He was the elder son, and the favorite of my father, though my mother
never showed any partiality between us. John never treated me well.
Heaven knows, I have no unkind thoughts of him for it now, poor
fellow! but I wish to tell you the whole story exactly as it was. I
was a fair scholar, and generally had my own tasks to do, and John's
also. I worked out all his hard sums and problems, construed his
Virgil while I was only reading Caesar, and often wrote his Greek
exercise when I was almost too sleepy to keep my eyes open. The
consequence was that my own lessons were often neglected, and if I got
a caning for my failure, I had no sympathy from John, although it was
the price I paid for his good mark."
"It was confoundedly mean of him," I remarked, knocking the ashes from
my cigar. But Uncle Joseph did not notice the interruption.
"In short, I was John's fag at school, though not at all a willing
one, and the situation was quietly accepted for me at home. My father
was singularly blind to my brother's faults. His ambition was to
purchase the patronage of his living and have John succeed to it; but
we both preferred paddling about in the salt water, and holding a
sheet in the fishermen's smacks with a stiff norther after us, to
studying our catechism or making Hebrew letters.
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