which nearly terminated his earthly career, and certainly aided in shortening |
his philosophical one. His visit was almost over, to the secret delight of nota

few. He had already opened the old-fashioned bellows which hung near the

fire-place, to see where the wind came from, and how it got there, had alter-

nately fastened chairs to the weights of the ancient clock in the hall and taken

the weights entirely off to note the different effects; and when a housemaid had

unwisely told him that the old manin the clock would get after him if he didn't

leave it alone, he was found one morning fearlessly stirring the works up witha

poker to “let the old man out.”

The week had nearly exhausted his resources, when a happy thought
struck him in theshape of Uncle John’s powder-horn on the mantel. He won-
dered if it would go off like a gun if he threw it in the fire. He tried it. The
horn didn’t go off, but he did. The report that was heard was loudér than a
gun—groans and screams aroused the whole house.

He lay embalmed in lint and salve for two weeks, the burden of his con-
versation being that he would never meddle with another thing as long as he
lived. This closed the experimental career of the Benedict family’s great phi-
losopher and inventor, for when he arrived at the prime of life his only gift to
his country had been a troop of young Benedicts, in whom he had perpetrated
as much love for research as he himself had ever possessed.