one blade, but a bright brass haft.

By this time I could read and even imitate the copies set in the writing
books. This, however, was not the real method by which I had learned to
use the pen or rather pencil. Much more skill was acquired in little
notes to Launa Probana during school hours, passed furtively under the
desks and benches or hidden in a book which I was suddenly anxious to
borrow or lend. What nothings we wrote! With what pains and searchings
of the brain for words! Still I filled my bit of paper while Launa wrote
only three words, yet her name signed in the tiniest letters satisfied
me. With that name in my vest pocket I felt her near me, fixed my
attention upon my book again, and learned my lessons more easily. I was
conscious that she watched all my movements out of the corner of her
eye, and at recitations it was she, who, when I hesitated and was lost,
bending her head down so as not to be observed by the teacher, whispered
softly the right word and saved me from shame. Thus in a thousand ways
she repaid the boy's devotion, and however out-spelt or out-grammared he
might be, where he stood, was for her the head of the class. What
lessons we learned, not in any book nor taught by any teacher! After a
year or two more of winter saw-mill and summer school my teacher thought
I was old enough to write compositions, an exercise usual in all New
England common schools. Long before this I thought myself competent and
was ambitious to begin. It seemed too much a school exercise to be
undertaken out of it. I saw the older pupils on appointed afternoons
stand up in their places and read from their slates the compositions
they had written. It fired my ambition beyond any of the other exercises
or lessons. It seemed to me the very pinnacle of greatness to stand up
and read a composition before the whole school. How I labored over my
first little essay, not being able to think of anything, or to find
language; how I began without any real beginning sentences that had no
end; how I strung together words without connection or sense, how the
whole school tittered and made faces as I read, how I sat down flushed,
trembling, completely overwhelmed with mortification, it pains me even
to remember. What would Launa care for me now! Without seeming to notice
her I looked over to where she sat and saw that she was weeping. I did
not speak to her for a whole week. Thus I punished myself, and all the
week pondered how I coul