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ride into the woods, and, leaving my horse tied, make use of Peter as a chain-bearer. Sometimes my cousins went with me, especially Lewis Willis, my schoolmate. But they soon grew tired and went to bird-nesting, or digging up of woodchucks, or to making the "praying-mantis" bugs fight one another. I never had much inclination towards games which had no distinct or lasting result. At any time I preferred for my play to fish or shoot, when allowed, or to measure lands and plot them.
Any work demanding strict method is good for a lad, and I found in surveys an education of value and one suited to my tastes, which never very much inclined to discover happiness in constant intercourse with my fellow-men, nor in much reading of books.
