My name is Harry Wendel.
I am an attorney and until recently boasted of a splendid practice and
an excellent prospect for the future. I am still a young man; I have
had a good education and still have friends and admirers. Such being the
case, you no doubt wonder why I give a past reference to my practice and
what the future might have held for me. Listen:
I might as well start 'way back. I shall do it completely and go back to
the fast-receding time of childhood.
There is a recollection of childish disaster. I had been making
strenuous efforts to pull the tail out of the cat that I might use
it for a feather duster. My desire was supreme logic. I could not
understand objection; the cat resisted for certain utilitarian reasons
of its own and my mother through humane sympathy. I had been scratched
and spanked in addition: it was the first storm centre that I remember.
I had been punished but not subdued. At the first opportunity, I stole
out of the house and onto the lawn that stretched out to the pavement.
I remember the day. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, and
everything was green with springtime. For a minute I stood still and
blinked in the sunlight. It was beautiful and soft and balmy; the
world at full exuberance; the buds upon the trees, the flowers, and the
songbirds singing. I could not understand it. It was so beautiful and
soft. My heart was still beating fiercely, still black with perversity
and stricken rancour. The world had no right to be so. I hated with the
full rush of childish anger.
And then I saw.
Across the street coming over to meet me was a child of my age. He was
fat and chubby, a mass of yellow curls and laughter; when he walked he
held his feet out at angles as is the manner of fat boys and his arms
away from his body. I slid off the porch quietly. Here was something
that could suffer for the cat and my mother. At my rush he stopped in
wonder. I remember his smiling face and my anger. In an instant I had
him by the hair and was biting with all the fury of vindictiveness.
At first he set up a great bawl for assistance. He could not understand;
he screamed and held his hands aloft to keep them out of my reach. Then
he tried to run away. But I had learned from the cat that had scratched
me. I clung on, biting, tearing. The shrill of his scream was music: it
was conflict, sweet and delicious; it was strife, swift as instinct.
At last I stopped him; he ceased trying to get away and began to
struggle. It was better still; it was resistance. But he was stronger
than I; though I was quicker he managed to get my by the shoulders,
to force me back, and finally to upset me. Then in the stolid way, and
after the manner of fat boys, he sat upon my chest. When our startled
mothers came upon the scene they so found us--I upon my back, clinching
my teeth and threatening all the dire fates of childhood, and he waiting
either for assistance or until my ire should retire sufficiently to
allow him to release me in safety.
“Who did it? Who started it?”
That I remember plainly.
“Hobart, did you do this?” The fat boy backed off quietly and clung to
his mother; but he did not answer.
“Hobart, did you start this?”
Still no answer.
“Harry, this was you; you started it. Didn't you try to hurt Hobart?”