s snow on the
ground.

While still quite young I had visited Cincinnati, forty-five miles away,
several times, alone; also Maysville, Kentucky, often, and once
Louisville. The journey to Louisville was a big one for a boy of that
day. I had also gone once with a two-horse carriage to Chilicothe,
about seventy miles, with a neighbor's family, who were removing to
Toledo, Ohio, and returned alone; and had gone once, in like manner, to
Flat Rock, Kentucky, about seventy miles away. On this latter occasion
I was fifteen years of age. While at Flat Rock, at the house of a Mr.
Payne, whom I was visiting with his brother, a neighbor of ours in
Georgetown, I saw a very fine saddle horse, which I rather coveted, and
proposed to Mr. Payne, the owner, to trade him for one of the two I was
driving. Payne hesitated to trade with a boy, but asking his brother
about it, the latter told him that it would be all right, that I was
allowed to do as I pleased with the horses. I was seventy miles from
home, with a carriage to take back, and Mr. Payne said he did not know
that his horse had ever had a collar on. I asked to have him hitched to
a farm wagon and we would soon see whether he would work. It was soon
evident that the horse had never worn harness before; but he showed no
viciousness, and I expressed a confidence that I could manage him. A
trade was at once struck, I receiving ten dollars difference.

The next day Mr. Payne, of Georgetown, and I started on our return. We
got along very well for a few miles, when we encountered a ferocious dog
that frightened the horses and made them run. The new animal kicked at
every jump he made. I got the horses stopped, however, before any
damage was done, and without running into anything. After giving them a
little rest, to quiet their fears, we started again. That instant the
new horse kicked, and started to run once more. The road we were on,
struck the turnpike within half a mile of the point where the second
runaway commenced, and there there was an embankment twenty or more feet
deep on the opposite side of the pike. I got the horses stopped on the
very brink of the precipice. My new horse was terribly frightened and
trembled like an aspen; but he was not half so badly frightened as my
companion, Mr. Payne, who deserted me after this last experience, and
took passage on a freight wagon for Maysville. Every time I attempted
to start, my new horse would commence to kick.