Gn |nquiring [D\ind.

ACN inquiring mind, they say, is a great blessing. Benedict was
blessed with more than the usual amount of curiosity gener-
ally attributed to the young Americans of every generation.

  
 
    

“3 o Wir] say “blessed,” but lam notsure but those who knew him
Ke le a would have said “cursed,” for it led him into all sorts of
“x Re mischief and trouble.

a his From his earliest lisp his life was to those around him one huge

Soy

Ct interrogation point—he must know the whys and wherefores of every-
thing. From the time he cried for the moon and could not be made to

understand why he could not have it, his PUEDE’ seemed formed to devote

all his energies to scientific research.

At a very tender age he had ruined his sister's large wax doll in the vain
attempt to discover the philosophy of its “crying” and “going to sleep,” had
smashed the best mirror to see how his reflection got between the glass and the
wooden back, had amputated the cat’s tail to see if another would grow and if
she really had nine, had helped a brood of chickens prematurely from their
shell, and the kittens to get their eyes open at a very early period of their
existence, and had carried out other devices fully as original.

He soon became a terror to his brothers and sisters, and to all his young
playmates. He never kept a toy fora day himself, nor allowed them to do
so. They must all be sacrificed to his propensity for finding out the mechan-
ism of everything.

On this account he never could be left at home alone, and must accompany
his parents everywhere, much to the annoyance of their friends. But his fond
parents would say that their Allan wes so ingenious, he was sure to be a great
philosopher or inventor some day. Had they tried, they at first might have
directed his “ingenuity” in the proper channel, but they feared to restrain it,
lest they should nip his future philosophical experimentsin the bud. But when
he ruined his father’s fine gold chronometer to see ‘‘what made the wheels go
‘round,” and his mother’s new sewing machine for the same purpose—the bud
nipped him.

‘But the halcyon time in Allen’s existence was the week between the winter
holidays. This was usually spent at some of the homes of numerous uncles
and aunts, or else at his grandparents’. There different surroundings opened
a new field to him, and the numerous holiday toys proved fresh food for
thought and mischief. But one year at his grandfather's he came to grief,