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r to-day he is one of the world's greatest inventors. Thomas was a sunny, laughing, little boy, and pretty, too, except when he was trying to think how something was made; then he would scowl and pucker up his mouth until you would hardly know him. He always wanted to know how machinery worked and asked his father, or any one near by, to explain it to him. Sometimes his father would get all tired out answering questions, and to get rid of the little chap would say: "I don't know." Then Thomas would stare at his father and say: "You don't know! _Why_ don't you know?" Then, if Mr. Edison did not answer, Thomas would perhaps run down by the water, along the tow-path for the canal. There were shipyards by the water, and he would pick up the different tools and ask the workmen what the name of each was, how it was used and why it was used, and get in their way generally until they drove him home. He built fine houses and tiny villages, with plank sidewalks, from the bits of wood these ship-builders gave him. The belts and wheels in the saw and grist mills pleased him. He watched them often. Once, in one of the mills, he fell into a pile of wheat in a grain elevator and had nearly smothered before he was found. Several times he fell into the canal and came near drowning. When Thomas was six years old, he watched a goose sitting on her eggs and saw them hatch. He wanted to understand this strange thing better, so he gathered all the goose and hen's eggs he could and made a big nest in his father's barn. Then all of a sudden, he was missing. The family rushed to the canal, the village, and the mills, and finally found him sitting on the nest of eggs in the barn. He wanted to see if he could hatch those eggs out! The only person who did not get out of patience with Thomas was his mother. He and she adored each other. She had been a school teacher and was used to children. She saw that Thomas had a keen mind and was always ready to explain things to him. When he went to school, the teacher did not know what to make of his strange remarks and almost broke Thomas's heart one day by telling the principal that she thought the little Edison boy was "addled." Thomas ran home crying. He could not bear to go again to the school, so his mother taught him at home. He had a wonderful memory and must have paid close attention to what was said, for he never had to be told a thing the second time. Thomas quite often had his lessons wit
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