Love For Nature
The earliest event that
Henry could remember, took place two years later. His father, holding Baby John in his
arms, led the family to a co rner of the barnyard near their
house. There, under a fallen oak tree, they found a song sparrow’s nest with four
speckled eggs. His father turned the plough aside in order that the bird’s nest may
not be disturbed in the furrow. This memory lingered on in little Henry’s mind. From
that moment onwards, little Henry became a lover of birds.
The Eternal Habit
The first few years of Henry’s boyhood were spent at home under his mother’s
watchful eye. When he commenced school for the first time, he was eight years old. The
Little Red Brick school in the Scot Settlement was a mile and a half away from the farm.
Pretty Miss Emilie Nardin, the nineteen years old teacher, punished the young boy many
times. He had to stand up in the corner for misbehaving, or to sit with a girl as
punishment for whispering or passing comments during school. Ford attended a one-room
school for eight years, when he was not helping his father with the harvest. Henry was
naturally fast at figures and one of his teachers, F. R. Ward made him do sums in his head
instead of on the blackboard. Thanks to him, Ford in later years, seldom had to put pencil
to paper when working out a problem.
|
Home