insects, hunters, gunners, ditchers, cicindelles, carabes, sylphides,
moles, cockchafers, horn-beetles, tenebrions, mites, lady-birds,
studying all Cousin Benedict's collection, not but the latter trembled
on seeing his frail specimens in Hercules' great hands, which were hard
and strong as a vise. But the colossal pupil listened so quietly to the
professor's lessons that it was worth risking something to give them.

While Cousin Benedict worked in that manner, Mrs. Weldon did not leave
little Jack entirely unoccupied; She taught him to read and to write.
As to arithmetic, it was his friend Dick Sand who inculcated the first
elements.

At the age of five, one is still only a little child, and is perhaps
better instructed by practical games than by theoretical lessons
necessarily a little arduous.

Jack learned to read, not in a primer, but by means of movable letters,
printed in red on cubes of wood. He amused himself by arranging the
blocks so as to form words. Sometimes Mrs. Weldon took these cubes and
composed a word; then she disarranged them, and it was for Jack to
replace them in the order required.

The little boy liked this manner of learning to read very much. Each
day he passed some hours, sometimes in the cabin, sometimes on the
deck, in arranging and disarranging the letters of his alphabet.

Now, one day this led to an incident so extraordinary, so unexpected,
that it is necessary to relate with some detail.

It was on the morning of February 9th, Jack, half-lying on the deck,