Davy helped me make a figure-4 trap to catch them. One Saturday morning I met Edmund down at John Buckman's store, trading some butter and eggs for tea and sugar. "Come up to the house, Edmund. I've got a figure-4 trap; and we'll catch some quail." We set the trap, and put some grain under the box. Several quail flew down, hopped about, and soon discovered the grain. While they were pecking away at it, they sprang the trap. The box fell over them, and we caught three. "Now, Edmund, you find some grass-seed in the barn, and sprinkle it in a line from the door. And I'll go and get the gun, and we'll take a raking shot at them." I went after the gun, and gave it to him. We hid in the barn, and before long some more quail flew down and began to eat the seed. When they were well in line he fired, and killed four and wounded several. The wounded ones hopped about, cried out, and took on piteously, and acted like so many little children in distress. I did not like this at all, and Edmund seemed very much troubled. "Come on, Edmund. We've got to kill those that are sure to die. The rest we will put in a box with some hay, and perhaps they will get well." We wrung the necks of three, and put the others in a box and covered it over. Then we looked at each other, and Edmund opened his basket, and let those we had caught fly away. "No more quail shooting for me, Ben. They're too human. By George, I know just how a murderer feels." One snowy winter day, Davy came to our barn, where I was foddering the cattle, and said:-- "Ben, this storm will be over to-morrow, and will make fine snowshoeing. Amos Locke is going with me fox-hunting, and we want you to come too." [Sidenote: INVITATION TO A FOX HUNT] "I don't know that I can go. Let's talk it over with my brother John." When John heard us he said: "I guess I can fix things so that you can get off. Pitch in, work hard, and do some of the stints that father set you for to-morrow, and I will look after your chores." By the time mother came to the door and blew the horn for supper, we had done a great deal of work. After supper I lit a big pine knot and placed it in the side of the fireplace, so that the smoke from it would go up the chimney. It threw a pleasant light out into the room. Father was at work on an ox-bow. John had a rake into which he was setting some new teeth, and I sat on a stool with a wooden shovel between my legs, shelling corn; rasping the ears on the iron edge of the shovel, so that the kernels fell into a big basket in front of me. My little brother David was sitting on a bench in the side of the great fireplace, reading that terrible poem by the Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, called the "Day of Doom," which tells all about the day of judgment,--how the sinners are doomed to burn eternally in brimstone; and the saints are represented as seated comfortably in their armchairs in heaven, looking down into the sulphurous pit.