“Her room was a museum. Gathered and prepared by her own eager and wise hands she had beetles, snakes, bats, birds, stuffed or preserved in spirits. From the egg of a sea gull and the body of a kingfisher she made an ink-stand; she climbed to the top of a tree for a crow’s nest. Miles and miles she learned to walk without being wearied. In her work and habits and strength she was like a boy. She was fond of books, but just as fond of the clay-pit in her garden where, to her father’s delight as well as her own, she molded dogs and horses. “When Harriet Hosmer was taken to a famous school (at home they called her ‘happy Hatty’) the teacher said: ‘I have a reputation for training wild colts; I will try this one.’ She stayed three years. On her return home she began to take lessons in drawing, modeling, and in anatomical studies, often walking fourteen miles to Boston and back, with hours of work and study. Was not that a day’s work? She went to the Medical College of St. Louis to take a thorough course in anatomy.” “You have to know things to get things out of marble,” remarked Ethel. “Grandmother, how hard girls can work!” exclaimed Nan, who did not love work. “After she had finished her studies she traveled alone to New Orleans, and then north to the Falls of St. Anthony, smoking the pipe of peace with the chief of the Dakota Indians, explored lead mines in Dubuque, and scaled a high mountain to which her name was afterward given.” “That was fun,” said Nan. “I’m glad she had some fun with her hard work.” “After work in her studio at home her father sent her to Rome. Girl as she was, in her studio at home she wielded for eight or ten hours a day a leaden mallet weighing four pounds and a half. And it was then she told a friend that she would not be homesick, for she could be happy anywhere with good health and a bit of marble. For seven years she worked on her ‘bit of marble’ in Rome. She made beautiful and wonderful things with her good health and her marble, with hard work, and the insight into beauty that God, who makes all beautiful things, gave to this ready and obedient child. “The first work she copied for her teacher was the Venus of Milo; when almost completed the iron, which held the clay firm, snapped, and all her work was spoiled.” “Oh!” sighed Ethel.