slightest leaning to the cause of the enemy.

In 1778 the supply of candles was so low in Lancaster that the town
authorities advised the people to refrain from illuminating their houses
on the 4th of July of that year, in order to save their candles. Robert,
at this time but thirteen years old, was determined not to forego a
patriotic display of some sort. He had prepared a quantity of candles
for the occasion, and after the proclamation of the Town Council was
issued, he took them to a Mr. John Fisher, who kept a store in the
place, and sold powder and shot. Mr. Fisher was somewhat astonished at
Robert's desire to part with the candles, which were at that time scarce
articles, and asked his reason for so doing. The boy replied: "Our
rulers have requested the citizens to refrain from illuminating their
windows and streets; as good citizens we should comply with their
request, and I prefer illuminating the heavens with sky-rockets." Having
procured the powder, he left Mr. Fisher's, and entered a small variety
store kept by a Mr. Cossart, where he purchased several sheets of
large-sized pasteboard. As Mr. Cossart was about to roll them, the boy
stopped him, saying he wished to carry them open. Mr. Cossart, knowing
Robert's mechanical genius, asked him what he was about to invent.

"Why," said the boy, "we are prohibited from illuminating our windows
with candles, and I'm going to shoot my candles through the air."

"Tut, tut, tut," said Mr. Cossart, laughingly; "that's an
impossibility."

"No, sir," said Robert, "there is nothing impossible."[A]

[Footnote A: He proved that this was not impossible, for he had his
display, making his rockets himself, and after his own model.]

"Robert was known," says one of his biographers, "to purchase small
quantities of quicksilver from Dr. Adam Simon Kuhn, druggist, residing
opposite the market-house. He was trying some experiments that he did
not wish to make public, and which the workmen in Mr. Fenno's and Mr.
Christian Isch's shops were anxious to find out, but could not. He was
in the habit almost daily of visiting those shops, and was a favorite
among the workmen, who took advantage of his talent for drawing by
getting him to make ornamental designs for guns, and sketches of the
size and shape of guns, and then giving the calculations of the force,
size of the bore and balls, and the distances they would fire; and he
would accompany them to the open commons near by potter'