One of the horses was exceedingly ticklish when touched in a certain way upon its backbone, and could not bear to be touched on this particular spot with a curry comb, and sometimes when so irritated would let fly with both heels at once. So on the morning following the last punishment Jim set me to clean some portion of the harness, and made me stand in a certain position directly behind the ticklish horse. There I worked away without any idea that mischief was brewing. Jim, however, had laid all his plans, and if they had succeeded and I had been killed, he would have been found blameless. There was an open window to the stable exactly opposite and close to the ticklish horse, so that a man outside, by standing on a ledge of the wall, could put his hand through and touch the horse's back. I heard the horse make a noise, and on looking up saw Jim's head outside the window, and his hand upon the horse's back. At the same moment the horse let fly, and one of his heels came against my left side and sent me dashing against the wall. I knew no more until I found myself in bed with my mother crying and washing the blood from my hair and face, and felt a great pain in my hip, where the horse's hoof struck. There was also a big scar on my head where I was knocked against the wall. I can only account for not having been finished off that time by the fact that the horse did not kick when it was first touched, but began to prance about, which arrested my attention and I moved close to his heels. If I had been a little further off his heels would have struck my head or the upper part of my body and I should not have been here to write.
After lying in bed about a week, where I cogitated and wondered for what earthly purpose I was born, I had to go back under this fiend again. Every other place in the parish was filled and my parents could not afford to keep me in idleness, so there was nothing for it, but to go back to work again as soon as possible.
A few days after this the very same horse got restive in a field where we were and turned over a cartload of manure upon poor Jim. I thought he was killed, in fact for a moment I hoped he was killed. But immediately I would have given worlds to have called back the thought. Miss Brown's words came upon me, quick as a lightning flash, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." Other of her precepts came strongly into my mind, and I shook with fear, for I had learned that to wish a man dead amounted to the same thing as killing him. Therefore, I felt that I had committed a most grievous sin, and I cannot express the joy I felt when I saw Jim crawl out from under the cart unhurt. He began to curse and swear at the horse and me, saying it was all my fault, whereas it was his own fault, as in harnessing the horse he had negligently left the buckle of a strap under the cartsaddle, so that the buckle rested exactly upon the backbone of the horse and caused him to be restive.