door closed than he dragged himself and the table to
the fireplace, and, at the risk of setting himself and the house on
fire, burned the rope which bound him, and made his escape into the
woods to collect new specimens.

And yet his parents did not understand. It was time, however, to send
him to school. They would see what the schoolmaster would do for him.
But the schoolmaster was as blind as the parents, and Tommy's doom was
sealed, when one morning, while the school was at prayers, a jackdaw
poked its head out of his pocket and began to caw.

His next teacher misunderstood, whipped, and bore with him until one
day nearly every boy in the school found a horse-leech wriggling up his
leg, trying to suck his blood. This ended his second school experience.

He was given a third trial, but with no better results than before.
Things went on in the usual way until a centipede was discovered in
another boy's desk. Although in this case Tommy was innocent of any
knowledge of the intruder, he was found guilty, whipped, and sent home
with the message, "Go and tell your father to get you on board a
man-of-war, as that is the best school for irreclaimables such as you."

His school life thus ended, he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and
thenceforth made his living at the bench. But every spare moment was
given to the work which was meat and drink, life itself, to him.

In his manhood, to enable him to classify the minute and copious
knowledge of birds, beasts, and insects which he had been gathering
since childhood, with great labor and patience he learned how to read
and write. Later, realizing how his lack of education hampered him, he
endeavored to secure the means to enable him to study to better
advantage, and sold for twenty pounds sterling a very large number of
valuable specimens. He tried to get employment as a naturalist, and,
but for his poor reading and writing, would have succeeded.

Poor little Scotch laddie! Had his parents or teachers understood him,
he might have been as great a naturalist as Agassiz, and his life
instead of being dwarfed and crippled, would have been a joy to himself
and an incalculable benefit to the world.

WASHINGTON'S YOUTHFUL HEROISM

"No great deed is done
By falterers who ask for certainty."

"God will give you a reward," solemnly spoke the grateful mother, as
she received from the arms of the brave youth the child he had risked
his life to save. As if her li