62 History of Gutta-Percha Willie.

His mother told him it was E.

“ Then this one, with no foot to stand on, is Fe,
I suppose.”

His mother laughed; but whoever gave it the
name it has, would have done better to call it Fe,
as Willie did. It would be much better also, in
teaching children, at least, to call H, He, and
W, We, and Y, Ye, and Z, Ze, as Willie called
them. But it was easy enough for him to learn
their names after he knew so much of what they
could do,

What gave him a considerable advantage was,
that he had begun with verse, and not dry syllables
and stupid sentences. The music of the verse re-
paid him at once for the trouble of making it out
—even before he got at the meaning, while the
necessity of making each line go right, and the
rhymes too, helped him occasionally to the pro-
nunciation of a word.

The farther he got on, the faster he got on; and
before six weeks were over, he could read any-
thing he was able to understand pretty well at
sight.

By this time, also, he understood all the particu-
lars as to how a shoe is made, and had indeed done
a few stitches himself, a good deal of hammering
both of leather and of hob-nails, and a little patch-
ing, at which last the smallness of his hands was
an advantage.