"A picture of the baby! Oh, wonderful! It looks just like her!" The good woman was so overjoyed that she caught him in her arms and kissed him. Then suddenly she began to wonder whether this was right. "Benjamin, how did thee learn to draw such a picture?" she asked. "I didn't learn," he answered. "I just did it. I couldn't help but do it." When Benjamin's father came home, his mother showed him the picture. "It looks just like her, doesn't it?" she said. "But I am afraid. I don't know what to think. Does thee suppose that it is very wrong for Benjamin to do such a thing?" The father did not answer. He turned the picture this way and that, and looked at it from every side. He compared it with the baby's pretty face. Then he handed it back to his wife and said:-- "Put it away. It may be that the hand of the Lord is in this." Several weeks afterward, there came a visitor to the home of the Wests. It was a good old Friend, whom everybody loved--a-white-haired, pleasant-faced minister, whose words were always wise. Benjamin's parents showed him the picture. They told him how the lad was always trying to draw something. And they asked what they should do about it. The good minister looked at the picture for a long time. Then he called little Benjamin to him. He put his hands on the lad's head and said:-- "This child has a wonderful gift. We cannot understand it nor the reason of it. Let us trust that great good may come from it, and that Benjamin West may grow up to be an honor to our country and the world." And the words of the old minister came true. The pictures of Benjamin West made him famous. He was the first great American painter. THE YOUNG SCOUT When Andrew Jackson was a little boy he lived with his mother in South Carolina. He was eight years old when he heard about the ride of Paul Revere and the famous fight at Lexington. It was then that the long war, called the Revolutionary War, began. The king's soldiers were sent into every part of the country. The people called them the British. Some called them "red-coats." There was much fighting; and several great battles took place between the British and the Americans. At last Charleston, in South Carolina, was taken by the British. Andrew Jackson was then a tall white-haired boy, thirteen years old. "I am going to help drive those red-coated British out of the country," he said to his mother. Then, without another word, he mounted his brother's little farm horse and rode away. He was not old enough to be a soldier, but he could be a scout--and a good scout he was. He was very tall--as tall as a man. He was not afraid of anything. He was strong and ready for every duty. One day as he was riding through the woods, some British soldiers saw him. They quickly surrounded him and made him their prisoner. "Come with us," they said, "and we will teach you that the king's soldiers are not to be trifled with." They took him to the British camp.