James Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown

[27] tearing off his tail in doing it; & getting severely bitten at the same time himself. He however held on to the little bob tail Squirrel; & finally got him perfectly tamed, so that he almost idolized his pet. This too he lost; by its wandering away; or by getting killed: & for a year or Two John was in mourning,; and looking at all the Squirrels he could see to try & discover Bob tail, if possible. I must not neglect to tell you of a very bad and foolish habit to which John was somewhat addicted. I mean telling lies: generally to screen himself from blame; or from punishment. He could not well endure to be reproached; & I now think had he been oftener encouraged to be entirely frank; by making frankness a kind of atonement for some of his faults; he would not have been so often guilty of this fault; nor have been obliged to struggle so long in after life with so mean a habit. John was never quarrelsome; but was excessively fond of the hardest and roughest kind of plays; & could never get enough [of] them.

Indeed when for a short time he was sometimes sent to School the opportunity it afforded to wrestle & Snow ball & run & jump & knock off old seedy wool hats offered to him almost the only compensation for the confinement, & restraints of school. I need not tell you that with such a feeling & but little chance of going to school at all: he did not become much of a schollar.¹ He would always choose to stay