being the way the Plumfield boys celebrated the birthday of Him
who loved the poor and blessed the little ones.

Demi was never tired of reading and explaining his favorite books,
and many a pleasant hour did they spend in the old willow,
revelling over "Robinson Crusoe," "Arabian Nights," "Edgeworth's
Tales," and the other dear immortal stories that will delight
children for centuries to come. This opened a new world to Nat,
and his eagerness to see what came next in the story helped him on
till he could read as well as anybody, and felt so rich and proud
with his new accomplishment, that there was danger of his being
as much of a bookworm as Demi.

Another helpful thing happened in a most unexpected and
agreeable manner. Several of the boys were "in business," as they
called it, for most of them were poor, and knowing that they would
have their own way to make by and by, the Bhaers encouraged any
efforts at independence. Tommy sold his eggs; Jack speculated in
live stock; Franz helped in the teaching, and was paid for it; Ned
had a taste for carpentry, and a turning-lathe was set up for him in
which he turned all sorts of useful or pretty things, and sold them;
while Demi constructed water-mills, whirligigs, and unknown
machines of an intricate and useless nature, and disposed of them
to the boys.

"Let him be a mechanic if he likes," said Mr. Bhaer. "Give a boy a
trade, and he is independent. Work is wholesome, and whatever
talent these lads possess, be it for poetry or ploughing, it shall be
cultivated and made useful to them if possible."