ake a bargain with you. Here's a book"--I handed him one of
the _Lucy_ books, written by Mr. _Jacob Abbott_--"which is worth a
dozen of that. This will make you laugh some, as well as the other
book; and it will do much more and better than that. It will set you
to _thinking_. It will instruct, as well as amuse you. It will sow
some good seeds in your mind, and your heart, too. It will teach you
to be a _thinker_ as well as a reader. It costs a little more than
that almanac, it is true. But never mind that. If you'll take this
book, and give the gentleman your shilling, I'll pay him the rest of
the money. Will you do it? Will you take the Lucy book, and leave the
funny almanac?"
He hesitated. He hardly knew whether he should make or lose by the
trade.
"If you will do so," I continued, "and read the book, when you get
through with it, you may come to my office in Nassau street, and tell
me how you was pleased with it. Then, if you say that you did not like
Mr. Abbott's book so well as you think you would have liked the book
with the funny pictures, and tell me that you made a bad bargain, I'll
take back the Lucy book, and give you the almanac in the place of it."
That pleased the little fellow. The bargain was struck. Mr. Abbott's
book was bought, and the boy left the store, and ran home.
I think it was about a week after that, or it might have been a
little longer, that I heard my name spoken, as I was sitting at my
desk. I turned around, and, sure enough, there was the identical boy
with whom I had made the trade at the book store.
"Well, my little fellow," I said, "you've got sick of your bargain,
eh?" "No, sir," he said, "I'm glad I made it;" and he proceeded to
tell me his errand. It seemed that he had been so pleased with the
book, that he "wanted a few more of the same sort," as the razor strop
man says; and his father had told him that he might come to me, ask
me to get all the Lucy books for him.
Now you see how it was with that little fellow, before he read the
book I gave him. He had got the notion that a child's book could not
be amusing--could not be worth reading--unless it was filled with such
nonsense as there was in the "funny book" he called for. He had not
got a _taste_ for reading anything else. As soon as he did get such a
taste, he liked that kind of reading the best; because, besides making
him laugh a little now and then, it put some thoughts into his
head--gave him some hints which w
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