rned the letters by the forge-light.
It was a good book, was the Testament; and he was sure it was made for
nailers and such like. It helped him wonderfully when the loaf was small
on his table, He had but little time to read it when the sun was up, and
it took him loner to read a little, for he learned the letters when he
was old. But he laid it beside his dish at dinner time, and fed his
heart with it, while his children were eating the bread that fell to his
share. And when he had spelt out a line of the shortest words, he read
them aloud, and his eldest boy--the one on the block there--could say
several whole verses he had learned in this way. It was a great comfort
to him, to think that James could take into his heart so many verses of
the Testament which he could not read. He intended to teach all his
children in this way. It was all he could do for them; and this he had
to do at meal-times; for all the other hours he had to be at the anvil.
The nailing business was growing harder, he was growing old, and his
family large. _He had to work from four o'clock in the morning till ten
o'clock at night, to earn eighteen-pence._ His wages averaged only about
_seven shillings a week_; and there were five of them in the family to
live on what they could earn. It was hard to make up the loss of an
hour. Not one of their hands, however little, could be spared. Jemmy was
going on nine years of age, and a helpful lad he was; and the poor man
looked at him doatingly. Jemmy could work off a thousand nails a day, of
the smallest size. The rent of their little shop, tenement and garden,
was five pounds a year; and a few pennies earned by the youngest of them
were of great account.

But, continued the blacksmith, speaking cheerily, I am not the one that
ought to complain. Many is the man that has a harder lot of it than I,
among the nailers along this hill and in the valley. My neighbor in the
next door could tell you something about labor you never have heard the
like of in your country. He is an older man than I, and there are seven
of them in his family; and, for all that, he has no boy like Jemmy here
to help him. Some of his little girls are sickly, and their mother is
not over strong, and it all comes on him. He is an oldish man, as I was
saying, yet he not only works eighteen hours every day at his forge, but
_every Friday in the year he works all night long_, and never lays off
his clothes till late of Saturday night. A good