I had been sent to Cottage Eight only a few days after my tenth birthday, which fell in the middle of the month of May.  Before June had a good chance to start, I had ran away.
    It had been only a couple of days after I had gotten my first whipping when I had decided I was going to run away.  My face was still stinging from the slap Ms. Gruber had given me.  I had been late in getting into the cottage, to get cleaned up and my clothes changed for supper.  I knew better but I was just late.  When I had gotten into the cottage I had gone as fast as I could hoping she wouldn't notice I was late.  She had notice though and I had gotten slapped and a warning, it had better not happen again.  I knew what she had meant by that.  Inside I could still feel the pain from the last whipping.  I had tried not to think about it but it was always right at the edge of my thoughts.
    When I had decided to run away, I was standing on the back porch waiting for supper with all of the other boys in my cottage.  I knew I couldn't run then.  I would have to wait until after supper.
    As we stood there waiting all of the other boys acted as though I wasn't there.  That was sort of an unspoken code among us kids.  When one of us got a whipping or slapped, the rest would pretend not to notice.  It sort of upset everyone and it also allowed the boy to have some time to himself.
    Ms. Gruber came out of the cottage and told us to line up.  Lining up two abreast we all marched off to supper.  All dressed in blue shorts and white T-shirts.  To supper we always wore our shoes and socks.
    At meal times we were never allowed to talk.  So I didn't tell anyone I was going to run away right after supper.  I guess though, I wouldn't have told anyone anyway.  I would have been afraid they would have told on me.  If a boy ever told Ms. Gruber I was going to run away, I would get a whipping as bad as if I had ran away.
    After supper, we changed back into our play clothes.  They were similar to the clothes we ate our meals in, only they had been worn the week before as our meal clothes.  This week they were our play clothes.
    After we had changed our clothes we went outside to play until it was time for us to come in and take our baths before bed time.  As I walked out the back door of my cottage, playing wasn't on my mind.
    Most of the boys in my cottage had headed down to the ball field, some had gone to the swings in back of Cottage Ten, the cottage next to ours.  I stopped on the porch not wanting anyone to think I was in a hurry to get anywhere.  There were a couple of other boys sitting there on the edge of the porch, talking among themselves.
    I sat down on the far end of the porch.  Waiting there, it seemed as though everyone knew what I was planning on doing.  It was as though everyone kept looking my way, waiting for me to run away, so they could go and tell our cottage mother.
    Finally, I got up and walked down to the service road that ran through the orphanage.  It passed about a hundred feet behind my cottage.  Across it, I was out-of-bounds.  If you were caught over there, you might as well have ran away for the penalty was the same.
    I walked to the road and followed it down by the ball field.  There it met the street that passed the north side of the orphanage.  As soon as I went out onto the street I would be a runaway.
    The first time I ran away was sort of scary.  Well I guess every time I ran away it was scary.  It never did get any easier.  But I was determined to go.  I had no idea where I was going.  All that was on my mind, was I was going to run away and I was never going to go back.
    I couldn't be seen by anyone up by my cottage.  The only ones who could see me, were the boys on the ball field and they were all busy playing, not paying any attention to me.
    I walked out onto the street, turned away from the orphanage and kept right on walking.  I didn't even bother with running.  I just walked.
    I walked a couple of blocks and crossed the railroad tracks.  On the other side of the tracks were houses on both sides of the street.  The orphanage was now out of sight.  As far as I was concerned, I had gotten away.   I continued further from the orphanage, down the street, casually like any other kid in town.  Only I was wearing the uniform of an orphan boy from the orphanage.  Dressed as I was, I might as well have carried a sign proclaiming I was a runaway.  Someone must have noticed for I hadn't gotten more than ten blocks from the home when I noticed a green car pull up beside me and stop.
    The first thing I had noticed, it was a green car and it had the state emblem on it's door.  Even before I had noticed who was driving the car my chest had tightened with fear and there was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.  All of the cars at the orphanage had the state emblem on their doors.
    The door had opened and the cottage father for Cottage Ten had gotten out.  I didn't know him but I had seen him around the orphanage.  The cottage he and his wife took care of was right next to mine.  All of the boys in his cottage were thirteen years old.
    As he approached me, he asked, "Where do you think you are going boy?"  He hadn't sounded mad.  Of course from the sound of his voice, he didn't seem real happy in seeing me either.
    "I'm going for a walk Sir."  Maybe he would think, I thought it was all right to go for a walk.  I guess not for he told me he thought my walk had gone far enough and he thought I should start walking back, out in the middle of the street, in front of his car.
    The return trip to the orphanage had started out in a walk but as his car kept getting closer I moved a little faster.  By the time we got back to the orphanage, I was running as hard as I could.
    I had ran back up the service road and he had closely followed me up the road, parking his car where I had turned off of the road to go back to my cottage.
    When I had left the road, I was directly behind my cottage.
    Still in a dead run, I was heading straight for my cottage, hoping that was the end of it.  No luck, for he had gotten out of his car and yelled at me to stop and wait for him.
    I waited there, halfway between my cottage and him.  Not knowing what was in store for me.  After all he wasn't my cottage father.  My cottage mother wasn't even married.  The best I was hoping for, was he wouldn't tell Ms. Gruber I had ran away.  I had even considered in asking him not to tell her.  Promising him I wouldn't run away again.
    When he walked up to me, he took a hold of my arm and told me to go with him to his cottage.  That sort of wiped out anything I was thinking.  For I didn't know why he would want me to go with him to his cottage.
    We went in the back door of his cottage.  His cottage was laid out like mine.  We went through the washroom, into the front hallway.  Then he led me up the stairway and into the dormitory.
    "You wait here, I will be right back."  He told me as he let loose of my arm and turned back towards the hallway.  His apartment was on the same floor as the dormitory, like Ms. Gruber's was.
    He had left me standing by the bed nearest the door.  I didn't know why he had taken me up there.  I really wasn't scared.   I was nervous though, for he hadn't said a word to me, except to wait for him when he had gotten out of the car and then when he had caught up to me, to come with him.
    I stayed by the bed and was looking around the dormitory when I heard his apartment door open again.  I turned and looked that way, waiting for him to enter the dormitory.  If I had stepped closer to the end of the bed, I would have been able to see up the hallway, at least as far as his apartment door.  I was frozen where I was.  I wasn't scared, I just didn't want to look up the hallway for fear I would get scared.
    As he came through the door of the dormitory, I felt I was about to faint.  In his hand he was carrying a razor strap, very similar to Ms. Gruber's.  Maybe somewhere in my mind, when he had brought me up to the dormitory, I knew he was going to give me a whipping.  If I did, I had completely blocked it out.  I had stood there in the dormitory, not even thinking I was going to get a whipping.  To my way of thinking, he wasn't my cottage father, only my cottage mother could give me a whipping.  There was no reason for him to give me one.  As soon as I seen his razor strap I got the full realization as to what he was going to do to me.
    When he had approached me, he had told me, "Take your shorts off and lay over the bed."  He had motioned with the strap towards the bed I had been standing by.
    I had hooked my thumbs in the waistband of my shorts to pull them down, when I finally got my voice back.  "Please Sir, don't give me a whipping.  I'll never run away again."  I had begged him not to give me a whipping as I slowly pulled my shorts down past my knees.  "Please Sir, please.  I'm sorry.  I won't run away again."  Begging and pleading was of no avail.  For when my shorts were on the floor he put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me down across the bed.  Even laying on the bed I continued pleading with him, hoping he would change his mind at the last minute and not give me a whipping.
    I had half turned towards him, with a plea forming on my lips when I seen the first one coming.  I tried to turn fast out of the way of it but it had come in fast and hard.  The second, the third one quickly followed, fast and hard.  After the first one, I was screaming and begging him not to hit me again.
    After several swats of the razor strap he stopped and told me to get my shorts back on.  My hind-end was burning, my mind was in a whirl and I was still sobbing as he walked me back to my cottage.
    We had gone out the front door of his cottage and walked to the front door of mine.  There we had stopped and waited, after he had rang the doorbell for Ms. Gruber to come and open the door.
    "Here is your runaway."  I heard him tell her as I passed her and walked, still sobbing, towards the back of the cottage.  I wasn't paying too much attention in what else was being said.  She had said something to him but it had been lost on my ears.
    By now all of the other boys had taken their baths and were waiting in the day room for the time to go up to bed.  So I was headed back to the bathroom to take my bath, when I heard Ms. Gruber yelling after me.  "Where do you think you are going, young man?"  She had angrily yelled at me.  As though I should know better to do, whatever it was I was planning on doing.
    "I was going to take a bath Mam." I whimpered.  I didn't want to get into any more trouble than I already had.  I was now standing, confused, in the washroom only a couple of feet from the bathroom door.  She was standing in the doorway to the day room.
    Still angry, she said, "You get in here."  Turning she walked back into the day room and out of my sight.
    I was thoroughly confused now.  I thought I was to take a bath and sit with the rest of the boys until bed time. Now she wanted me in the day room with the rest of the boys, without me taking a bath.
    Walking into the day room, I walked towards my chair.  "No Peterson, I want you over here, right now."  Her voice was still very angry.  Oh God, was I scared as I turned to see where it was she wanted me.  She was standing in the double doorway with the razor strap in her hand.  I might have been slow but I knew now what she was going to do to me.
    She stepped back into her sitting room as I approached her, then waving with the razor strap towards her chair she said, in a voice which sent shock waves of fear through my body, "Get your shorts off and get over that chair."
    As I walked into her sitting room, I hooked my thumbs into the top of my shorts and was pulling them down as I pleaded with her, "Mam, I have already gotten a whipping from Mr. Guold for running away.  Please don't give me another whipping."  By now I was crying, tears were streaming down my face.  Maybe she didn't know I had already gotten a whipping.  I was sure Mr. Guold had forgotten to tell her.
    By the time I had gotten to the chair, my shorts were down to past my knees.  "Any time you run away, you are going to get a whipping from me."  Then raising her voice even more, "Now you get across the chair so all of the boys can see what happens to a runaway."
    I begged and pleaded with her but still it didn't do any good.  She grabbed me and forced me down across the chair.  The strap came down on me again and again.  I tried to get up from the chair but each time I tried the strap would force me back down.  I screamed and I begged her to stop.  I promised I would never run away again.  But still the strap kept coming.
    After the whipping she told me to go and get into the tub.  So still nude, with red welts showing, I walked past the boys in the day room to the bathroom.
    In Cottage Eight, I feared baths almost as much as I feared whippings.  Whenever us boys took baths we would always have to take our clothes off and stand naked in a line outside of the bathroom door to wait our turn to take a bath.
    I was ten then, all of the other boys were twelve.  So I suppose that is why I always had to stand at the end of the line and take my bath last.  Since there was only one tub in the cottage for all of us boys to take a bath in and with about fifteen boys in my cottage, I would have to wait almost an hour before it was my turn to take a bath.
    As the boys took their bath, Ms. Gruber would walk up and down the line, occasionally scolding a boy or slapping him for acting up in line, now and then going into the bathroom to hurry up the boy who was taking his bath.  By the time it came for me to take my bath, I would be visibly shaking with fear.  I knew what would happen once I got into the bathroom and had sat down in the tub.  By the time I had sat down in the tub, all of the other boys would have been in their pajamas and sitting in the day room waiting to go up to bed.
    It was always the same and yet I got into the tub.  There was never anything in my mind saying it wouldn't be as bad this time.  I knew it would be as bad as it always was.  Still I got into the tub.
    I don't know why but Ms. Gruber always gave me a bath.  I had always taken my own baths before I had gone to Cottage Eight.  All of the other boys in Cottage Eight took their own baths.  Maybe it was because I was ten years old and they were older and Ms. Gruber didn't think I was old enough to take my own bath.  As long as I was in her cottage, even after I was eleven, she never let me take a bath alone.  So I was never able to show her I knew how to take a bath.
    I would sit down in the tub with my feet towards the facets, with the water well above my waist, about halfway to my armpits.  Ms. Gruber would bring a stool and sit it by the tub.  After she had sat down, she would place her hand behind my head and force my head down into the water between my legs.  She didn't hold my head there long but long enough for me to come up gasping for air.  Then she would take a bar of soap and soap my hair.  Then with her fingers she would scrub my head so hard it felt like she was pulling my hair out.  When she was satisfied my hair was clean she would again force my head down between my legs.  Only this time holding my head under for a much longer period of time.  Holding it there until she had thoroughly removed all of the soap from my hair.  My eyes and nostrils would be burning.  I would be gasping for air whenever she allowed my head to come up again.  I always had the fear I would drown before she would release me.  These baths created a great fear of water for me.  A fear I was to carry with me for years to come.
    With me still coughing, she would take a washcloth and wash my face, ears and neck.  Then under the water I would go again, with me resisting her as much as I could.  Then, satisfied again all of the soap was off of me she would have me stand in the tub.  Wash my arms and upper part of my body.  Each time I took a bath she would always tell me, "Whenever you take a bath, you start at the top and work down."
    Taking the bar of soap in her hands, she would soap her hands up good and then start washing me in my pubic area.  With one hand she would pull my foreskin back and with the fingers of the other hand, she would start washing my vigorously.  Saying, "Whenever you wash here, you have to pull the skin back and wash very good so you don't get infected."  She had spent an overly long period of time in that area of my body, more attention than all of the rest of my body.  At times she would place her left hand on my buttocks and with the index finger and thumb of the other hand she would "wash" me vigorously, then much slower, then again vigorously.
    I didn't realize then what she was doing to me.  I didn't know anything about sex.  I didn't know anything about the difference between boys and girls.  Except I felt girls were something special, as though they were a lot better than boys.  I was never allowed near girls, except when I had been adopted out.  Of course at that age I didn't like girls too much.
    I don't remember the topic of sex ever being discussed between the older boys in my cottage and me.  They were twelve and they may have talked among themselves but I didn't socialize with them much.  I had noticed some of the boys were growing pubic hair, where I wasn't.  I didn't think it looked very good and I didn't ever want to grow hair on my body, not there anyway.
    One time, even though I was only ten years old, when Ms. Gruber was "washing" me that way, I had an erection.  She had gotten mad, stood up and backhanded me on the right side of my face so hard I went against the far wall, almost falling in the tub.  Her voice had been very disgusting as she had said, "Don't you ever do that again. You have a filthy mind."  The sound of her voice had made me feel so ashamed I would do something so bad.
    No the baths in Cottage Eight were not something I looked forward to.  I always dreaded bath nights.  In the winter time we only had to take a bath once a week but in the summer time it was almost a nightly occurrence.
    I thought of all of the other boys in Cottage Eight as "Big Boys."  Any boy older than me was a "Big Boy," younger boys than I were "Little Boys."  All of the boys in my cottage were older than I was.  They kind of thought of me as a "Little Boy."  So there had been sort of a wall between us.  All of the boys seemed to have their little groups and I couldn't seem to join any of them.  All of my old friends were now in Cottage Four or Cottage Six.  My cottage considered those cottages to be "Little Boys" cottages and the boys in those cottages looked at my cottage as being for the "Big Boys."  I was sort of in-between.  To young for the boys in my cottage, too old for the boys in Cottages Four and Six.  So when I tried to be with my old friends I was sort of an outsider.  I no longer belonged to their group.  Oh, I would talk with them and things but I wasn't one of them anymore.
    All of this sort of left me a loner most of the time.  I would go down to the ball field alone, lay down on the grass and look up at the sky.  I would watch the billowy white clouds form and then disappear as they floated across the sky
    There was a huge oak tree down by the ball field.  It was a little out-of-bounds, maybe by about five feet.  I had to climb over a six foot chain-link fence to get near it.  But I would go there alone often and climb high among it's branches.  Where I would sit for hours thinking and watching the cars go by on the street below.
    One day, while I was sitting alone in the swings behind Cottage Ten, I seen one of my old friends who lived in Cottage Six.  He was walking down by the service road, looking at something he was carrying in his hands.  He was about thirty feet from me.  There was a clod of dirt there by the swings.  Thinking I would scare him, I picked up the clod of dirt and threw it at him.  Not meaning to hit him.  My aim had been bad and the dirt had hit him on his left temple.  He had dropped whatever it was he had in his hands and put his hands to his face, screaming and crying.
    When I had seen what I had done I ran to him, putting my arm about his shoulders I told him I was sorry, I didn't mean to hit him.  I was close to tears myself because I had hurt him.  I held onto him close, as though to take the pain from him.
    Ms. Gruber must of seen what had happen, for she was soon yelling at me from the back porch of my cottage.  "Larry Peterson.  You get into this cottage right now, young man."  There was no question in my mind about her being mad, or why.  I knew what was in store for me when I got into the cottage.
    I ran to her as fast as I could.  I wanted to get to her before she got to the razor strap.  I wanted to tell her, I had not meant to hit the boy.  That it had been an accident.  I never had a chance to explain anything to her for as soon as I had caught up to her, she had grabbed me by my hair and pulled me into her sitting room.  My shorts were all but ripped from me as she forced me down across the arm of her chair.
    As usual, the strap came down hard and as usual, even though I had begged and screamed, trying to tell her I hadn't meant to hit the boy she didn't stop until she was exhausted.  I know she yelled and screamed at me, as she gave me the whipping but it was all lost on me.  My mind had been on the pain and trying to get her to stop whipping me.
    Whippings and slaps were the most painful punishments she used, but there was other things she would do to me, besides yelling at me.  Her yelling at me was bad enough.  One of her favorite punishments for me, was to sit on the floor in her sitting room.  I would have to sit there at her feet, darning socks most of the day.  There always seemed to be a huge pile of socks, waiting just for me.
    One day, after coming back from one of my escapes, with my rear-end still burning, I was sitting there on the floor in front of Ms. Gruber, darning socks.  She was reading the newspaper.  She leaned forward and showed me a couple of pictures in the paper. They were of some mid to late teen-age boys getting into some trucks.  Trucks which looked like army trucks, there was a canvas type top on the back of each of the trucks.  Some of the boys had already gotten in and were looking out the back of the trucks.  There were a few boys standing at the back of the trucks as though they were about to get in.
    She told me, after a boy had been beaten to death, there had been a riot at the State Training School for Boys in Eldora, Iowa.  From a nearby table, she picked up a couple of photographs and showed them to me.  They were pictures of a boy laying down as though he was dead, not much older than I was.  He had been severely beaten.  One photograph showed the boy had welts across his stomach, chest and legs.  Even his face was badly marked.  The other photo showed his back side and it was the same.  He was covered with welts and bruises.  He had been severely beaten, a lot worse than I had ever been.  The photographs had been sickening.  I couldn't imagine any boy getting a beating that bad.  The way she had talked I had assumed (though I now realize it wasn't so) they had been photographs of the boy who had been beaten to death at the Iowa Training School for Boys in Eldora. An assumption which was firmly lodge in my mind.
    She had told me, "That is where you are going, if you don't start behaving yourself and stop this running away."
    It never stopped me from running away but the training school was always near the surface of my mind.  At the time it was the only other institution I was aware of and I sure didn't want to go there.
    On Saturday nights after the baths were over with, all of the boys and girls in the institution would get to attend the movie in the chapel.  That is, if they hadn't been in any trouble during the week.
    I don't know about the girls but any boys who had gotten into trouble during the last week would have to go to Ms. Platt's cottage, Cottage Twelve and stand with his nose against the wall in the hallway until the movie was over with.  It seems I spent a lot of Saturday evenings in Cottage Twelve with my nose against the wall.  If you got a whipping or even slapped during the week, you could bet your name was on a list somewhere.  That was the list they looked at when it came time to go to the movie.
    Our cottage would have to walk past Cottage Twelve on the way to the movie.  We never knew until we got to Cottage Twelve who was going to be dropped off there.  As we approached Cottage Twelve on the way to the movie, I would always have a scared feeling I would be dropped off.  I guess what the feeling was, I had hoped they had forgot to put my name on the list for there hadn't been many weeks go by something didn't happen.
    One time we had gotten into the church and had sat down to wait for the movie to start when Ms. Gruber remembered I wasn't suppose to see the movie that night.  Instead of taking me back to Cottage Twelve she made me sit on the floor down between the pews, down between her legs, facing her, with my back to the screen so I couldn't see the movie.  That was worse than if I had stayed in Cottage Twelve with my nose against the wall.