14 JOHN DUNCAN, WEAVER AND BOTANIST. 



made his case far less singular, and her extreme indigence 

 as the true causes. 



So great, indeed, was the poor woman's need at 

 times, that the thoughtful boy did what he could to add 

 to the narrow store, by running little errands, and by 

 gathering rushes along the burn sides and mosses. From 

 these rushes he extracted the white pith, to form wicks for 

 the old-fashioned house lamps called "crusies," then in 

 universal use. These wicks he sold in small penny bundles 

 " about the size of two ounces of twist tobacco," as he used 

 to tell to some little children he was intimate with, when 

 he wished to encourage them to be kind and helpful to 

 their mother. This bit of kindly assistance to his mother he 

 carried on for years while quite a child, wandering far and 

 near by the streams and mosses in search of the requisite 

 rushes, and bringing the green bundles home to be stripped. 

 The early intercourse with nature necessary for such work, 

 was his first practical introduction to the flowers that became 

 the passion of his later life, and, no doubt, sowed the seeds 

 of after love for natural studies ; and the common rushes 

 ever afterwards carried to him the peculiar charm of earliest 

 happy association and wild wood wandering, with dear . 

 memories of assisting his poverty-stricken parent. 



On account of the pressing needs of home, when he was 

 scarcely ten years old the same age as James Ferguson, the 

 astronomer before him, and David Livingstone after him 

 the brave little lad had to give up all his thoughtless but 

 delightful plays, into which he had entered with such zest, 

 and face the stern realities of life and bread-winning, by 

 going to service. Like Ferguson at Keith, and Dr. Adam 

 of Edinburgh High School at Forres, he was sent to herd at 



