turned suddenly to me and said, "I see, this
is the one."

At this he called me to him and began a delineation of my character.
The very first thing he said was:

"You can put this boy on a lone island with nothing but a pocket knife,
and he will manage to whittle himself away."

From this, he went on to say many more _good things_ for me than _bad
ones_, which, of course, gratified me exceedingly.

But it was hot shot for others of the family who were present, and who
had never lost an opportunity to remind me of my future destiny.

This gentleman said to my mother, that the principle trouble was her
lack of knowledge of my disposition. That if she would shame me at times
when I was unruly, and make requests instead of demands when she wanted
favors from me, and above all, never to chastise me, she would see quite
a change for the better.

He also ventured the remark that some day, under the present management,
the boy would pack up his clothes, leave home, and never let his
whereabouts be known.

This opened my mother's eyes more than all else he had said, for I had
often threatened to do this very thing. In fact I had once been
thwarted by her in an effort to make my escape, which would have been
accomplished but for my anxiety to get possession of "the old shot gun,"
which I felt I would need in my encounter with Indians, and killing bear
and wild game. I might add that one of our neighbor boys was to decamp
with me, and the dime novel had been our guide.

From this time on there was a general reformation and reconciliation,
and my only regrets were that "hay forks" hadn't been invented several
years before, or at least, that this glorious good man with his stock of
information hadn't made his appearance earlier.

The greatest pleasure of my farm life and boyhood days was in squirrel
hunting and breaking colts and young steers.

My step-father always said he hardly knew what it was to break a colt,
as I always had them under good control and first-class training by the
time they were old enough to begin work.

Whenever I was able to match up a pair of steer calves, I would begin
yoking them together before they were weaned. I broke and raised one
pair until they were four years old, when Mr. Keefer sold them for a
good round sum. I shall never forget an incident that occurred, about
the time this yoke of steers were three years old, and when I was about
twelve years of age.

One of my school mates and