Years ago there was a boy in the fourth grade at View Ridge Elementary School who always completed his assignments on time and did superior work. The teacher believed the boy had great potential, so she went to the school librarian and asked if there was work for such a talented young student.

"Send him on," said the librarian. The first day the librarian explained the Dewey decimal system to the 10-year-old boy. He took to the new-found information like a duck takes to water.

The librarian explained that there were books that’d been reported as "not returned" that she suspected were actually misfiled among the stacks.

"So my job is to find the lost books, kind of like a detective," the boy responded.

"Exactly," said the librarian.

The boy went to work with great enthusiasm, and in less than an hour found three books that’d been misfiled. At that moment the fourth grader’s teacher returned to the library saying, "It’s time for recess." The boy pleaded to continue his book sleuthing work, but the teacher won out in favor of fresh air and exercise.

Within a few weeks the boy had found many lost books. Then one day the young pupil put a note on the librarian’s desk. It was an invitation from the child’s mom inviting her to supper.

After the meal, the boy’s mother announced that because of a job change the family would be moving and her son was transferring to another school.

"Who’ll find the lost books?" was the boy’s tearful concern.

A few weeks later the boy returned to the library at View Ridge, announcing that his mother had arranged to transfer him back to the old school. His father would drop him off in the mornings and he’d walk home after school.

In spite of the recognition of such uncommon determination in a young pupil, neither the teacher nor the librarian could have guessed that the boy would grow up to become the czar of communications and the second richest man in the world - - Bill Gates.

Editor’s note: The librarian in this story was Blanche Caffiere, a Seattle teacher and librarian for over 60 years. She first wrote her story about Bill Gates for The Christian Science Monitor. She died in 2006 at the age of 100.