98 COUNT RUMFORD. 



Soon afterwards he began the study of medicine under 

 Dr. John Hay, of Woburn. 



Thompson kept a strict account of his debts to Dr. 

 Hay, crediting him with such things as leather g!oves,and 

 Mrs. Hay with knitting him a pair of stockings. These 

 items he tacks on to the more serious cost of his board, 

 from December 1770 to June 1772, at forty shillings, 

 old currency, per week, amounting to 1 561. The specie 

 payments of Thompson were infinitesimal, eight of them 

 amounting in the aggregate to *2l. His further forms 

 of payment illustrate the habits of the community in 

 which he dwelt. Want of money caused them to fall 

 back upon barter. He debited Dr. Hay with the follow- 

 ing items, the value of which no doubt had been pre- 

 viously agreed upon between them : — ' To ivory for 

 smoke machine ; parcels of butter, coffee, sugar, and 

 tea ; parcels of various drugs, camphor, gum benzoine, 

 arsenic, calomel, and rhubarb ; one-half of white sheep- 

 skin leather ; brass wire ; white oak timber ; to sundry 

 lots of wood ; to other lots delivered while I was at 

 Wilmington, and left by me when I was at Wilmington 

 the last time ; to a blue Huzza cloak, bought of Zebe- 

 diah Wyman, and paid for by fifteen and a half cords 

 of wood ; a pair of knee buckles ; a chirurgical knife ; 

 to a cittern, and to the time I have been absent from 

 your house, nineteen weeks at forty shillings ; and for 

 the time my mother washed for me/ To help him, 

 moreover, to eke out the funds necessary for the pro- 

 secution of his studies, Thompson tried his hand from 

 time to time at school-teaching. 



At this early age — for he was not more than seven- 

 teen — he had learnt the importance of order in the dis- 

 tribution of his time. The four-and-twenty hours of a 

 single day are thus spaced out : — ' From eleven to six, 

 sleep. Get up at six o'clock and wash my hands and 



