hired help. Then, also, his sons
learned to cobble shoes very young.

Before Augustus went into his father's shop to work, and when he had a
good many hours out of school, he found the busy streets of New York
exciting enough. He was laughing and merry, so that he made friends from
the Bowery to Central Park. He had only to sniff hungrily at the bakery
to have the good-natured German cook toss him out brown sugar-cakes, and
if he fell off the wharves, or ran too near big fire-engines, some kind
policeman rescued him. He was not a bad boy. Probably the worst thing he
did was to join some other boys in the string joke. They used to tie
strings from the seats of the bakery-wagons to the posts of high stoops
and watch these strings knock off hats as men hurried by.

Sundays were gala days. If the sun shone, all the boys in the
neighborhood went over to New Jersey on the ferry-boat. Augustus's
father always gave him and his brothers five cents each. Two cents took
a boy over to New Jersey, two cents brought him back, and there was the
other cent for candy or gum. It was good sport to chase each other
through the green fields, hunt birds' nests, and climb trees, but the
best fun came on the way back, when the boys sat in a long row at the
front of the boat, letting their legs dangle over the edge, watching the
life on the river.

When Augustus went to school, at the age of ten, he did more drawing on
his slate than arithmetic. How the pupils craned their necks to see his
pictures! He did not draw just one man, a bird, or a single house, but
whole armies shooting guns and cannon. These soldiers looked alive. On
his way home, Augustus was apt to draw charcoal sketches on every white
house he passed. The sketches were fine, but the housekeepers scolded.
Few people noticed the real talent of the boy, but one old doctor became
much excited and urged Augustus's father to let him study art. His
father had seen very lifelike pictures of his own workshop and cobblers
which Augustus had drawn, and agreed that he would do what he could to
help him. Only Augustus must for a few more years earn money for the
family. So while he went to a night school for drawing lessons, he cut
cameos through the day.

My, but the man who taught him cameo cutting was cross! Augustus was
scolded and driven to work faster all day long.

In spite of the terrible rages into which this stonecutter would go, he
was very artistic, and Augustus learned how t