Robert Merry's Museum, Volumes V-VI (1843)

by Various

Now, Jack had his share of curiosity too; but he took a way to gratify it not common among children. He lived in the country, and his father had several acres of land around the house. Here were high rocks, and some woods, and a little valley where there was a small pond. There was also a ploughed field and a garden.

Now, Jack had a fancy for roaming about his father’s grounds, when he was quite a child, and if I must say it—when he wore petticoats! By the way, if any of my little friends meet with him, I beg they won’t say anything about the petticoats, for he is now a man, and might be ashamed to be reminded of what he once was.

Well, his greatest pleasure was to go alone over the rocks, and through the woods, and to the little valley. He delighted, particularly, to go to the pond, and see the frogs, and fishes, and tadpoles, and leeches, and insects, that made it their home there. He would stand for hours upon the rocks, quite absorbed in noticing the manners and customs of these inhabitants of the pond.

Now, Jack was so much in the habit of living out of doors, and walking about, that the objects he met with became, as it were, companions to him. He never seemed to feel alone, if only some flowers, or bushes, or trees were around him. He was never impatient—never restless—never in a hurry, while sauntering among the objects which nature had created and thrown in his way.

I will tell you an instance, to show his great satisfaction when he was among the bushes.

Just after he had learned to talk, a young lady who was staying at his father’s house, happened to go into the woods, where she found Jack. He was sitting by the side of a whortleberry bush, which was covered with green whortleberries. “What are you doing here?” said she to Jack. “Jack’s waiting for the whortleberries to get ripe!” was his reply.

Now, perchance, some of my sharp little friends will think Jack a silly boy; but wait, lads and lasses, and hear his story, before you decide. I have said that he had a way peculiar to himself, to gratify his curiosity. Instead of asking a bushel of questions, one after another, without waiting for a single answer, he was in the habit of observing things, and investigating things. In this way he gained a vast deal of knowledge.

Perhaps, you may wish to know what I mean by observing and investigating. I will try to make you understand it.

One day in spring, Jack was in the garden, digging up a place to sow some pepper-grass seed. By-and-by he happened to see an ant running along with a piece of a leaf in his mouth. So he stopped his work, and looked at the ant. The little insect paddled along with his six legs very fast, and pretty soon came to a little hillock of earth, about as large round as a small flap-jack, and twice as high.

It seemed to consist of a heap of particles of sand. Now Jack, instead of running away to tell his mother about what he had found, remained to observe and look into the matter, or investigate it. On looking at the little mound, he saw there were a number of holes in it; and into one of them, the little ant with the leaf, plunged head first. “I wonder where he’s gone to?” said Jack. In a minute or two, several ants came out of these holes, and some of them had small white things that looked like eggs. These they laid down in the sun, and went into their holes to fetch more.