use of it? I told him I had seen something like it in our overseer's
hands; but that I had never known its use. It was a thermometer. Mr.
Y---- took great pains to show me how, and on what occasions, this
instrument might be useful.

"I saw I had now to do with a person who was somewhat different from my
friend the waggoner; and I cannot express the surprise and gratitude I
felt, when I found that he did not think me quite a fool. Instead of
looking at me with scorn, as one _very nearly an idiot_, he answered
my questions with condescension; and sometimes was so good as to add,
'That's a sensible question, my lad.'

"While we were looking at the thermometer, he found out that I could
not read the words _temperate, freezing point, boiling water heat, &c._
which were written upon the ivory scale, in small characters. He took
that occasion to point out to me the use and advantages of knowing how
to read and write; and he told me that, as I wished to learn, he would
desire the writing-master, who came to attend his young grandson, to
teach me.

"I shall not detain you with a journal of my progress through my
spelling-book and copy-books: it is enough to say that I applied with
diligence, and soon could write my name in rather more intelligible
characters than those in which the name of Jervas is cut on the rock
that we were looking at yesterday.

"My eagerness to read the books which he put into my hands, and the
attention which I paid to his lessons, pleased my writing-master so
much, that he took a pride, as he said, '_in bringing me forward as fast
as possible_.'