“Before reaching his tenth year, he had gained quite a reputation for good scholarship, especially in arithmetic. A gentleman residing in the neighboring town of Beverly sent him a problem, with the offer of a dollar for the solution. Adoniram immediately shut himself in his chamber. The reward was tempting; but, more important still, his reputation was at stake. On the morning of the second day he was called from his seclusion to amuse his little brother, who was ill. He went reluctantly, but without murmuring, for the government of his parents was of a nature that no child would think of resisting. His task was to build a cob-house. He laid an unusually strong foundation, with unaccountable slowness and hesitation, and was very deliberately proceeding with the superstructure, when suddenly he exclaimed, ‘That’s it. I’ve got it!’ and sending the materials for the half-built house rolling about the room, he hurried off to his chamber to record the result. The problem was solved, the dollar was won, and the boy’s reputation established. “At the age of ten he was sent to one Captain Morton, of whom he took lessons in navigation, in which he is said to have made decided progress. In the grammar-school he was noted for his proficiency in the Greek language. His school-mates nicknamed him Virgil, or (in allusion to the peculiar style of the hat which he wore, as well as to his studious habits) ‘old Virgil dug up.’ As a boy, he was spirited, self-confident, and exceedingly enthusiastic, very active and energetic, but fonder of his books than of play. His sister has a vivid recollection of his affectionate tenderness toward her, and of his great kindness to inferior animals. He was very fond of desultory reading; and as there were no books for children at that period, he alternated between the books of theology found in his father’s library and the novels of Richardson and Fielding, or the plays of Ben Jonson, which he was able to borrow in the neighborhood. It is not probable that his father encouraged this latter class of reading; but the habits of self-dependence, which he had thought proper to cultivate in his son, left his hours of leisure mostly untrammelled; and seeing the greediness with which the boy occasionally devoured books of the gravest character, it very likely had not occurred to him that he could feel the least possible interest in any work of the imagination.