32 SIR ISAAC NEWTON. 



till the servant returned. When his mother sent 

 him to watch the cattle^ they enjoyed a neighbor's 

 corn-field, while he enjoyed a book or whittled out 

 water-wheels. It did not seem intentional dis- 

 obedience toward a mother of whom he was very 

 fond, but complete absorption in some other pur- 

 suit. 



When he was sixteen he was" greatly interested 

 in finding the proper form of a body which would 

 offer the least resistance when moving in a fluid. 

 In a severe storm, to test the force of the gale, 

 he jumped first in the direction in which the wind 

 blew, and then in opposition to the wind, and 

 after measuring the length of the leap in both 

 directions, and comparing it with the length to 

 which he could jump in a perfectly calm day, he 

 was enabled to compute the force of the storm. 



His mother soon found that her boy would not 

 make a successful farmer, and sent him back to 

 school at Grantham, to prepare for Trinity College, 

 Cambridge, which he entered when he was nine- 

 teen. 



It is probable that the time spent at Grantham 

 was a happy time; for "young Newton there met 

 and, it is said, loved Miss Storey, sister of Dr. 

 Storey, a physician near Colsterworth, and daugh- 

 ter of the apothecary's second wife. She was two 

 or three years younger than Newton, a girl of 

 attractive face and unusual talents. As his income 

 as a Fellow was small, after leaving college, they 

 did not marry, though his interest in her continued 



