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 I had played truant one afternoon, and concluded to have a little fun with the steers, as my parents were away from home that day. We yoked them together, and I thought it a clever idea to hitch them to a large gate post which divided the lane and barn-yard, and see them pull. From this post Mr. Keefer had just completed the building of a fence, running to the barn, and had nailed the rails at one end, to this large post and had likewise fastened the ends of all the rails together, by standing small posts up where the ends met, and nailing them together, which made a straight fence of about four or five rods, all quite securely fastened together. I hitched the steers to it, stepped back, swung my whip, and yelled, "Gee there," and they did "gee." Away they went, gate post and fence following after. I ran after them, yelling "whoa," at the top of my voice, but they didn't "whoa," and seemed bent on scattering fence-rails over the whole farm. One after another dropped off as they ran several rods down the lane, before I was able to overtake and stop them. Realizing that we were liable to be caught in the act, we unhitched them on the spot, and after carrying the yoke back to the barn, went immediately to school so as to be able to divert suspicion from ourselves.