_ FIRST LESSONS IN SCHOOL-KEEPING. 155

there. One little fellow had been two quarters at a
district school, and yet had not learned to read. The
first pages of his spelling-book had been so thumbed
and so worn by his chin and elbows, that the letters
were almost illegible. By a little special attention,
Carl carried him through the book in a few months.
His father, who was a fisherman, and who had no
learning himself, was so much gratified that he sent
the teacher a bushel of oysters as a token of his regard.
Though Carl smiled at the donation, he received it in
good part, and was glad of the means thus afforded for
increasing the good cheer at the doctor’s cottage. But
he was rather more pleased when James Donald, the
smallest boy of all, son of a Scotch gardener, came to
him on Monday morning with two pots of mignonette
and a number of hyacinth bulbs.

‘“T have one more than a baker’s dozen,” said Carl
to his friend Mrs. Smith, one winter evening as they
sat over a bright hickory fire.

“T wish it was a hundred, for your sake,” said Mary.

“Oh, not a hundred, my love,” exclaimed the doctor.
“That would be almost a college, and our young pre-
sident would have to employ professors.”

“ Very well,” said she, gaily, “ stranger things have
happened; and I don’t despair of seeing our little Carl
a learned professor yet.”