the boys could go to the Latin
School. They saw how tired she got and kept wishing they could grow up
faster, so they could earn money and let her rest. They helped her wash
dishes, and they chopped wood and cleaned vegetables, while the other
school-boys played ball, or swam, or skated. There were no play hours
for them. They had but one overcoat between them. So they took turns
wearing it. Some of the mean, cruel boys at school used to taunt them
about it, singing out, when they came in sight: "Well, who is wearing
the coat to-day?"

A spinster aunt, Miss Mary Emerson, came to see the family often. She
urged the boys to stand high in their classes and thought it would not
hurt them to do without play. She read all the fine books aloud to them
that she could borrow. Once a caller found her telling the boys stories
of great heroes, late at night, so that they might forget that they had
been without food for a day and a half! They were as poor as that!

Ralph began to go to school when he was three and so was able to enter
Harvard College when he was fourteen. He did not have to pay for his
room at the president's house because he did errands for him. And to pay
for his meals, he waited on tables. That was working to get an
education, wasn't it?

Ralph did not find fault because he had to work all the time that he was
not studying; he was thinking of his mother. When he won a prize of
thirty dollars for declaiming well, he sent it to his mother as fast as
the mails could take it and asked her to buy a shawl for herself. But
she had to take it to buy food for the smaller children! Ralph used to
tell his brothers that he could not think of anything in this world that
would make him so happy as to be able some day to buy a house for his
dear mother and to see her living easily.

The other boys,--Waldo, Charles, Buckley, and Edward,--proved to be fine
scholars, like Ralph, but they were never strong. They were always
having to hurry south, or across the ocean to get over some illness. The
truth is they did not have enough to eat when they were little. Old maid
aunts can tell stories of heroes every night in the year, but that will
never take the place of bread and potatoes, eggs and milk.

Ralph's mother was very happy that he became a minister, and like his
father, preached in Boston. After some years of preaching, he traveled
in Europe. Then he lectured. He had a beautiful, clear voice, and all
the things he told wer