"Never."
"She wrote it out for me a year ago. I will read it to you, if you wish."
Now, I had often wished to know her earlier life, but did not think it right for Isabel to read to us what was probably written for her alone; so I ran up stairs, where Mrs. Clark was engaged with the younger children, and told her what Isabel proposed doing, inquiring if it met her approbation.
"I wrote it," said she, pleasantly, "as a lesson for my daughter; but I am willing others should be benefited with her."
Feeling that I had wronged Isabel by supposing she would do anything improper, I returned to the parlor just as she was ready to read the following:—
The first dream of my life was to be a school-teacher. The first morning of my going to school, the sweet lady who was teaching in our district took me on her lap, and asked me if I did not wish to become a school-teacher. I felt that to be like her would be pleasant; and so, from that time, it was the acme of my ambition to become what Polly Frazier was—pleasant name it is, even now—and I was careful about this, and I learned that, because it was necessary for a teacher to know such things. My parents and instructors encouraged the idea, and it was with me a settled purpose. I hardly know how young I was when I learned that, to teach successfully, I must govern well. I desired not to rule merely, but to instruct; and, when my teacher would let me hear the little ones read, how tearfully happy I was if I succeeded in giving them a new sound, or right pronunciation!
Thus time passed with me until I was twelve, when my father came from an eastern State to Pennsylvania. Soon after, by one of those great wrongs, where no one is to blame, my father lost the little property he brought with him to this part of the country, and a family of eight was dependent on what he could earn at his trade. Money was scarce and provisions dear, and you may judge of my feelings when my father came home every day more and more tired, and our resources became day by day more and more reduced; for, though my mother was a good manager, yet there are limits beyond which it is impossible to manage at all.
If I could only do something! I thought it over at night, but said nothing. I knew I was not prepared to teach even children, or, at least, no one would think I was, and that was all the same, for all the good it would do me, and I must give up the thought of it, at least for the present.
I could not tell you all the day-dreams I had about the one thing, how I could help my father. At last I found a way to help myself, and thus help him, by reducing the number of mouths at home, and also adding something to a wardrobe that was becoming quite scanty.