on the bacon, he
commenced his reply from that end of the subject. He said it was true
that many were worse off than he, and many were the comforts he had,
that thousands of the poor knew nothing of. Here he glanced
affectionately at his children; but my eyes brought him back to the
bacon, and so he went on, apparently under a new impression of his
resources of comfort. He said he had to sell some of his goods to buy
the pig when very small, and had "_luggled_" along with some difficulty
to feed and fatten him into a respectable size. Yes, he was a pretty
clever pig; nor was that all--the nailing business had become better,
by a half-penny a thousand, than when I was with them in the summer;
and Josiah could now earn ninepence a day. He wanted to send all his
children to school; if they could not read, they would be poor, even if
they should come to own parks and carriages, he could not bear to see
them growing up with no books in their hands. He worked long at the
anvil as it was; and he was willing to work longer and harder to pay the
schoolmaster for teaching his children to read. Josiah was now ten years
old; he had been a faithful boy; he had made nails ever since he could
hold a hammer; and it was for this that he desired the more to send him
to school. It had troubled him much all along that the boy was working
so long and so well at the anvil, without having any of his wages to pay
the schoolmaster for teaching him something that would make him rich in
his poverty when he came to be a man; and he had tried to make up this
to him in a little way, by reading to him easy verses from the
Testament, many of which he had learned by heart. Besides this, he had
bought a little picture-reading-book, since I was with them last, and
Josiah could master many easy words in it; for he had learned almost all
the letters. But he knew this was a slow way of getting on, although he
feared it was the best he could do for him. He knew not how he could
manage to spare him for the winter. He had no other boy; there was a
baby in the cradle only a fortnight old, which made him five children
under ten years of age, to be fed, warmed and clothed through the
winter months. Here he fell into a calculation of this kind--he could
now earn nine shillings, or about two dollars and twenty cents, a week.
His coal cost him three shillings a week, and his house-rent two;
leaving him but _four_ shillings a week for a family of seven persons to
liv