Proudly it soared away until the yellow star upon it looked smaller than the morning star that had peeped in at Henry's window, and as they watched it moving through the air like a bird, his father told him that Benjamin Franklin, a philosopher, once tried an experiment with a kite, by which he discovered the nature of lightning. Henry said he thought Benjamin Franklin was a little boy that paid all his money away for a whistle. "So he was," said his father, "but he learnt wisdom by his mistakes, and that made him a philosopher." Henry wanted to hear all about the experiment. So his father told him how Franklin made his kite with an iron point at the top, and the string of hemp with the lower part of silk, and a key fastened where the two were tied together, and how he raised it in a thunder-storm, and the iron drew the lightning which passed down the hemp-string to the key, but no further, because it could not pass down a silken string; that he then drew it down so as to touch the key, when he received a spark like that from an electrical machine, which showed that electrical sparks are of the same nature as lightning, which no one knew before, and which was a great and useful discovery. Henry was pleased with the story, but when his father told him that another man trying the same experiment afterwards, was killed by the lightning, the little boy said that he should not care about trying it himself.
Thus the time passed pleasantly until they returned to breakfast, and when they heard the birds singing sweetly among the trees, Henry was glad that his little red bird was among them, free and happy.
[DIALOGUE]
BETWEEN A CHILD AND BIRD.
Little bird, little bird, come to me!
I have a green cage ready for thee;
Many bright flowers I'll bring to you,