have a merry time of it about Christmas, and have your pockets filled
with all sorts of nice things, that would come by way of affectionate
remembrance from grand-papa down to the fourth cousin; and you would
bring to mind lots of boys and girls that had no one to give them a
picture-book as large as a cent, and who couldn't read it if they had
one. I thought this would be a good time to put in a word for "The
Little Nailer;" and so I threw out the thought, very hopefully, that you
should all contribute something from your Christmas presents and make
the little fellow a Christmas gift of a year's schooling. I suggested
this idea between doubt and hope. I did not know how it would strike
you. I did not know but some of you might think that the great ocean was
too wide to be crossed by your little charities; that others might say,
"He is only an _English_ boy--he doesn't belong to our family
circle--let him alone," And so I waited anxiously to hear from you; for
I was sure you would talk it over among yourselves in the "School-room,"
and on the way home, and by the fireside. Well, after waiting a few
weeks, the English steamer came in from Boston, and brought me a letter
from Ezekiel; and the happiest thing in it was, that the boys and girls
of "Our School Room" had made no more of the Atlantic Ocean than if it
had been a mud-puddle, which they could step across to give a helping
hand to a lad who was down and couldn't get up alone. It made my heart
get up in my mouth and try to talk instead of my tongue, when I read to
some of my friends here what you had done for the little Nailer; when I
told them to read for themselves and see that your sympathies knew
nothing about any geography, any more than if the science of natural
divisions had never been discovered, or if oceans, seas, rivers or
mountains, or any such terms as _American, English_ or _African,_ were
not to be found in the Dictionary. The letter stated that ONE HUNDRED
AND SIXTY half-dimes had already come in, from children all over the
country, to pay the schoolmaster for teaching the little English nailer