“What do you want here, little boy?” she said.

“A drink of water,” said Peter.

A little boy nearly always wants a drink of water.

“Go through into the kitchen there, and get a drink,” said the landlady.

Peter opened the door into the kitchen, and went through.  In a moment two arms were about him.  Peter knew what home meant then.  His sister, Matilda, had recognized her lost brother Peter in the little soldier boy.  The next day he was put into a wagon and sent out to Rushford, where his mother was living.  The wanderings of the little captive were over.

THE GREATEST OF TELESCOPE MAKERS.

Three great inventors in this country were portrait painters.  Fulton, the builder of steamboats, was one of them; Morse, who planned our first electric telegraph, was another; and Alvan Clark, who found out a way of making the largest and finest telescopes in the world, was another.

Alvan Clark was the son of a farmer.  When he was eighteen years old, he set to work to learn engraving and drawing.  He had no teacher.  After a while he began to draw portraits.  Once he sent to Boston to get some brushes to paint with.  When the brushes came, there was a piece of newspaper wrapped round them.  In this bit of newspaper was an advertisement that engravers were wanted.  He went to Boston, and found regular work as an engraver.

When he was not busy engraving, he was studying painting.  After some years he became a painter of portraits and miniatures.  He lived at Cambridgeport, near Boston.

While Mr. Clark was living at Cambridgeport, his son was at a boarding school.  The young boy had become interested in telescopes.  He learned that there were two kinds of these instruments.  One brought the stars near by showing them in a curved mirror.  The other magnified by means of glasses that the light shone through.  He had read that it was very hard to grind these glasses or lenses, as they are called, so that they would be correct.  The telescope that used the mirror was not so good, but it was easier to make.  So George Clark made up his mind that he would make a reflecting telescope; that is, one with a mirror in it.

The mirror in such a telescope is made of polished metal.  One day somebody broke the dinner bell at the boarding school.  George dark picked up the pieces of brass and took them home.

These pieces of brass he put into a retort.  A retort is a vessel that will bear great heat, and that is used for melting metals and other substances.  Young Clark put some tin into the retort with the brass.  When the two metals were melted together, he poured the liquid into a mold.  When it became cold, it was a round flat piece.  Such a piece is called a disc.

Alvan Clark, the father, was a very ingenious man.  He was a fine marksman.  One reason that he could shoot so well was that his eye was so true.  Another was that he made his own rifles, and made them better than others.