Life of Count Rumford. 29 



it full of holes in the middle with a bodkin, then strew a little 

 dust of powder ground fine, and fill the rest up with unground 

 powder, and stop up the remaining part with leather or paper, 

 and stop it up." 



The recipe closes with the somewhat irrelevant reflec- 

 tion : " Love is a Noble Passion of the Mind. LOVE." 



The first entry in the book that bears a date is as 

 follows: "Boston, October 2yth, 1769. This evening 

 entered French School to Learn the French Language, at 

 six pounds, fifteen shillings, Old Tenor, per Quarter 

 Anni, to go every evening except Sunday; deducting the 

 time I am absent." This is followed by a table of dates 

 reaching through November, and showing ten occasions 

 of absence to eighteen of attendance. Thompson was 

 then in his seventeenth year, and an apprentice to 

 Hopestill Capen in the dry-goods trade in Boston. 

 He records the purchase, on December 21, 1769, of 

 two and a half yards of black cloth, and his indebtedness 

 to Hiram Thompson, his uncle, for rent of a part of a 

 pew from August i, 1770. He had a settlement with 

 this kinsman on November 11, 1771, offsetting pew- 

 rent and the use of a horse to Reading and Boston by 

 charges against Hiram for cutting and carting fire-wood. 

 He had similar transactions in fuel with his step-father, 

 Josiah Pierce, and with James Snow. His loads were 

 generally small ones, seldom more than half a cord each, 

 showing that while he needed thus to earn money, he 

 did not like any long job of the kind. He received 

 a pound, old tenor, per cord. On April 6, 1771, he 

 made a contract with Abraham Alexander to cut and cord 

 for him seven or eight cords at nine shillings per cord. 



These economical entries are very pleasantly diversified 

 by the following " Directions for the Back Sword " : 



