flow Willie Learned to Read. 59

 

mistaken ones. Besides, he had a good know-
ledge of words, and could use them well in talk,
although he could not read; and itis a great thing
if a child can talk well before he begins to learn to
read.

He opened the little book at the Busy Bee, and
knowing already enough to be able to divide the
words the one from the other, he said to him-
self—

“The first word must be How. There it is,
with a gap between it and the next word. I
will look and see if I can find another How any-
where.” ;

He looked a long time before he found one; for
the capital H was in the way. Of course there
were a good many /ow’s, but not many with a big
H, and he didn’t know that the little 2 was just as
good for the mere word. Then he looked for doch,
and he found several doth’s. Of the’s he found as
great a swarm as if they had been the bees them-
selves with which the little song was concerned.
Busy was scarce; I am not sure whether he found
it at all; but he looked at it until he was pretty
sure he should know it again when he saw it.
After he had gone over in this way every word of
the first verse, he tried himself, by putting his
finger at random here and there upon it, and seeing
whether he could tell the word it happened to
ee Ge he could, and sometimes he

E