Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans Part 2

THE STORY OF A WISE WOMAN.

You have read how Thomas Smith first raised rice in Car-o-li-na. After his death there lived in South Car-o-li-na a wise young woman. She showed the people how to raise another plant. Her name was Eliza Lucas.

The father of Miss Lucas did not live in Car-o-li-na. He was gov-ern-or of one of the islands of the West Indies. Miss Lucas was fond of trying new things. She often got seeds from her father. These she planted in South Carolina.

Her father sent her some seeds of the in-di-go plant. She sowed some of these in March. But there came a frost. The in-di-go plant cannot stand frost. Her plants all died.

But Miss Lucas did not give up. She sowed some more seeds in April.

These grew very well until a cut-worm found them. The worm wished to try new things, too. So he ate off the in-di-go plants.

But Miss Lucas was one of the people who try, try again. She had lost her indigo plants twice. Once more she sowed some of the seed. This time the plants grew very well.

Miss Lucas wrote to her father about it. He sent her a man who knew how to get the indigo out of the plant.

The man tried not to show Miss Lucas how to make the indigo. He did not wish the people in South Carolina to learn how to make it. He was afraid his own people would not get so much for their indigo.

So he would not explain just how it ought to be done. He spoiled the indigo on purpose.

But Miss Lucas watched him closely. She found out how the indigo ought to be made. Some of her father's land in South Carolina was now planted with the indigo plants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Indigo Plant.]

Then Miss Lucas was married. She became Mrs. Pinck-ney. Her father gave her all the indigo growing on his land in South Carolina. It was all saved for seed. Some of the seed Mrs. Pinck-ney gave to her friends. Some of it her husband sowed. It all grew, and was made into that blue dye that we call indigo. When it is used in was.h.i.+ng clothes, it is called bluing.

In a few years, more than a million pounds of indigo were made in South Carolina every year. Many people got rich by it. And it was all because Miss Lucas did not give up.

FRANKLIN HIS OWN TEACHER.

Few people ever knew so many things as Franklin. Men said, "How did he ever learn so many things?" For he had been a poor boy who had to work for a living. He could not go to school at all after he was ten years old.

His father made soap and candles. Little Ben Frank-lin had to cut wicks for the candles. He also filled the candle molds. And he sold soap and candles, and ran on errands. But when he was not at work he spent his time in reading good books. What little money he got he used to buy books with.

He read the old story of "Pil-grim's Prog-ress," and liked it so well that he bought all the other stories by the same man. But as he wanted more books, and had not money to buy them, he sold all of these books. The next he bought were some little his-to-ry books. These were made to sell very cheap, and they were sold by peddlers. He managed to buy forty or fifty of these little books of his-to-ry.

Another way that he had of learning was by seeing things with his own eyes. His father took him to see car-pen-ters at work with their saws and planes. He also saw masons laying bricks. And he went to see men making bra.s.s and copper kettles. And he saw a man with a turning lathe making the round legs of chairs. Other men were at work making knives.

Some things people learn out of books, and some things they have to see for them-selves.

As he was fond of books, Ben's father thought that it would be a good plan to send him to learn to print them. So the boy went to work in his brother's printing office. Here he pa.s.sed his spare time in reading. He borrowed some books out of the stores where books were sold. He would sit up a great part of the night sometimes to read one of these books. He wished to return it when the book-store opened in the morning. One man who had many books lent to Ben such of his books as he wanted.

It was part of the bargain that Ben's brother should pay his board.

The boy offered to board himself if his brother would give him half what it cost to pay for his board.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Franklin at Study.]

His brother was glad to do this, and Ben saved part of the money and bought books with it. He was a healthy boy, and it did not hurt him to live mostly on bread and b.u.t.ter. Sometimes he bought a little pie or a handful of raisins.

Long before he was a man, people said, "How much the boy knows!" This was because--

He did not waste his time.

He read good books.

He saw things for himself.

HOW FRANKLIN FOUND OUT THINGS.

Frank-lin thought that ants know how to tell things to one another. He thought that they talk by some kind of signs. When an ant has found a dead fly too big for him to drag away, he will run off and get some other ant to help him. Frank-lin thought that ants have some way of telling other ants that there is work to do.

One day he found some ants eating mo-las-ses out of a little jar in a closet. He shook them out. Then he tied a string to the jar, and hung it on a nail in the ceiling. But he had not got all the ants out of the jar. One little ant liked sweet things so well that he staid in the jar, and kept on eating like a greedy boy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ants talking (magnified)]

At last when this greedy ant had eaten all that he could, he started to go home. Frank-lin saw him climb over the rim of the jar. Then the ant ran down the outside of the jar. But when he got to the bottom, he did not find any shelf there. He went all round the jar. There was no way to get down to the floor. The ant ran this way and that way, but he could not get down.

[Ill.u.s.tration: An Ants Feeler (magnified)]

At last the greedy ant thought he would see if he could go up. He climbed up the string to the ceiling. Then he went down the wall. He came to his own hole at last, no doubt.

After a while he got hungry again, perhaps. He thought about that jar of sweets at the end of a string. Then perhaps he told the other ants.

Maybe he let them know that there was a string by which they could get down to the jar.

In about half an hour after the ant had gone up the string, Franklin saw a swarm of ants going down the string. They marched in a line, one after another. Soon there were two lines of ants on the string. The ants in one line were going down to get at the sweet food. The ants in the other line were marching up the other side of the string to go home. Do you think that the greedy ant told the other ants about the jar?

And did he tell them that there was a string by which an ant could get there?

And did he tell it by speaking, or by signs that he made with his feelers?

If you watch two ants when they meet, you will see that they touch their feelers together, as if they said "Good-morning!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANKLIN ASKS THE SUNs.h.i.+NE SOMETHING.]

One day Franklin was eating dinner at the house of a friend. The lady of the house, when she poured out the coffee, found that it was not hot.

She said, "I am sorry that the coffee is cold. It is because the servant forgot to scour the coffee-pot. Coffee gets cold more quickly when the coffee-pot is not bright."

This set Franklin to thinking. He thought that a black or dull thing would cool more quickly than a white or bright one. That made him think that a black thing would take in heat more quickly than a white one.