I WILL THINK OF IT. 1. "I will think of it." It is easy to say this; but do you know what great things have come from thinking? 2. We can not see our thoughts, or hear, or taste, or feel them; and yet what mighty power they have! 3. Sir Isaac Newton was seated in his garden on a summer's evening, when he saw an apple fall from a tree. He began to think, and, in trying to find out why the apple fell, discovered how the earth, sun, moon, and stars are kept in their places. 4. A boy named James Watt sat quietly by the fireside, watching the lid of the tea kettle as it moved up and down. He began to think; he wanted to find out why the steam in the kettle moved the heavy lid.
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5. From that time he went on thinking and thinking; and when he became a man, he improved the steam engine so much that it could, with the greatest ease, do the work of many horses. 6. When you see a steamboat, a steam mill, or a locomotive, remember that it would never have been built if it had not been for the hard thinking of some one. 7. A man named Galileo was once standing in the cathedral of Pisa, when he saw a chandelier swaying to and fro.
THIRD READER. 103 8. This set him thinking, and it led to the invention of the pendulum. 9. James Ferguson was a poor Scotch shepherd boy. Once, seeing the inside of a watch, he was filled with wonder. "Why should I not make a watch?" thought he. 10. But how was he to get the materials out of which to make the wheels and the mainspring? He soon found how to get them: he made the mainspring out of a piece of whalebone. He then made a wooden clock which kept good time. 11. He began, also, to copy pictures with a pen, and portraits with oil colors. In a few years, while still a small boy, he earned money enough to support his father. 12. When he became a man, he went to London to live. Some of the wisest men in England, and the king himself, used to attend his lectures. His motto was, "I will think of it;" and he made his thoughts useful to himself and the world. 13. Boys, when you have a difficult lesson to learn, do n't feel discouraged, and ask some one to help you before helping yourselves. Think, and by thinking you will learn how to think to some purpose.
104 ECLECTIC SERIES. LESSON XL. CHARLIE AND ROB. 1. "Do n't you hate splitting wood?" asked Charlie, as he sat down on a log to hinder Rob for a while. 2. "No, I rather like it. When I get hold of a tough old fellow, I say, 'See here, now, you think you're the stronger, and are going to beat me; so I'll split you up into kindling wood." 3. "Pshaw!" said Charlie, laughing; "and it's only a stick of wood." 4. "Yes; but you see I pretend it's a lesson, or a tough job of any kind, and it's nice to conquer it." 5. "I do n't want to conquer such things; I do n't care what becomes of them. I wish I were a man, and a rich one." 6. "Well, Charlie, if you live long enough you'll be a man, without wishing for it; and as for the rich part, I mean to be that myself." 7. "You do. How do you expect to get your money? By sawing wood?" 8. "May be—some of it; that's as good a
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way as any, so long as it lasts. I do n't care how I get rich, you know, so that it's in an honest and useful way." 9. "I'd like to sleep over the next ten years, and wake up to find myself a young man with a splendid education and plenty of money."
106 ECLECTIC SERIES. 10. "Humph! I am not sleepy—a night at a time is enough for me. I mean to work the next ten years. You see there are things that you've got to work out—you can't sleep them out." 11. "I hate work," said Charlie, "that is, such work as sawing and splitting wood, and doing chores. I'd like to do some big work, like being a clerk in a bank or something of that sort." 12. "Wood has to be sawed and split before it can be burned," said Rob. "I do n't know but I'll be a clerk in a bank some time; I'm working towards it. I'm keeping father's accounts for him." 13. How Charlie laughed! "I should think that was a long way from being a bank clerk. I suppose your father sells two tables and six chairs, some days, does n't he?" 14. "Sometimes more than that, and sometimes not so much," said Rob, in perfect good humor. 15. "I did n't say I was a bank clerk now. I said I was working towards it. Am I not nearer it by keeping a little bit of a book than I should be if I did n't keep any book at all?"
THIRD READER. 107 16. "Not a whit—such things happen," said Charlie, as he started to go. 17. Now, which of these boys, do you think, grew up to be a rich and useful man, and which of them joined a party of tramps before he was thirty years old?