Flesh of John Brown's Flesh: 2 December 1859

We knew the rules and punishments: three lashes for lack of diligence, eight for disobeying mother or telling lies....No blood, he’d say, and no remission. Came a day he started keeping my account, as at a store. And came another he called me to the tannery: a Sunday, day of settlement. I’d paid one-third the owed amount when he, to my astonishment, handed the blue-beech switch to me. Always, the greatest of my fears were not his whippings, but his tears, and he was tearful now. I dared not disobey, nor strike him hard. “I will consider a weak blow no blow at all, rather a show of cowardice,” he said.No blood and no remission