Page 89 - English Class 07

One morning, he was watching a bird. It flew down to the ground, picked up a few

worms in its beak and flew away. This gave young Edison an idea. “The bird is able to fly
because it eats worms! Man can also fly if he eats worms,” he said to himself. He wanted to
try the experiment on someone. He caught hold of a few worms, beat them into a pulp and
mixed it in water. He took the mixture to a servant girl and said to her, “This is a wonderful

mixture. If you drink this, you can fly like a bird. Come on! Drink it and see.”
The poor girl believed him and drank the mixture. Well, she didn’t fly but she fell ill.

Young Edison’s mother warned him not to do such silly experiments.
Once, he went to a poultry farm with his mother. There he saw a hen. It was sitting on

its eggs. He asked his mother about it and she answered, “The hen is hatching its eggs. After
some time chickens will come out of the eggs.” “Why can’t I hatch eggs?” thought young
Edison. The next morning, he got a dozen eggs and sat on them. He got up after some time
but he did not find any chickens. He had only
silly : thoughtless, foolish
smashed the eggs and spoilt his shorts. He got a hatch : bring forth young ones from eggs
good beating from his mother that day.

A really funny boy, wasn’t he? He failed in all these experiments, but he had learnt

something from them. He had learnt that his ideas were wrong. He was fond of books and
read quite a lot of them. His father gave him twenty-five cents for every book he read. He
read widely and with the pocket money he got, he bought more books and set up a small

laboratory. His mother encouraged him and helped him in his experiments.

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