AN

READINGS.

SECTION I.

I.

1. CHARLES BENTHAM.

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N ACTIVE, elever1 lad in the country never need feel dull-never experience that miserable sensation of wanting something to do. If he has à 5 tûrn for mechanical inventions and labors, this becomes à vȧst and inexhaustible" source of pleasure, and causes him to lay up ȧ good deal of reälly valuable knowledge.

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2. The simple and patriarchal 10 state of society, in oldfashioned villages and small towns, allows him to go and see all that is going on. He watches the different ärtisans " at their labors, and makes friends among them; so that he can go and hammer and saw and file to his heart's content.

3. It is true, that mōre and higher kinds of mechanical operations may be seen in large towns and cities; but then à boy has rârely the same easy access 12 to them, nor can he be suffered to go among the workmen with the same confidence that he

1 Clěv'er, having talent, smartness, or skill; good-natured.

2 The (thů), see Rule 3, p. 26. 3 Ex pē'ri ence, becomes practically acquainted with; prove by use or trial.

4 Sěn sā❜tion, feeling åwakened by whatever affects an organ of sense. 5 A (å), see Rule 2, p. 26.

6 Me chǎn'ic al, pertaining to machinery, or the laws of motion.

1 In věn❜tion, the act of finding out; contrivance of something new.

8 Vast (våst), věry great in number or extent.

9 Inexhaustible (în'ěgz hast'i bl), that can not be emptied, wasted, or spent; unfailing.

10 Pa' tri arch' al, belonging or relating to ȧ patriarch, or the father and ruler of a family.

11 Ar'ti san, one trained to hand skill in some mechanical art or trade; a mechanic.

12 Ac cess', a near approach or coming to; admission.

will be welcome, and that he will not be in the way of evil communication.

4. Charles Bentham, å young relative of mine, was 1 the mōst perfect example of what enjoyment and advåntage a boy may derive from mechanical amusements that I ever knew. He was a fine, active lad, of a frank and intelligent disposition, that made him a universal favorite. He was quite at home in the yards and shops of rope-makers, carpenters, blacksmiths, watchmakers, tûrners, and I know not how many trades besides.

5. When he was ȧ little lad of not more than four years old, he used to sit on the heärth-rug2 of an evening, or of a winter's day, cutting little logs of wood with his knife into wind-mills, boats, and ships. The boats and ships that he made from that time till he was grown quite a youth 3-some of which still remain—were acknowledged by ěvèry one to be adʼmirable.

6. Some were made befōre he had ever seen å reäl ship, from pictures of them; and, though not so côrrect as they otherwise would have been, were very surprising. When he had actually seen ships, and become familiar with all the parts of them, he constructed some which were mōre correct, even to the smallèst piece of rope, so that the most experienced seaman could not detect a single error. One of these ships we have now in our possession-ȧ věry beautiful thing.

7. But ships were only one kind of his mechanical productions. Whatever he wanted for his own åmusemènts, he made with the utmost ease. His fishing-rods were of his own making, even to the iron ferrules (fěrʼrilz); his lines were of his own making too. Having got some silk from his mother, he ran off to the rope-yard, and soon came back with beautiful lines of his own twisting.

8. He made his own little wheel-barrows, gärden-rake, and other tools. At the joiner's, he made all kinds of little boxes for his mother and sisters; at the shoe-maker's, he learned to make shoes; at the watch-maker's, he learned to make an actual clock of wood; and then, from a drawing in an encyclopedia,5

1 Was wŎz).

2 Hearth-rug (härthʼruğ).

Youth (yoth).

4 Ad'mi ra ble, worthy to be admired; having qualities to ȧwaken

wonder joined with affection or agreeable feelings.

5 En cỹ’clo pe di a, a book in which all branches of science or art are explained separately.

proceeded to construct, with the utmost accuracy, à perăm'bulator-an instrument to measure distances.

9. When he was ten or twelve years of age, I first became acquainted with him; and then he had his own little shop over the stable, with his tûrning-lathe and tools of all sorts; and he never was so happy as when he found out that he could make anything for you. A screw nut-crack, a wafer-seal, tobaccostopper, a snuff-box, a set of nine-pins, anything, he was ready to make for his different acquaintances.

10. Going on å visit to a relative of his, who was a large farmer, he set to work and mended up rakes, forks, flails, gates, pōsts, rails, the paling of the garden-every thing, in fact, that needed mending. If a lock was out of order, he soon had it off and put to rights; in short, there was no mechanical job that he was not måster of, and could not quickly accomplish, to the astonishment of the family. Had he been thrown, like Robinson Crusoe,1 on an uninhabited island, he would have speedily out-Crusoed Crusoe, and secured for himself domestic comforts, and protection from the elements.

11. To such a lad as this, it is astonishing how all odds and ends of things become treasures. Nothing 2 is lost; bits of wood, scraps of leather, tin, iron, old nails, serews, etc., are hōarded up, and turn, in his hands, into things of account. This fine lad had a box full of old watch-springs, bits of chain, hooks, buttons, wires-anything and everything which were of essential use at the right season.

WILL

II.

2. WILLIAM WORLEY.

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WILLIAM WORLEY, the most useful and agreeable old man in our village, was ȧ never-failing resource when somebody to help and ȧmuse

I wanted something to do, and

1 Robinson Crusoe (kro'so), the hero of De Foe's great novel, a shipwrecked sailor, who lives ålōne for many years on an uninhabited island of the tropics, and who makes his life less lonely by the great number of his contrivances.

2 Nothing (nuth'ing), no thing.

3 Es sen'tial, important in the highest degree; being of that which makes an object, or clåss of objects, what they are.

4 Rē sōurce', that from which anything springs fōrth; hence, that to which one resorts, or on which one depends for supply or support.

me. Where he came from, I eän't1 tell, for he was not å native of the place, though he had been 2 in it more years than I had lived.

2. He was a little man, with remarkably white hair and pink complexion; dressed in å blue coat and waistcoat; a hat of a broadish rim that regularly took a turn up behind. He invariably wore white lambs'-wool stockings and buckled shoes, and walked with a cane. It was evident that the old man was not a worker-Sundays and week-days, he was always dressed the same. 3. He lived in a small cottage in a retired gärden; and his wife was employed in nursing, so that he generally had the place all to himself, and was as glad of a companion as I was. He was a flōrist: his garden displayed showy beds of the most splendid auriculås, tulips, and polyanthuses; and it was a great delight to me to help him to weed his beds, of a pleasant sunny morning, to arrange his glasses, and to listen to him while he praised his favorite flowers. I věrily believe that no such flowers were to be found elsewhere in the country.

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4. But the place into which I should have desired to penetrate more than all was his bedroom. This seemed to be å perfect treasury of all sorts of good and curious things. Nuts and apples, walnuts, stuffed birds, walking-sticks, fishing-rods, flower-seeds of curious sorts, and various other desirable things from time to time came forth from thence in a manner which ōnly made me desire to see how many others were left behind. But into that sanctum honèst William never took anybody.

5. If my father wanted å walking-stick, he had only to give the slightest hint to William, and presently he would be seen coming in with one, varnished as bright as the flower of the meadow crowfoot. Indeed, his chief delights were to wander through the wood with his eyes on the watch for good sticks, or for curious birds, or to säunter along the meadows by the stream-angling and gossiping in a quiet way to some village listener, like myself, åbout a hundred country things.

6. People called him an idle

1 Can't (känt), can not. 2 Been (bin).

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man, because he never was at

called also, from the shape of its leaves, beâr's ear.

5 Flō'rist, one skilled in the cultivation or câre of flowers.

4 Au ric'ū la, å kind of primrose,

Pol'y ǎn'thus, å kind of flowering plant whose flower-stalks produce flowers in clusters.

work on anything that brought him in å penny. But he had no fămily to provide for, and his wife got enough, and they might have something besides, for aught I know; and why should he work for what he did not want? In my eyes he seemed, and seems still, one of the wisèst sort of men-always so occupied as to prevent the entry of an evil spirit.

7. He passed his time in innocent and agreeable occupations. His flowers, and his bees, and his birds-for he had always two or three that used to hang by the side of his cottage on fine days, and sing with all their might-were his constant delight. He knew where a fish was to be caught, or râre bird to be seen; and if you wanted a fishing-rod or a stick, he was happier to give it than you were to receive it.

8. There were å hundred little things that he was ever and