ly collected, down to the
smallest bits, and put into an old box by the boy who swept the
warehouse. His master allowed him to collect them each week and carry
them home to his mother, a poor, industrious widow, who earned a scanty
living for her children and herself by making toys for a shop in the
suburbs.

"The eldest son, Sam, was shop-boy at this great leather warehouse; and
feeling the importance of his position as the man of the family, and the
only one receiving regular wages, and being in a place, he was not a
little proud. He drew himself up on tip-toe, for he was, unluckily,
rather short for his age, and spoke in the deepest tones he could make
his naturally squeaky voice take, which sounded like the chirp of the
cuckoo, when "in leafy June, he is out of tune!" But Sam was a good boy,
and loved his mother and little sisters dearly, and would have bristled,
like an angry cock robin, in the smallest but fiercest displeasure, if
any one had tried to invade the parent nest.

"It was Saturday night, and Sam was very tired, for he was at everyone's
call, being the youngest and smallest there; and though he was pert and
perky, he was good-natured and willing, so his poor thin legs had been
well trotted about. But tired as he was, he gave a careful look round
for any stray bits, and then tucked his little old box under his arm,
and walked home. He stopped at the door of a very dingy house, up a
dark, dirty court, and opening it, mounted the close, steep staircase.
After climbing up two stories, he sat down to rest awhile, to get breath
to mount the last one. At last he wearily picked up the box, and, step
by step, painfully went up to the door of the back room. And this was
his _home_, his only idea of comfort and rest after his long day's toil.
But his mother was a good and tender woman, and though she had only this
one small room to dwell in, where her three children and herself lived
and slept, she tried her very best to keep it as wholesome and cheerful
as she could, with the poor means she had.

"A pleasant place it seemed to poor little Sam as he went in, with the
kettle singing merrily on the hob, and the summer sunset shining in over
the tall chimney-pots, through a clean window, between two cracked pots
of blooming mignonette. Many little children were, no doubt, going to
bed then in country cottages, tired out with their long rambles in
country lanes--dirty with dust and forbidden mud-pies--and hungry for