Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/32

 26 himself by climbing the masts of the vessels in New York harbor. From the roundtop-mast of an English ship, just brought in as a prize, he one day witnessed the steaming in of Robert Fulton's steamboat. When he went back to his uncle's house, his mother, who had arrived on the boat, told him that she had seen a little fellow no bigger than himself up in the rigging of a big ship, and was amazed to hear that he was no other than her own boy.

His admiration of naval courage and prowess was boundless, fostered in childhood by the recitals of his half-brother George, the midshipman, and later by the stirring scenes of the war of 1812. He was one in the funeral procession that bore our heroic "Don't-give-up-the-ship" Lawrence to his last resting-place in Trinity church-yard.

At one time during his residence under his uncle's roof Dr. Smith became dissatisfied with his want of application to his studies, and advised his mother to set him to work at some. handicraft. Accordingly, he was set to work in a printer's shop, and he printed a Bible before he concluded to apply himself to the cultivation of his mind. At the same time Augustine was sentenced to learn the business of a coachmaker for the same offence of idleness. He was actually in his mother's carriage, on his way to be apprenticed to a coachmaker, when, at Dr. Smith's suggestion, he was given one more opportunity of showing that he was not hopelessly indolent. The result with both boys was quite satisfactory; they returned to their books with new interest, and there was never again occasion to find fault with them on this subject.

One night when Thomas was about fourteen years old he had run to a fire. This he always did when near enough to reach the scene. Above the uproar of the flames could be heard the screams of a poor woman entreating some one to save her baby, which she said was in the burning house. No one moved to attempt to rescue it. The smoke was already puffing out of the windows, and it was considered as much as a man's life was worth to enter the building. The boy