of yarn, Ishmael would crawl after it as fast as his feeble little
limbs would take him, and bring it back and hold it up to her with a
smile of pleasure, or, if the feat had been a fine one, a little laugh
of triumph. Thus, even before he could walk, he tried to make himself
useful. It was his occupation to love Hannah, and watch her, and crawl
after anything she dropped and restore it to her. Was this such a small
service? No; for it saved the poor woman the trouble of getting up and
deranging her work to chase rolling balls of yarn around the room. Or
was it a small pleasure to the lonely old maid to see the child smile
lovingly up in her face as he tendered her these baby services? I think
not. Hannah grew to love little Ishmael. Who, indeed, could have
received all his innocent overtures of affection and not loved him a
little in return? Not honest Hannah Worth. It was thus, you see, by his
own artless efforts that he won his grim aunt's heart. This was our
boy's first success. And the truth may as well be told of him now, that
in the whole course of his eventful life he gained no earthly good which
he did not earn by his own merits. But I must hurry over this part of my
story.

When Ishmael was about four years old he began to take pleasure in the
quaint pictures of the old family Bible, that I have mentioned as the
only book and sole literary possession of Hannah Worth. A rare old copy
it was, bearing the date of London, 1720, and containing the strangest
of all old old-fashioned engravings. But to the keenly appreciating mind
of the child these pictures were a gallery of art. And on Sunday
afternoons, when Hannah had leisure to exhibit them, Ishmael never
wearied of standing by her side, and gazing at the illustrations of
"Cain and Abel," "Joseph Sold by his Brethren," "Moses in the
Bulrushes," "Samuel Called by the Lord," "John the Baptist and the
Infant Jesus," "Christ and the Doctors in the Temple," and so forth.

"Read me about it," he would say of each picture.

And Hannah would have to read these beautiful Bible stories. One day,
when he was about five years old, he astonished his aunt by saying:

"And now I want to read about them for myself!"

But Hannah found no leisure to teach him. And besides she thought it
would be time enough some years to come for Ishmael to learn to read. So
thought not our boy, however, as a few days proved.

One night Hannah had taken home a dress to one of the plantation