ow much a person may acquire by industry in these fragments
of time."

"There's a nuther thing, too," continued Mrs. Lane. "I hear 'um tell
that Nat carts a book about in his pocket all the time he works. Pretty
business, I think, for a youngster like him to try to be a scholar and
worker at once! It's all proof to me that taking to books so will spile
him for any thing."

"One thing is certain, Mrs. Lane, that he does not mean to waste any
time; for the book in his pocket is to take out when he has a minute to
spare. If he gets only ten minutes in a day to read, that will be one
hour in the six working days, which is worth saving. That single hour a
day, in a lifetime, would give a man considerable knowledge."

"Wall, it's no use arguing about it. Times are so diff'rent now from
what they was when I was young, and peoples thinks so diff'rent, that it
'pears to me sometimes that the world is going to rack and ruin. We got
along well 'nough fifty or sixty years ago without so much edication.
But folks are got to be so stylish now, and boys know so much more than
their grandpas, that I railly don't know what'll come on us."

"After all, Mrs. Lane, I think you would rather have more boys like Nat,
than like some others I could name," said a former speaker.

"Lor, yis," she replied; "I guess I should. I allers liked Nat. He's a
rale clever feller as ever lived, and he ain't stuck-up by his
smartness, and he likes to see everybody well used. I larfed myself most
to death when I heard about his waitin' on Hanner Mann to the party.
It's jist like Nat, he can't bear to see anybody slighted."

"I like to see that," answered one of the number; "it is a good sign. He
thought Hannah and her sister were slighted because their father was
poor and intemperate, and they were not able to dress quite so well as
some others, and this excited his sympathies, so that he was determined
they should go to the party."

"I know'd all about that," replied Mrs. Lane, "and that's what pleased
me so, to see a youngster like him so inderpendent, and stand up for
good folks if they are poor."

The reference here to an incident of Nat's youthful experience needs
explanation, as the fact illustrates an element of his character from
childhood, and furnishes additional reason for the course in which his
sympathies and better feelings ran thereafter. Nat and Charlie had
received invitations to a social gathering, in connection with their
companion