his
burning glass. He held it in the sun. He held his pipe under it. The
sunshine was drawn together into a bright little spot on the tobacco.
Soon the pipe began to smoke.

Then he held out his pipe for the Indians to smoke with him. That is
their way of making friends. But none of the Indians would touch the
pipe. They thought that he had brought fire down from heaven to light
his pipe. They were now sure that he fell down from the sky. They were
more afraid of him than ever.

At last Captain Clark's Indian man came. He told the other Indians
that the white man did not come out of the sky. Then they smoked the
pipe, and were not afraid.

QUICKSILVER BOB.

Robert Fulton was the man who set steam-boats to running on the
rivers. Other men had made such boats before. But Fulton made the
first good one.

When he was a boy, he lived in the town of Lan-cas-ter in
Penn-syl-van-ia. Many guns were made in Lancaster. The men who made
these guns put little pictures on them. That was to make them sell to
the hunters who liked a gun with pictures. Little Robert Fulton could
draw very well for a boy. He made some pretty little drawings. These
the gun makers put on their guns.

Fulton went to the gun shops a great deal. He liked to see how things
were made. He tried to make a small air gun for himself.

He was always trying to make things. He got some quick-sil-ver. He was
trying to do something with it. But he would not tell what he wanted
to do. So the gun-smiths called him Quick-sil-ver Bob.

He was so much in-ter-est-ed in such things, that he sometimes
neg-lect-ed his lessons. He said that his head was so full of new
notions, that he had not much room left for school learning.

One morning he came to school late.

"What makes you so late?" asked the teacher.

"I went to one of the shops to make myself a lead pencil," said little
Bob. "Here it is. It is the best one I ever had."

The teacher tried it, and found it very good. Lead pencils in that day
were made of a long piece of lead sharpened at the end.

Quick-sil-ver Bob was a very odd little boy. He said many cu-ri-ous
things. Once the teacher punished him for not getting his lessons. He
rapped Robert on the knuckles with a fer-ule. Robert did not like this
any more than any other boy would.

"Sir," said the boy, "I came here to have something beaten into my
head, not into my knuckles."

In that day people used to light candles and stand them in