58 History of Gutta-Percha Willie.

Hector had said, with some regret in his voice, that
though he had plenty of time to think, he had very
little time to read; also that although he could
see well enough by candlelight to work at his
trade, he could not see well enough to read. What
a fine thing it would be to learn to read to Hector!
It would be such fun to surprise him too, by all at
once reading him something!

The sun was not at his full height when Willie
received this illumination. Before the sun went
down he knew and could read at sight at least a
dozen words,

For the moment he saw that he ought to leain
to read, he ran to his mother, and asked her to
teach him. She was delighted, for she had begun
to be a little doubtful whether his father’s plan of
leaving him alone till he wanted to learn was the
right one. But at that precise moment she was
too busy with something that must be done for his
father to lay it down and begin teaching him his
letters. Willie was so eager to learn, however, that
he could not rest without doing something towards
it. He bethought himself a littl—then ran and
got Dr Watts’s hymns for children. He knew
“How doth the little busy bee” so well as to be
able to repeat it without a mistake, for his mother
had taught it him, and he had understood it. You
see, he was not like a child of five, taught to repeat
by rote lines which could give him no notions but