y little Picture-Book, for I have read Mrs.
Lovechild's Golden Present so often, that I can repeat it without book.
I am very glad to hear it, Peter, says his father, and I wish I could
afford to buy you books as fast as you can learn them. I have been
saving a penny a week these five weeks, to buy the LADDER to LEARNING
for you: well then, says Peter, I have got a penny, which was given me
this morning by Miss Kitty Kindness, so that will make sixpence: O dear,
I should like vastly to have the Ladder to Learning, and you shall see
how fast I will climb up it; pray give me your fivepence, rather, and I
will run to Farmer Giles with it directly, and desire him to bring it
down for me, when he goes to Town next week; and away he ran to Farmer
Giles, and gave him the money to buy the Ladder to Learning. You can't
miss the shop, says Peter, it is just in the midst of the Town, the only
place where all the pretty little books are sold: for, though Peter had
never been in Town, he knew as well as could be, where his old friend
the Publisher lived.

[Illustration]

Now a great many silly boys would have spent that penny in apples or
gingerbread, or some such trash, and when they had eaten it, what would
they have been the better for it? Why nothing at all; but Peter did not
lay out his money in such an idle manner; whenever he got a penny, he
bought food for his mind, instead of his belly, and you will find he
afterwards reaped the benefit of it.

Well, the next week Peter had his new book, and here he sits reading it
under the hedge, where he was sent to keep away the crows from Farmer
Giles's corn; and you see he neither neglected his book nor his work.

_Away, Away, John Carrion Crow,
Your Master hath enow
Down in his Barley Mow._

See how he makes them fly, and as soon as they are gone, out he whips
his little book, and reads till they come back again; for Gaffer Pippin,
being but a poor labouring man, could not afford to keep Peter at
school; so he was obliged to go out to work, though he was but six years
old.

[Illustration]

But good fortune is generally attendant on good and virtuous actions,
and so it happened to Peter, who was certainly one of the best boys in
the whole country; he always did what his father and mother bid him, not
only without murmuring, but with pleasure in his countenance; he never
went to bed, or got up in the morning, without kneeling down by his
bed-side to say his prayers; nor