to read in the Testament, and to write a legible hand. Nor was this
all.--Ezekiel said that there was no telling how many more half-dimes
would come in; for not only had the children of our own "School-Room"
taken up the matter, but those of other school-rooms, especially away
down in Maine, were determined to have some share in fitting out the
nailer-boy with an education sufficient to make a man of him, if he will
use it aright. I saw it clear that the little fellow was to be put to
school; that his hammer was to lie silent on the anvil for the space of
one cold winter; and that the young folks in America would foot the
bill. And I was determined that this should be a Christmas gift to him,
that he and his young American benefactors might enjoy it together. So
two days before Christmas, I started from Birmingham on foot to carry
the present to him.

It was a bright, frosty morning, and, after a walk of twelve miles, I
came in sight of the little brick cottage of the nailer by the wayside.
I approached it with mingled emotions of solicitude. Perhaps it had been
vacated by the poor man and his family, and some other nailer had taken
his place. Perhaps the hand that spares neither rich nor poor had been
there, and I should miss the boy at the anvil. I stopped once or twice
to listen. The windows were open, but all was still. There was no
clicking of hammers, nor blowing of bellows, to indicate that the nailer
family were still its occupants. I began to fear that they were gone,
and my imagination ran rapidly over a hundred casualties and changes
which might have come upon them. The same gate was open that invited me
to enter last summer; and as I passed through it, I met a woman who said
the nailer was at dinner in the family apartment of the building. She
went in before me, and the next moment I was in the midst of the circle
of my old acquaintance, who had just risen from the table and were
sitting around the fire. My sudden appearance in their midst seemed to