that Richard Wedgwood,
Esquire, from Cheshire, came over to Burslem on horseback. Richard has
been mentioned as a brother of Thomas, the father of Josiah, but the
fact seems to be that they were cousins.

Richard was a gentleman in truth, if not in title. He had made a fortune
as a cheesemonger and retired. He went to London once a year, and had
been to Paris. He was decently fat, was senior warden of his village
church, and people who knew their business addressed him as Squire. The
whole village of Burslem boasted only one horse and a mule, but Squire
Wedgwood of Cheshire owned three horses, all his own. He rode only one
horse though, when he came to Burslem, and behind him, seated on a
pillion, was his only and motherless daughter Sarah, aged fourteen,
going on fifteen, with dresses to her shoe-tops.

He brought her because she teased to come, and in truth he loved the
girl very much and was extremely proud of her, even if he did reprove
her more than was meet. But she usually got even by doing as she
pleased.

Now they were on their way to Liverpool and just came around this way
a-cousining.

And among others on whom they called were the Wedgwood potters. In the
kitchen, propped up on a bench, with his lame leg stretched out before
him, sat Josiah, worn, yellow and wan, all pitted with smallpox-marks.
The girl looked at the young man and asked him how he got hurt--she was
only a child. Then she asked him if he could read. And she was awful
glad he could, because to be sick and not to be able to read was awful!

Her father had a copy of Thomson's "Seasons" in his saddlebags. She went
and got the book and gave it to Josiah, and told her father about it
afterward. And when the father and daughter went away, the girl stroked
the sick boy's head, and said she hoped he would get well soon. She
would not have stroked the head of one of those big, burly potters; but
this potter was different--he was wofully disfigured, and he was sick
and lame. Woman's tenderness goes out to homely and unfortunate
men--read your Victor Hugo!

And Josiah--he was speechless, dumb--his tongue paralyzed! The room swam
and then teetered up and down, and everything seemed touched with a
strange, wondrous light. And in both hands Josiah Wedgwood tenderly held
that precious copy of James Thomson's "Seasons."

* * * * *

In Eighteen Hundred Sixty, just one hundred years after John Wesley
visited Burslem, Glad