He made a loom of what was left of the one his father had broken up, and showed it to his master. The blacksmith saw he had no common boy as an apprentice, and that the invention was a valuable one. He had a loom constructed under the supervision of the boy. It worked to their perfect satisfaction, and the blacksmith furnished the means to manufacture the looms, and the boy received half the profits.
In about a year the blacksmith wrote to the boy’s father that he should bring with him a wealthy gentleman, who was the inventor of the celebrated power loom.
You may be able to judge of the astonishment at the old home when his son was presented to him as the inventor, who told him that the loom was the same as the model that he had kicked to pieces the previous year.
A BABOON WITH A BRAIN.
In the Transvaal some of the fruit gardens are much exposed to the ravages of large cynocephalic apes, and a good guard has to be kept, or the results of long labor would be lost. In some of those gardens grow certain shrubs which are much affected by wasps, the insects liking to attach thereto their nests.
These wasps, though small, have a very venomous sting. Baboons had often been noticed eying with envious glances the fast-ripening fruit in one certain garden, but feared to gather for fear of attracting the assaults of the wasps.
One morning the farmer heard terrible cries, and, with the aid of a good field glass he witnessed the following tragedy: A large, venerable baboon, chief of the band, was catching the younger apes and pitching them into the shrubs whereon hung the wasps’ nests. This he repeated again and again, in spite of the most piteous cries from his victims.
Of course, the wasps assumed the defensive in swarms. During this part of the performance the old brute quietly fed on the fruit, deigning occasionally to throw fragmentary remains to some female and young baboons a little farther off.[Pg 57]