I knew how to handle horses and had driven at the drag and plow and once, alone, to the post-office, but this was my first long trip without company.

I had taken my ax and a chain, for one found a tree in the road now and then those days, and had to trim and cut and haul it aside.

It was a drive of six miles to the nearest mill, over a bad road.

I sat on two cleated boards placed across the box, with a blanket over me and my new overcoat and mittens on, and was very comfortable and happy.
I had taken a little of my uncle's chewing tobacco out of its paper that lay on a shelf in the cellarway, for I had observed that my uncle generally chewed when he was riding.

I tried a little of it and was very sick for a few minutes.
Having recovered, I sang all the songs I knew, which were not many, and repeated the names of the presidents and divided the world into its parts and recited the principal rivers with all the sources and emptyings of the latter and the boundaries of the states and the names and locations of their capitals.