Speaking of the big fire-place, reminds me to tell you another thing about Horace. All his evenings he spent in reading; he borrowed all the books he could muster for miles round. Poor people can not afford to burn many candles or lamps; but this was not to keep Horace from reading the borrowed books. How could he read without a light? ah—that’s just the question. He collected together in a safe place a parcel of pine-knots, and when it came evening he set one of those up in the great big chimney-corner, set it on fire, and then curled himself up, like a kitten on the hearth, and read away with all his might; neighbors dropped in to talk with his father and mother, but he neither saw nor heard them, nor they him, the still, puny, busy little reader. It was like waking up a person from a sound sleep, to rouse him from his dear book. Sometimes his little schoolmates would come in to spend the evening, for they liked Horace’s mother as well as Horace, and had often listened to the pretty stories she used to tell; they did not like him to lie on the hearth and read, when they wanted to play; so they would go up and seize him by one leg, and draw him away from the pine knot and the book. Horace would quietly get on his legs and walk straight back again, without showing the least anger; then they would snatch away his book and hide it, thinking in that way to get him to play with them; then he would very quietly go and get another book and lie down again to read. What could you do with such a boy? Why, let him read, of course. The boys couldn’t quarrel with him, because he was always so good-natured; beside, his learning was a mighty good thing for them; even boys twice his age, wanted him to explain sums they could not understand, or other lessons too, which never puzzled his little flaxen head a bit. Ah, he was a great boy, that Horace, for all he was so little.
One day he went into a blacksmith’s shop, and was looking on so intently while the blacksmith shoed the horses, that the blacksmith said to him, “I think you had better come and learn my trade.”
“No,” said little Horace, with quite a determined air, “I am going to be a printer.” The blacksmith laughed, as well he might, that such a little button of a boy, should already have made up his mind so decidedly about what puzzles young men at the age of twenty; but Horace always knew his own mind and was not afraid, when it was proper for him to do so, to speak it.
And now I suppose you would like to know whether this little fellow ever did become a printer? whether all this learning ever did him or any body else any good; and what became of such a queer boy any how.
Well, his father lost what little property he had, and Horace, who was always a kind son, helped him all he could, and when he thought it would be helping his father best, to try to support himself, he started off with a clean shirt under his arm to seek his fortune, and learn to be a printer. I could not tell you all the disappointments and discouragements this bright little fellow met with, or how nobly he bore up under them all; but I will tell you how at last he came to New York, where so many rich men live, who like himself first came to the city on foot, with only a few cents in their pockets, and a change of clothes tied up in a bundle, and slung over their shoulders. It costs so much to live in New York that Horace tried at several places before he could find lodgings where he could afford to stay. He did not care for delicacies, he had been used at home to sit round a howl of porridge with his father and mother, brothers and sisters, and all eat with the same spoon out of the family bowl. After making many inquiries he found at last a cheap place, and after taking breakfast there, set out to wander through the city in search of employment.
You boys, who have always been fed, clothed, and lodged, by your kind parents, and who take it as a matter of course, can have little idea what weary discouraging, disheartening work, this search for employment is—how roughly harsh words fall upon the ear, used only to loving tones; how hard it is to smother down angry feelings when you are wrongfully suspected; how tough it must have been for Horace, who was so happy over the family bowl of porridge, because love sweetened it, when on his first application for employment, the gentleman to whom he spoke looked sharply at him, saying, “My opinion is, that you are a runaway apprentice, and you had better go home to your master,” and when Horace tried to explain that it was not so, the gentleman stopped him short with, “Be off about your business, and don’t bother me.” But this rough answer did not discourage Horace, who kept on, all that day, going up-stairs and down into different offices asking for employment and receiving the same chilling “No.” Ah, I can tell, I, who have tried it, how weary and forlorn he must have felt, that Friday night, as he went home to his cheap lodgings, and how hopeless seemed the idea of commencing again the next morning, and returning again the next night with no better success. Sunday came, and Horace, as many have done before him, went to church with his troubled spirit, and forgot the body and all its little petty needs, the earth and all its little toils and cares, and came away, as “the poor in spirit” always come from God’s temple, rich in blessing.
The next day, Horace heard of a place where he might probably find employment. Did he say, “It is no use, I have spent two whole days now, wandering up and down the city, in and out of offices, for nothing?” No, he did not say this; he was on the steps of the printing-office at half past five in the morning. Not a soul was there but himself, and Horace sat down upon the steps to wait till it was open, poor fellow, with his bundle on his knees, pale and anxious, and there waited and waited a long, long while before any one came. By-and-by, one of the journymen who worked in the office, came, and sat down on the steps too, and began talking with Horace. That man had a heart, and he pitied Horace, whom he believed to be a good, honest fellow, and whom he resolved to befriend. When the office was opened he took him into it. Every body who came in laughed at Horace, because he was dressed in such a shabby way. Did he mind that? Of course he did not, no more than you would mind the barking of your dog, Tray. The foreman in the office looked at him, the apprentices looked at him, they all looked at him, and thought that such a countrified-looking fellow must, of course, be a fool, and it was all nonsense to try him; however, to oblige the kind journeyman who brought him in, they consented to give him a piece of work to do, the only work they had, and a very difficult job, so much so that several in the office had tried and given it up in despair. Well, Horace, nothing discouraged, went right at it with a will. By-and-by the master of the office came in, and glancing at Horace, asked the foreman, contemptuously, what he had hired that fool for?
“He is the best we could get, and we must have somebody,” was the answer.
“Well,” said the vexed man, “pay him off to-night and send him about his business.”