But it was not till the last two
months of the same year that I felt the least encouragement to spend the
star-light nights on a grass-plot covered with dew or hoar-frost,
without a human being near enough to be within call. I knew too little
of the real heavens to be able to point out every object so as to find
it again without losing too much time by consulting the atlas." And, in
another place, she says: "I had, however, the comfort to see that my
brother was satisfied with my endeavors to assist him, when he wanted
another person either to run to the clocks, write down a memorandum,
fetch and carry instruments, or measure the ground with poles, etc., of
which something of the kind every moment would occur." How successful
she was in her sky-sweeping may be judged from the fact that she herself
discovered no less than eight different comets at various times during
her apprenticeship. Her work was not unattended by danger and accidents,
and on one occasion, on a cold and cloudy December night, when a strip
of clear sky revealed some stars and there was great haste made to
observe them, in assisting her brother with his huge telescope she ran
in the dark on ground covered with melting snow a foot deep, tripped,
and fell on a large iron hook such as butchers use, and which was
attached for some purpose to the machine. It entered her right leg,
above the knee, and when her brother called, "Make haste," she could
only answer by a pitiful cry, "I am hooked.
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