early December. I took up my stand in the woods near what I thought
might be the runway, and waited. After a while I stood the butt of
my gun upon the ground, and held the barrel with my hand. Presently
I heard a rustle in the leaves, and there came a superb fox loping
along past me, not fifty feet away. He was evidently not aware of
my presence, and, as for me, I was aware of his presence alone. I
forgot that I had a gun, that here was the game I was in quest of,
and that now was my chance to add to my store of silver quarters.
As the unsuspecting fox disappeared over a knoll, again I came to
my senses, and brought my gun to my shoulder; but it was too late,
the game had gone. I returned home full of excitement at what I
had seen, and gave as the excuse why I did not shoot, that I had my
mitten on, and could not reach the trigger of my gun. It is true I
had my mitten on, but there was a mitten, or something, on my wits
also. It was years before I heard the last of that mitten; when I
failed at anything they said, "John had his mitten on, I guess."

I remember that I had a sort of cosmogony of my own when I was a
mere boy. I used to speculate as to what the world was made of.
Partly closing my eyes, I could see what appeared to be little
crooked chains of fine bubbles floating in the air, and I concluded
that that was the stuff the world was made of. And the philosophers
have not yet arrived at a much more satisfactory explanation.

In thinking of my childhood and youth I try to define to myself
wherein I differed from my brothers and from other boys in the
neighborhood, or wherein I showed any indication of the future
bent of my mind. I see that I was more curious and alert than most
boys, and had more interests outside my special duties as a farm
boy. I knew pretty well the ways of the wild bees and hornets when