least notion what she meant.

"Isn't that a _b_?" she said, wishing to help him to find out a certain
word for himself.

"I don't know," answered Willie. "It's not the busy bee," he added,
laughing;--"I should know him. It must be the lazy one, I suppose."

"Don't you know your letters?" asked his mother.

"No, mamma. Which are they? Are the rest yours and papa's?"

"Oh, you silly dear!" she said.

"Of course I am!" he returned;--"very silly! How could any of them be
mine before I know the names of them! When I know them all, then they'll
all be mine, I suppose--and everybody else's who knows them.--So that's
Mr B--is it?"

"Yes. And that's C," said his mother.

"I'm glad to see you, Mr C," said Willie, merrily, nodding to the
letter. "We shall know each other when we meet again.--I suppose this is
D, mamma. How d'e do, Mr D? And what's this one with its mouth open, and
half its tongue cut off?"

His mother told him it was E.

"Then this one, with no foot to stand on, is Fe, I suppose."

His mother laughed; but whoever gave it the name it has, would have done
better to call it Fe, as Willie did. It would be much better also, in
teaching children, at least, to call H, He, and W, We, and Y, Ye, and Z,
Ze, as Willie called them. But it was easy enough for him to learn their
names after he knew so much of what they could _do_.

What gave him a considerable advantage was, that he had begun with
verse, and not dry syllables and stupid sentences. The music of the
verse repaid him at once for the trouble of making it out--even before
he got at the meaning, while the necessity of making each line go right,
and the rhymes too, helped him occasionally to the pronunciation of a
word.

The farther he got on, the faster he got on; and before six weeks were
over, he could read anything he was able to understand pretty well at
sight.

By this time, also, he understood all the particulars as to how a shoe
is made, and had indeed done a few stitches himself, a good deal of
hammering both of leather and of hob-nails, and a little patching, at
which last the smallness of his hands was an advantage.

At length, one day, he said to the shoemaker--

"Shall I read a little poem to you, Hector?"

"You told me you couldn't read, Willie."

"I can now though."

"Do then," said Hector.

Looking for but a small result in such a short time, he was considerably
astonished to find how well the boy could read; for he not merely