The new home afforded added opportunities for pleasure. Game was plentiful in the wild fowl that mated in the marshes and meadows, while the bays and inlets abounded in fish. Hunting and fishing, therefore, became his principal diversion. While he severely condemned this form of amusement in later life, he brought to the whole matter a rational philosophy. He considered that at the time hunting and fishing were profitable to him, because in his exposed condition "they had a tendency to keep me more at and about home, and often prevented my joining with loose company, which I had frequent opportunities of doing without my father's knowledge." Three years after moving to the new home, when Elias was eleven years of age, his mother was removed by death. The father, thus left with six children, two younger than Elias, finally found it necessary to divide the family. Two years after the death of his mother he went to reside with one of his elder brothers who was married, and lived some distance from his father's. It is probable that this brother's house was his home most of the time until he was seventeen. Much regret is expressed by him that he was thus removed from parental restraint. The Journal makes possibly unnecessarily sad confession of what he considered waywardness during this period. He says that he wandered far from "the salutary path of true religion, learning to sing vain songs, and to take delight in running horses."[5] Just what the songs were, and the exact character of the horse racing must be mainly a matter of conjecture. Manifestly "running horses" did not mean at all the type of racetrack gambling with which twentieth-century Long Island is familiar. [5] Journal of Elias Hicks, p. 8. In the midst of self-accusation, he declares that he did not "give way to anything which was commonly accounted disreputable, having always a regard to strict honesty, and to such a line of conduct as comported with politeness and good breeding."[6] One can scarcely think of Elias Hicks as a juvenile Chesterfield. From the most unfavorable things he says about himself, the conclusion is easily reached that he was really a serious-minded youth, and what has always been considered a "good boy." It must be remembered, however, that he set for himself a high standard, which was often violated, as he became what he called "hardened in vanity." Speaking of his youthful sports, and possible waywardness, his maturer judgment confessed, that but "for the providential care of my Heavenly Father, my life would have fallen a sacrifice to my folly and indiscretion."[7] [6] Journal, p. 8. [7] Journal of Elias Hicks, p. 9.