"Benjamin, my son, what hast thou been doing?" inquired his mother,
observing marks of confusion in his face.

At first Ben was unwilling to tell; for he felt as if there might be
something wrong in stealing the baby's face and putting it upon a sheet
of paper. However, as his mother insisted, he finally put the sketch
into her hand, and then hung his head, expecting to be well scolded.
But when the good lady saw what was orn the paper, in lines of red and
black ink, she uttered a scream of surprise and joy.

"Bless me!" cried she. "It is a picture of little Sally!"

And then she threw her arms round our friend Benjamin, and kissed him so
tenderly that he never afterwards was afraid to show his performances to
his mother.

As Ben grew older, he was observed to take vast delight in looking at
the lines and forms of nature. For instance, he was greatly pleased
with the blue violets of spring, the wild roses of sumnmer, and the
scarlet cardinal-flowers of early autumn. In the decline of the year,
when the woods were variegated with all the colors of the rainbow, Ben
seemed to desire nothing better than to gaze at them from morn till
night. The purple and golden clouds of sunset were a joy to him. And
he was continually endeavoring to draw the figures of trees, men,
mountains, houses, cattle, geese, ducks, and turkeys, with a piece of
chalk, on barn doors or on the floor.

In these old times the Mohawk Indians were still numerous in
Pennsylvania. Every year a party of them used to pay a visit to