earn. Most girls would like to know what their school-mates know. But
Jef-fer-son wanted to know a great deal more.

As a young man, Jefferson knew Latin and Greek. He also knew French
and Span-ish and I-tal-ian.

He did not talk to show off what he knew. He tried to learn what other
people knew. When he talked to a wagon maker, he asked him about such
things as a wagon maker knows most about. He would sometimes ask how a
wagon maker would go to work to make a wheel.

When Jefferson talked to a learn-ed man, he asked him about those
things that this man knew most about. When he talked with Indians, he
got them to tell him about their lan-guage. That is the way he came
to know so much about so many things. Whenever anybody told him
anything worth while, he wrote it down as soon as he could.

One day Jefferson was trav-el-ing. He went on horse-back. That was a
common way of trav-el-ing at that time. He stopped at a country
tavern. At this tavern he talked with a stranger who was
staying there.

After a while Jefferson rode away. Then the stranger said to the
land-lord, "Who is that man? He knew so much about law, that I was
sure he was a lawyer. But when we talked about med-i-cine, he knew so
much about that, that I thought he must be a doctor. And after a while
he seemed to know so much about re-li-gion, that I was sure he was a
min-is-ter. Who is he?"

The stranger was very much surprised to hear that the man he had
talked with was Thomas Jefferson.

Jefferson was a very polite man. One day his grand-son was riding with
him. They met a negro. The negro lifted his cap and bowed. Jefferson
bowed to the negro. But his grand-son did not think it worth while
to bow.

Then Jefferson said to his grand-son, "Do not let a poor negro be more
of a gen-tle-man than you are." In the Dec-la-ra-tion of
In-de-pend-ence, Jefferson wrote these words: "All men are created
equal." He also said that the poor man had the same right as the rich
man to live, and to be free, and to try to make himself happy.

A LONG JOURNEY.

A long time ago, when Thomas Jefferson was Pres-i-dent, most of the
people in this country lived in the East. Nobody knew anything about
the Far West. The only people that lived there were Indians. Many of
these Indians had never seen a white man.

[Illustration: An Elk]

The Pres-i-dent sent men to travel into this wild part of the country.
He told them to go up to the upper end of the Mis-sou-r