well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the
evening, when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my
playfellows, and working with them diligently like so many emmets,
sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built
our little wharf. The next morning the workmen were surprised at
missing the stones, which were found in our wharf. Inquiry was made
after the removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of
us were corrected by our fathers, and though I pleaded the usefulness
of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not
honest.

I continued thus employed in my father's business for two years, that
is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who was bred to
that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself
at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was destined to
supply his place and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the
trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not
find one for me more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as
his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes
took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners,
braziers, etc., at their work, that he might observe my inclination,
and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever
since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools;
and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as to be
able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not
readily be got, and to construct little machines for my experiments,
while the intention of making the experiment was fresh and warm in my
mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle
Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being
about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some
time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my
father, I was taken home again.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came
into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the 'Pilgrim's
Progress,' my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate
little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's
'Historical Collections'; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap,
40 or 50 in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books
in polemic divinity, most of which