John Parker, son of the man who captured the first British musket in the War of the Revolution, lacked the proverbial New England thrift. Instead of looking after his crops and flocks and herds, he preferred to putter around a little carpenter-shop attached to the barn, and make boats and curious windmills, and discuss that wonderful day of the Nineteenth of April, Seventeen Hundred Seventy-five, when he was fourteen years old, and had begged to try just one shot from his father's flintlock at the straggling British, who had innocently stirred up such a hornets' nest. That storied twenty-mile march from Boston to Concord was mapped, re- mapped, discussed and explained, and is still being explained and wondered at by descendants of the embattled farmers. All of which is beautiful and well; and he who cavils concerning it, let his name be anathema. But the actual fact is that, instead of the War of the Revolution beginning at Lexington, it began several years before at Mecklenburg, North Carolina, where the mountaineers arose in revolt against laws made in London and in the making of which they had no part. There at Mecklenburg over two hundred Americans were killed by British troops, while the "massacre" at Lexington cost the Colonists just seven lives. And the moral seems to be this: Parties about to perform heroic deeds would do well to choose a place where poets, essayists and historians abound. It was Emerson who fired the shot heard 'round the world. * * * * * All good writing men exercise their privilege to use that little Pliocene pleasantry about the boy who is not strong enough to work being educated for a preacher. We are apt to overlook the fact, however, that the boy not strong enough to work is often the only one who desires an education--all of this according to Emerson's Law of Compensation. Theodore Parker in his youth was slight, slender and sickly, but he had a great hunger for knowledge. Those who have brawn use it, those without fall back on brain--sometimes. It can not be said that Theodore Parker's parents set him apart for the ministry: he set himself apart and got his education in spite of them. At fifteen, he once created a small seismic disturbance by announcing to the family at supper, "I entered Harvard College today." This educational move was scouted and flouted, and the fact pointed to that there was not enough money in the ginger-jar to keep him at Cambridge a week. And then the boy explained that he was going to borrow books and do his studying at home. He had passed the examinations and been duly admitted to the freshman class.