[Gutenberg 2497] • Put Yourself in His Place

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to [www.million-books.com](http://www.million-books.com) where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHASTER III. The sorrowful widow was so fond of her little Henry, and the uncertainty of life was so burnt into her now, that she could hardly bear him out of her sight. Yet her love was of the true maternal stamp; not childish and self-indulgent. She kept him from school, for fear he should be brought home dead to her; but she gave her own mind with zeal to educate bin Nor was she unqualified. If she had less learning than schoolmasters, she knew better how to communicate what she did know to a budding mind. She taught him to read fluently, and to write beautifully; and she coaxed him, as only a woman can, over the dry elements of music and arithmetic. She also taught him dancing and deportment, and to sew on a button. He was a quick boy at nearly everything, but, whon he was fourteen, his true genius went a-head of his mere talents: he showed a heaven-born gift for?carving in wood. This pleased Joseph Little hugely, and he fostered it judiciously. The boy worked, and thought, and in time arrived at such delicacies of execution, he became discontented with the humdrum tools then current. .Then learn to make your own, boy, cried Joseph Little, joyfully; and so initiated him into the whole mystery of hardening, forging, grinding, handle- making, and cutlery: and Henry, young and enthusiastic, took his turn at them all in right down earnest. At twenty, he had sold many a piece of delicate carving, and could make graving-tools incomparably superior to any he could buy; and, for his age, was an accomplished mechanic. Joseph Little went the way of all flesh. They mourned and missed him; and, at Henry's earnest request, his mother disposed of the plant, and went with him to London. Then the battle of life began. He was a long time ont 01 employment, and they both lived ...