The conversation was broken off here, and we will take this opportunity to remark, that Frank Martin entered the factory, as had been arranged, and was most cordially welcomed by the boys. He had been less with Nat, since the latter became a bobbin boy, than before, but their friendship was not abated. We have seen that they were on very intimate terms before, and were much in each other's society. Frank's entrance into the factory was suited to strengthen that friendship. The fact that each of the boys was poor and obliged to work for a living, and that each, also, was a factory boy, was enough to cause their sympathies to run together. It is natural for the rich to seek the society of the rich, and for the poor to seek the society of the poor, because their sympathies blend together. Hence, we generally find in communities that the rich and poor are usually separated, in some measure, by social barriers. This is not as it should be by any means; and this distinction between the rich and poor often becomes obnoxious to every kind and generous sentiment of humanity. Still, to some extent, the very experience of the rich begets a fellow-feeling with the rich, and so of the poor. The same is true, also, of trials. The mother who has lost her babe can sympathize with another bereaved mother, as no other person can. The sorrowing widow enters into the bitter experience of another wife bereft of her husband, as no other weeper can. And so it is of other forms of human experience. Then, the occupations of individuals comes in to influence the sympathies. A farmer meets a stranger, and finds, after cultivating his acquaintance, that he is a farmer, and this fact alone increases his interest in the individual. A sailor falls into company with an old man of four-score years, and finds that he was once a sailor, and this item of news draws him towards the aged man at once. A lawyer or clergyman is introduced to a gentleman in a foreign land, and he learns that the stranger is a lawyer or clergyman, as the case may be, and this knowledge itself makes him glad to see him.
Now this principle had a place in the hearts of these three factory boys, and bound them together by very strong ties of friendship. No three boys in the village thought so much of each other, nor were so much in each other's society, as they. There is no doubt that their intimate acquaintance and intercourse had much to do in forming the character of each. It certainly opened the way for some experiences that helped make Nat what he became.
"How did you like Marcus Treat?" inquired Charlie, the evening after he introduced this new comer into Nat's study.
"Very much indeed," answered Nat. "He seems to be a capital fellow, and he is a good scholar I know from his appearance."
"He is a good scholar, for one of the boys told me so. He has been in school only two or three weeks, but that is long enough to tell whether a fellow is a dunce or not."
"Where did he come from?" asked Nat.
"From——, I understand; and he lives with his uncle here. His parents are poor, and his uncle has offered to take him into his family."
"He will have a good home. His uncle will do as well by him as he would by a son."
"That is true; but he is not able to do much for either, I should think. Is he not a poor man?"