rd,
near Philadelphia when a little girl about two years old, who had
toddled away from a small house, was lying basking in the sun, in the
middle of the road. About two hundred yards before I got to the child,
the teams of three wagons, five big horses in each, the drivers of
which had stopped to drink at a tavern at the brow of the hill,
started off, and came nearly abreast, galloping down the road. I got
my gig off the road as speedily as I could, but expected to see the
poor child crushed to pieces. A young man, a journeyman carpenter,
who was shingling a shed by the road side, seeing the child, and
seeing the danger, though a stranger to the parents, jumped from the
top of the shed, ran into the road, and snatched up the child from
scarcely an inch before the hoof of the leading horse. The horse's
leg knocked him down; but he, catching the child by its clothes,
flung it back out of the way of the other horses, and saved himself
by rolling back with surprising agility. The mother of the child, who
had apparently been washing, seeing the teams coming, and seeing the
situation of the child, rushed out, and, catching up the child, just
as the carpenter had flung it back, and hugging it in her arms,
uttered a shriek, such as I never heard before, never heard since,
and, I hope, shall never hear again; and then she dropped down as if
perfectly dead. By the application of the usual means, she was
restored, however, in a little while, and I, being about to depart,
asked the carpenter if he were a married man, and whether he were a
relation of the parents of the child. He said he was neither. 'Well,
then,' said I, you merit the gratitude of every father and mother in
the world, and I will show you mine by giving you what I have,--
pulling out the nine or ten dollars which I had in my pocket. 'No, I
thank you, sir,' said he, 'I have only done what it was my duty to
do.'

"Bravery, disinterestedness, and maternal affection surpassing these
it is impossible to imagine. The mother was going right in amongst the
feet of these powerful and wild horses, and amongst the wheels of
the wagons. She had no thought for herself; no feeling of fear for
her own life; her shriek was the sound of inexpressible joy, joy too
great for her to support herself under."

Now, can you conceive a more ungrateful wretch, than that boy would
be, if he should grow up, not to love or obey his mother? She was
willing to die for him. She was willing to