[Illustration: YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES.]

While living there I was sent to school, more for the purpose of being
kept out of mischief than to learn anything. Much of my time was spent in
trapping quails, which were very plentiful. I greatly enjoyed studying
the habits of the little birds, and in devising traps to take them in. 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. He had been a member of the Iowa
legislature, was a Justice of the Peace, and had held other offices. He
was an excellent stump speaker and was often called upon to canvass the
country round about for different candidates. The convention which he was
attending at the time of the accident was being held at a cross-road
tavern called "Sherman's," about a mile away.

Samuel and I had gone out together on horseback for the cows. He rode a
vicious mare, which mother had told him time and again not to ride, as it