunt; who the girl was, I don't know, it may have been another of Fred's sisters, or a cousin by another of my aunts, but I think not; at all events she was stopping in aunt's house, and from her height, which was less than that of Fred and myself, I should think a girl of about eleven or twelve years of age. I scrupulously avoid stating anything positively, unless quite certain. Some years afterwards when we were very young men, we did the same thing with a female cousin (but not his sister), as I shall tell.

There was haymaking. We romped with the girl, buried each other in hay, pulled each other out, and so on. I was buried in the hay and dragged out by my legs by Fred and the girl. Then Fred was: then we buried the girl, and as Fred pulled her out he threw up her clothes, I lay over her head, which was covered with hay. Fred saw, winked and nodded. It came to my turn again to be buried, and then hers; I laid hold of her legs and pulling them from under the hay, saw her thighs, I pushed her knees up, and had a glimpse of the slit, which was quite hairless. My aunt and others were in the very field, but had no idea of the game we were playing, the girl romping with us, had no idea, that we were looking at her cunt, and an instantaneous peep only it was.

What effect sensuously, these glimpses of cunt, had on me, I don't know; but have no recollection of sexual desire, nor of mine nor Fred's cock being stiff. I expect that what with games, and our studies, that after all the time we devoted to thinking about women, was not long, and curiosity our sole motive in doing what we did. I clearly recollect our talking at that time about fucking, and wondering if it were true or a lie. We could repeat what we had read, and heard, but it still seemed improbable to me that a cock should go up a cunt, and the result be a child.

Then a passionate liking for females came over me; I fell in sort of love with a lady who must have been forty, and had a sad feeling about her, that is all I recollect. Then I began to follow servants about, on the hope of seeing their legs, or seeing them piddle, or for some undefined object: but that I was always looking after them, I know very well.

Then (I know now) my father got into difficulties, we moved into a smaller house, the governess went away, I was sent to another school, one of my brothers and sisters died; my father went abroad to look after some plantations, and after a year's absence came back and died, leaving my mother, in what compared with our former condition, were poor circumstances, but this in due course will be more fully told.

I think I went to school, though not long before what I am going to tell of happened, but am not certain, if so, I must have seen boys frigging; yet as far as I can arrange in my mind the order of events, I first saw a boy doing that, in my own bed-room at home.

I was somewhere, I suppose, about thirteen years of age, when a distant relative came from the country, to stay with us, until he was put to some great school. He was the son of a clergyman, and must have been fifteen, or perhaps sixteen years old, and was strongly pitted with the small-pox. I had never seen him before, and took a strong dislike to him; the family were poor, this boy was intended for a clergyman. I was excessively annoyed, that he was to sleep with me, but in our small house, there was just then no other place for him.

How many nights he slept in my bed, I don't recollect, it can have been but few; One evening in bed he felt my prick; repulsing him at first, I nevertheless afterwards felt his, and recollect our hands crossing each other and our thighs being close together. Awaking one morning, I felt his belly up against my rump, and his feeling or pushing his prick against my arse, putting my hand back, I pushed him away; then I found it pushing quickly backwards and forwards between my thighs, and his hand, passed over my hips, was grasping my cock. Turning round, I faced him; he asked me to turn round again, and said I might do it to him afterwards, but nothing more was done. An unpleasant feeling about sleeping with him is in my memory, but as said, I disliked him.

The next night undressing, he showed me his prick, stiff, as he sat naked on a chair; it was an exceedingly long, but thin article; he told me about frigging, and said he would frig me, if I would frig him. He commenced moving his hand quickly up and down, on his prick, which got stiffer and stiffer, he jerked up one leg, then the other, shut his eyes and altogether looked so strange, that I thought he was going to have a fit; then out spurted little pasty lumps, whilst he snorted, as some people do in their sleep, and fell back in the chair with his eyes closed; then I saw stuff running thinner over his knuckles. I was strangely fascinated as I looked at him, and at what was on the carpet, but half thought he was ill; he then told me it was great pleasure, and was eloquent about it. Even now, as it did then, the evening seemed to me a nasty unpleasant one, yet I let him get hold of my prick and frig it, but had no sensation of pleasure, he said, "your skin won't come off, what a funny prick;" that annoyed me, and I would not let him do more; we talked till our candle burnt out; he stamped out the sperm on the carpet, saying the servants would think we had been spitting. Then we got into bed.

Afterwards he frigged himself several times before me, and at his request I frigged him, wondering at the result, and amused, yet at the same time much disgusted. When frigging him one day; he said it was lovely to do it in an arse-hole, that he and his brother took it in turns that way: it was lovely, heavenly! would I let him do it to me. In my innocence I told him, it was impossible and that I thought him a liar. He soon left us and went to college. I saw him once or twice after this, in later years, but at a very early age he drowned himself. I told my cousin Fred about this when I saw him; Fred believed in the frigging, but thought him a liar about the arse-hole business, just as I did. This was the first time I ever saw frigging and male semen, and it opened my eyes.

Though now at a public school, I was shy, and reserved, but greedily listened to all the lewed talk, of which I did not believe a great deal. I became one of a group of boys of the same tastes as myself. One day some of them coaxed me into a privy, and there, in spite of me, pulled out my cock, threw me down, held me, and each one spat upon it, and that initiated me into their society. They had what they called cocks-all-round: anyone admitted to the set, was entitled to feel the others' cocks. I felt theirs, but again to my mortification, the tightness of my prepuce caused jeering at me; I was glad to hear that there was another boy at the school in the same predicament, though I never saw his. This confirmed me in avoiding my companions, when they were playing at cocks-all-round; being a day scholar only, I was not forced at all times into their intimacy, as I should have been had I been a boarder.

We had a very large playground; beyond it were fields, orchards and walks of large extent reserved for the use of the two head-masters' families, many of whom were girls. On Saturday half-holidays only, if the fruit was not ripe, we were allowed to range certain fields, and the long bough-covered paths, which surrounded them. Two or three boys of my set told me mysteriously one afternoon, that when the others had gone ahead, we were to meet in the play-ground privy, in which were seats for three boys of a row, and I was to be initiated into a secret without my asking. I was surprised at what took place, there was usually an usher in the play-ground in play-hours, and if boys were too long at the privy, he went there, and made them come out. On the Saturdays, he went out with the boys into the fields: there was no door to the privy, I should add, it was a largish building.

One by one, from different directions, some dodging among trees which bordered one side of the playground, appeared boys. I think there were five or six together in the privy, then it was cocks-all-round, and every boy frigged himself. I would not, at first. Why? I don't know. At length incited, I tried, my cock would not stand, and vexed and mortified, I withdrew, after swearing not to split on them, on pain of being kicked and cut. I don't think I was one of the party again, though I saw each of the same boys frig himself in the privy when alone with me, at some time or another.

After this a boy asked me to come to a privy with him in school time, and he would show me how to do it. Only two boys were allowed to go to those closets at the same time, during school time. There were two wooden legs with keys hung up on the wall by string: a boy if he wanted to ease himself looked to see if a log and key was hanging up, and if there was, stood out in the centre of the room; by that the master understood what he wanted. If he nodded, the boy took the key and went to the bog-house (no water-closets then), and when he returned, he hung up the log in its place. Those privies were close together, and separate, there were but two of them.

"You wait till there are two logs hanging up, and directly I get one, you get up and come after me." Soon we were both in one privy together. "Let's frig," said he; we were only allowed to be away five minutes. Out he pulled his prick, then out I pulled mine; he tried to pull my skin back, and could only half do it, he frigged himself successfully, but I could not. He had a very small prick compared with mine. How I envied him the ease with which he covered and uncovered the red tip. I frigged that boy one day, but finding my cock was becoming a talk among our set, I shrunk from going to their frigging parties, which I have seen even take place in a field, boys sitting at the edge of a ditch, whilst one stood up to watch if anyone approached. When they were frigging in the privy, a boy always stood in the open door on the watch, and his time for frigging came afterwards.

With this set I began to look through the Bible, and study all the carnal passages; no book ever gave us perhaps such prolonged, studious, baudy amusement; we could not understand much, but guessed a good deal.

Before I had seen anyone frig, I had been permitted to read novels, not a moment of my time when not at studies was I without one. My father used to select them for me at first, but soon left me to myself, and now he was dead, I devoured what books I liked, hunting for the love passages, thinking of the beauty of the women, reading over and over again, the description of their charms, and envying their love meetings. I used to stop at print-shop windows and gaze with delight at the portraits of pretty women, and bought some at six pence each, and stuck them into a scrap-book. Although a big fellow for my age, I would sit on the lap of any woman who would let me, and kiss her. My mother in her innocence called me a great girl, but she neverthless forbid it. I was passionately fond of dancing and annoyed when they indicated a girl of my own age, or younger, to dance with.

These feelings got intensified, when I thought of my aunt's backside, and the cunts of my cousins, but when I thought of the heroines, it seemed strange that such beautiful creatures should have any. The cunt which seemed to have affected my imagination, was that of my aunt, which appeared more like a great parting, or division of her body, than a cunt as I then understood it; as if her buttock parting was continued round towards her belly, and as unlike the young cunts I had seen as possible. Those seemed to be but little indents. That the delicate ladies of the novels should have such divisions seemed curious, ugly, and unromantic. My sensuous temperament was developing, I saw females in all their poetry and beauty, but suppose that my physical forces had not kept pace with my brain, for I have no recollection of a cock-stand, when thinking about ladies; and fucking never entered into my mind, either when I read novels, or kissed women, though the pleasure I had when my lips met theirs, or touched their smooth, soft cheeks was great. I recollect the delight it gave me perfectly.

After having seen frigging, it set me reflecting, but it still seemed to me impossible, that delicate, handsome ladies, should allow pricks to be thrust up them, and nasty stuff ejected into them. I read Aristotle, tried to understand it, and thought I did, with the help of much talk with my schoolfellows; yet I only half believed it. Dogs fucking were pointed out to me; then cocks treading hens, and at last a fuller belief came.

I began then, I recollect, to think of their cunts when I kissed women, and then of my aunt's; I could not keep my eyes off of her, for thinking of her large backside and the gap between her thighs; it was the same with my cousins. Then I began to have cock-stands and suppose a pleasurable feeling about the machine, though I do not recollect that. I then found out that servants were fair game, and soon there was not one in the house whom I had not kissed. I had a soft voice and have heard, an insinuating way, was timorous, feared repulse, and above all being found out; yet I succeeded. Some of the servants must have liked it, who called me a foolish boy at first; for they would stop with me on a landing, or in a room, when we were alone, and let me kiss them for a minute together. There was one, I recollect, who rubbed her lips into mine, till I felt them on my teeth, but of what she was like, I have no recollection, and I did not like her doing that to me.

My curiosity became stronger, I got bolder, told servants I meant to see them wash themselves, and used to wait inside by bed-room, till I heard one of them come up to dress. I knew the time each usually went to her bedroom for that purpose, the person most in my way was the nurse: she after a time left, and mother nursed her own children. "Let's see your neck; do, there is a dear," I would say. "Nonsense, what next?" "Do, dear, there is no harm; I only want to see as much as ladies show at balls." I wheedled one to stand at the door in her petticoats and show her neck across the bedroom lobby. The stays were high and queerly made in those days, the chemises pulled over the top of them like flaps. One or two let me kiss their necks, a girl one day said to my entreaties, "Well, only for a minute," and easing up one breast, she showed me the nipple, I threw my arms around her, buried my face in her neck and kissed it. "I like the smell of your breast and flesh," said I. She was a biggish woman, and I dare say I smelt breasts and armpits together; but whatever the compound, it was delicious to me, it seemed to enervate me. The same woman, when I kissed her on the sly afterwards, let me put my nose down her neck to smell her. We were interrupted. "There is someone coming," said she, moving away.

"What makes ladies smell so nice?" said I to my mother one day. My mother put down her work and laughed to herself. "I don't know that they smell nice."

"Yes, they do, and particularly when they have low dresses on." "Ladies," said mother, "use patchouli and other perfumes." I supposed so, but felt convinced from mother's manner, that I had asked a question which embarrassed her.

I used to lean over the backs of the chairs of ladies, get my face as near to their necks as I could, quietly inhale their odours, and talk all the time. Not every woman smelt nice to me, and when they did, it was not patchouli, for I got patchouli, which I liked, and perfumed myself with it. This delicate sense of smell of a woman I have had throughout life, it was ravishing to me afterwards, when I embraced the naked body of a fresh, healthy young woman.

From about this time of my life, I recollect striking events much more clearly, yet the circumstances which led up to them or succeeded them I often cannot. One day, Miss Granger, our former governess, came to see us. I kissed her. Mother said: "Wattie, you must not kiss ladies in that way, you are too big." I sat Miss Granger on my lap in fun (my mother then in the room), and romped with her. Mother left us in the room, and then seating Miss Granger on my lap again, I pulled her closely to me. "Kiss me, she's gone," I said. "Oh! what a boy," and she kissed me, saying, "let me go now—your mamma is coming." It came into my mind that I had had my hand up her clothes, and had felt hair between her legs. My prick stiffening in thinking of a women. I clutched her hard, put one hand on to her and did something I know not what. She said: "You are rude, Wattie." Then I pinched her and said: "Oh! what a big bosom you have." "Hish! hish!" said she. She was a tallish woman with brown hair; I have heard my mother say she was about thirty years of age.

A memorable episode then occured. There were two sisters, with other female servants, in our house. My father was abroad at that time; I was growing so rapidly, that every month they could see a difference in my height, but was very weak. My godfather used to look at me, and severely ask if I was up to tricks with the boys. I guessed then what he meant, but always said I did not know what he meant. "Yes, you do; yes, you do," he would say, staring hard at me, "you take care, or you'll die in a mad-house, if you do, and I shall know by your face, not a farthing more will I give you." He had been a surgeon-major in the Army, and gave me much pocket-money. I could not bear his looking at me so; he would ask me why I turned down my eyes.

About this time, I had had a fever, had not been to school for a long time, and used to lie on the sofa reading novels all day. Miss Granger had come to stop with my mother. One day I put my hand up her clothes, nearly to her knees; that offended her, and she left off kissing me. One of my little sisters slept with her, in a room adjoining my mother's room; I slept now on the servants floor, at the top of the house. Again I recollect my cock standing when near Miss Granger, but recollect nothing else.

I was then ordered by my mother to cease speaking to the servants, excepting when I wanted anything, though I am sure my mother never suspected my kissing one. I obeyed her hypocritically, and was even at times reprimanded for speaking to them, in too imperious a tone. She told me to speak to servants respectfully. For all that I was after them, my curiosity was unsatiable, I know the time each went up to dress, or for other purposes, and if at home, would get into the lobby, or near the staircase, to see their legs, as they went upstairs. I would listen at their door, trying to hear them piss, and began for the first time to peep through keyholes at them.

title: My Secret Life/Volume 1/Chapter 2


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Hardee, William Joseph

HARDEE, William Joseph, military officer: b. Savannah, Ga., 10 Oct. 1815; d. Wytheville, Va., 6 Nov. 1B73. He was graduated at West Point in 1838; served with distinction in the Mexican War; and in the Civil War entered the Confederate army with the rank of colonel. He commanded a corps at Shiloh; and was promoted lieutenant-general in 1862. At Perryville he commanded the left wing of the Confederate army, and in December 1864 defended Savannah against General Sherman.