I was most successful with the common figure "4" trap which I could build myself.

Thus I think it was that I acquired my love for hunting.

I visited the quail traps twice a day, morning and evening, and as I had now become quite a good rider I was allowed to have one of the farm horses to carry me over my route.

Many a jolly ride I had and many a boyish prank was perpetrated after getting well away from and out of the sight of home with the horse.
There was one event which occurred in my childhood, which I cannot recall without a feeling of sadness.

It was the death of my brother Samuel, who was accidentally killed in his twelfth year.
My father at the time, being considerable of a politician as well as a farmer, was attending a political convention; for he was well known in those days as an old line Whig.