Peter Parley wrote a piece which told us how to make pens. I read it over, and over again, and, finally, I thought I would see if I could not make one. So I went to my little desk and took out a quill, got my aunt’s knife and laid the book before me and tried to do just as Peter Parley told me I must. I succeeded very well, and my friends were quite pleased. This encouraged me very much, and soon I made them so well that my teachers made me no more pens. By-and-by my little associates got me to make and mend theirs, and I loved the business very much.
Well, a few years since, I went to a beautiful village to attend school, where a splendid academy stands, around which, are large green trees, under whose shade my little readers would love to sit. There I staid two or three years. Often did I walk out with the teachers, whom I loved, to botanize, or ramble, with nimble step, over the beautiful hills of that sweet place, and listen to the constant murmur of its waterfalls, or gather the delicate flowers that grew so plentifully there. But to my story. My teachers saw that I made my own pens, and occasionally, when they were busy, would bring me one to make for them. The students soon found it out, and I had plenty of business. One day the principal of the school came to me and offered to compensate me by giving me my tuition one term, which was six dollars, if I would make and mend pens. I did not accept the money of course, though I cheerfully and gladly performed the small service.
So you see, Peter Parley’s instruction has done me a great deal of good, for how many persons there are who cannot make a good pen, because they never learned how.
My little readers, I am now almost twenty years old, but I still remember many other things which I read in Peter Parley’s books when I was a little girl. Mr. Robert Merry talks and writes just like him, almost, and I hope you will love to read and study attentively Merry’s Museum, for it is a good little work, and a pleasant one. Be assured, my young friends, you can learn a great deal from it, if you read it carefully. I should like to say much more to you, but I cannot now. I have been sitting by the fire, in a rocking-chair, writing this on a large book, with a pussy under it for a desk, but she has just jumped from my lap, and refuses to be made a table of any longer. So farewell.
Your young friend,
Laura.
Springfield, Jan. 6, 1842
Cookery Book.—“Has that cookery book any pictures?” said Miss C. to a bookseller. “No, miss, none,” was the answer. “Why,” exclaimed the witty young lady, “what is the use of telling us how to make a good dinner, if they give us no plates?”
Names of different kinds of Type.