“No, sir; I read whatever I can find, but I don’t like writing much.”
“You’ll never make much of a hand at writing, Daniel. Ezekiel writes far better than you. But you won’t need writing much when you’re following the plough.”
“I hope I shan’t have to do that, Master Hoyt.”
“Ay, you’re hardly strong enough, you may find something else to do in time. You may keep school like me—who knows?—but you’ll have to get some one else to set the copies,” and Master Hoyt laughed, as if he thought it a good joke.
Daniel listened gravely to the master’s prediction, but it seemed to him he should hardly care to be a teacher like Mr. Hoyt, for the latter, though he was a good reader, wrote an excellent hand, and had a slight knowledge of grammar, could carry his pupils no further. No pupil was likely to wonder that “one small head could carry all he knew.” Yet the boys respected him, and in his limited way he did them good.
Master Hoyt had by this time finished waiting upon his customer, and was at leisure to pay attention to his two young callers. He regarded them rather as pupils than as customers, for it is quite the custom in sparsely settled neighborhoods to “drop in” at the store for a chat.
Meanwhile Daniel’s roving eyes had been attracted by a cotton pocket-handkerchief, which appeared to have something printed upon it.
Master Hoyt noticed the direction of the boy’s gaze.
“I see you are looking at the handkerchief,” he said. “Would you like to see what is printed on it?”