I shunned them.

I said that to be a great author and a philosophical thinker, one must not be a man of society.

I never went to a wood-chopping, to an apple-peeling, to a corn-shucking, to a barn-raising, nor indeed to any of our rustic feasts.

I suppose this piqued the vanity of the girls, and they set themselves to catch me.

I suppose they thought that I would be a trophy worth boasting.