The treasure John exhibited with such exultation, was a worn copy of Goldsmith’s Manners and Customs. The title-page declared that it was _adorned_ with plates; but readers accustomed to the present more beautiful style of publishing would have been slow to admit that the straight, lank figures, daubed with engraver’s ink, were any ornament to the volumes. To the unpractised eyes of John and his sister, they were, however, gems of Art; and the manner in which they were obtained greatly increased their value. The children had received a cake and two little chickens from a neighbour, in payment for picking cranberries. Never did chickens give rise to such extensive speculations; not even the imaginary brood of the famous milk-maid. The chickens would become hens, and the hens would lay eggs, and Mr. Brown, who drove the market-wagon, would sell the eggs, and there were ever so many books in Boston, and who could guess what wonderful stories they would buy with their eggs? The vision was realized in due time. The chickens did become hens, and laid eggs; and Mr. Brown listened good-naturedly to John’s request to sell them and buy “a book, that had pictures in it, and told about countries a way off.” Goldsmith’s Manners and Customs came as the fruit of these instructions, and was hailed with an outburst of joy. Most boys would have chosen to buy marbles or a drum; but John’s earliest passion had been for a book. The subtle influences which organize temperaments and produce character, are not easily traced. His intellectual activity certainly was not derived from either of his parents; for they were mere healthy sluggish animals. But there was a tradition in the neighbourhood, that his maternal grandmother was “an extraordinary woman in her day; that few folks knew so much as she did; and if her husband had been half as smart and calculating, they would have been very fore-handed people!” The children of the “extraordinary woman” inherited her husband’s inert temperament, but her own energetic character re-appeared in her grandchildren; and they had the good fortune to be born in New England where the moral atmosphere stimulates intellect, and the stream of knowledge flows free and full to all the people. Esther was as eager for information, as her more vivacious brother; and though, as a woman, her pathway of life was more obstructed, and all its growth more stinted, she helped to lead him into broader avenues than she herself was allowed to enter. Being two years older than he, it was her delight to teach him the alphabet, as soon as he could speak; and great was her satisfaction when he knew all the letters in her little, old primer, and could recite the couplet that belonged to each. They conveyed no very distinct idea to his mind, but Esther’s praise made him very vain of this accomplishment. A dozen times a day, he shouted the whole twenty-four, all in a row, and was quite out of breath when he arrived at: