and to despise. They looked on her as a sort of second
parish, and insisted that she should come and live with them, and help to
maintain them out of her earnings. But Mrs. Deg would rather her little
boy had died than have been familiarized with the spirit and habits of
those old people. Despise them she struggled hard not to do, and she
agreed to allow them sufficient to maintain them on condition that they
desisted from any further application to the parish. It would be a long
and disgusting story to recount all the troubles, annoyance, and
querulous complaints, and even bitter accusations that she received from
these connections, whom she could never satisfy; but she considered it
one of the crosses in her life, and patiently bore it, seeing that they
suffered no real want, so long as they lived, which was for years; but
she would never allow her little Simon to be with them alone.

The shoemaker neighbor was a stout protection to her against the greedy
demands of these old people, and of others of the old Degs, and also
against another class of inconvenient visitors, namely, suitors, who saw
in Mrs. Deg a neat and comely young woman, with a flourishing business
and a neat and soon well-furnished house, a very desirable acquisition.
But Mrs. Deg had resolved never again to marry, but to live for her boy,
and she kept her resolve in firmness and gentleness.

The shoemaker often took walks in the extensive town meadows, to gather
groundsell and plantain for his canaries and gorse-linnets, and little
Simon Deg delighted to accompany him with his own children. There William
Watson, the shoemaker, used to point out to the children the beauty of
the flowers, the insects, and other objects of nature; and while he sat
on a style and read in a little old book of poetry, as he often used to
do, the children sat on the summer grass, and enjoyed themselves in a
variety of plays.

The effect of these walks and the shoemaker's conversation on little
Simon Deg was such as never wore out of him through his whole life, and
soon led him to astonish the shoemaker by his extraordinary conduct. He
manifested the utmost uneasiness at their treading on the flowers in the
grass; he would burst with tears if they persisted in it; and when asked
why, he said they were so beautiful, that they must enjoy the sunshine,
and be very unhappy to die. The shoemaker was amazed, but indulged the
lad's fancy. One day he thought to give him a great tr