This talent for sketching seems to run in the family, for Thomas A. Edison's first impulse in discussing any mechanical question is to take up the nearest piece of paper and make drawings. Scarcely a day passes that this does not happen. His immense number of note-books contain thousands of such sketches. His sister, who in later life became Mrs. Tannie Edison Bailey, had, on the other hand, a great deal of literary ability, and spent much of her time in writing. As a child the great inventor was not at all strong, and was of fragile appearance. His head was well shaped but very large, and it is said that local doctors feared he might have brain trouble. On account of his supposed delicacy, he was not allowed to go to school at as early an age as is usual. And when he did go, it was not for a long time. He was usually at the foot of his class, and the teacher had spoken of the boy to a school inspector as being "addled." Perhaps the reader can imagine the indignation of his mother on hearing of this teacher's report. She had watched and studied her boy closely, and knew that he had a mind unusually receptive and mental powers far beyond those of other children. So she resolved to take him out of school and educate him herself. It was fortunate that Mr. Edison had a mother who was not only loving, observing, and wise, but at the same time well informed and ambitious. From her experience as a teacher, she was able to give him an education better than could be had in the local schools of that day. Under her care the boy formed studious habits and a taste for good literature that have lasted to this day. He is a great reader, and what has once been read by him is never forgotten if it is in any way useful. When Edison was a child he was deeply interested in the busy scenes of the canal and grain warehouses, and particularly in the ship-building yards. He asked so many questions that he fairly tired out his father, although the older man had no small ability. It has been reported that other members of the family regarded the boy as being mentally unbalanced and likely to be a lifelong care to his parents. Even while he was quite a young child his mechanical tendencies showed themselves in his fondness for building little plank roads from the pieces of wood thrown out by the ship-building yards and the sawmills. One day he was found in the village square laboriously copying the signs of the stores. To this day Mr. Edison is not inclined to accept a statement unless he can prove it for himself by experiment. Once, when he was about six years old, he watched a goose sitting on her eggs and saw them hatch. Soon after he was missing. By and by, after an anxious search, his father found him sitting in a nest he had made in the barn filled with goose and hen eggs he had collected, trying to hatch them out.