"But how is it that you learn to write so much better at school than the other boys?"
"I don't know, sir!" and he never said a more truthful thing than he did in this reply. For really he did not know how it was. He did not try very hard to be a good penman. He did many other things well, which did not cost him very much effort. It was easy for him to get the "knack" of holding his pen and cutting letters. He would do it with an ease and grace that we can only describe by saying it was Nat-like. It is another instance, also, of the advantage of that principle or habit, which he early cultivated, of doing things well. As one of his companions said,
"He can turn his hand to any thing."
One evening in October, when the harvest moon was emphatically "the empress of the night," and lads and lasses thought it was just the season for mirth and frolic, the boys received an invitation to a party on the following evening.
"Shall you go?" inquired Charlie, when they were in the attic study.
"I should like to go, but I hardly think I shall. I want to finish this book, and I can read half of it in the time I should spend at the party."
"As little time as we get to study," added Charlie, "is worth all we can make of it; and Dr. Franklin says in those rules, 'lose no time.' I shall not go."
"I don't think that all time spent in such a social way can be called 'lost,' for it is good for a person to go to such places sometimes. But I think I shall decide with you not to go. I suppose that some of the fellows will turn up their noses, and call us 'literary gentlemen,' as Oliver did the other day."
"Yes; and Sam said to me yesterday as I met him when I was going home to dinner, 'fore I'd work in the factory, Charlie, and never know any thing. You look as if you come out of a cotton-bale. I'll bet if your father should plant you, you'd come up cotton,' and a whole mess of lingo besides."
"And what did you say to him?" asked Nat.