regret your decision." Captain Homes spoke so warmly and approvingly
that both governor and colonel felt reassured as they separated.

The foregoing discloses two good traits of Benjamin's character, which
the reader may consider with profit. First, he must have been very
observing. He understood the construction of a printing-press so well,
that he could put an old one into running order, young as he was, when
its proprietor was unable to do it. This is more remarkable, because
he was not obliged to study the mechanism of a printing-press in order
to work it. Many persons operate machines without understanding their
construction at all. But a class of minds are never satisfied until
they understand whatever commands their attention. They are
inquisitive, and wish to know the philosophy of things. It was so with
Benjamin; and this quality proved a valuable element of his success.
It was the secret of his discoveries and inventions in his manhood, as
we shall see, just as it was with Stephenson. As soon as he was
appointed plugman of an engine, at seventeen years of age, he began to
study its construction. In his leisure hours, he took it to pieces,
and put it together again several times, in order to understand it.

In the second place, Benjamin was not proud. "Pride goeth before
destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." He never came under
this condemnation. A sight of him passing up Market Street, with a
loaf of bread under each arm, while devouring the third one in his
hand, in apparel that was less comely than that of many modern tramps,
is proof that pride had no dominion over him. Many boys of seventeen,
in such poverty and apparel, would have avoided a public street, and
even a Quaker meetinghouse. But these were small matters to Benjamin.
He was thinking of greater things--employment and a livelihood. He had
a destiny to work out, and in working that he must do as he could, and