Robert Merry's museum, Volumes III-IV (1842)Various
General
Robert Merry's museum, Volumes III-IV (1842)
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
Letter from a Correspondent.
_Little Readers of the Museum:_
I sometimes read Mr. Robert Merry’s Museum, and I like it very much,
as I presume all his little “blue-eyed and black-eyed readers” do. He
talks very much like good old Peter Parley. I should think he had heard
him tell many a story while he rested his wooden leg on a chair, with a
parcel of little laughing girls and boys around him. Oh, how many times
I have longed to see him, and crawl up in his lap and hear his stories!
But Mr. Merry says he is dead, and I never can see him. I am very--very
sorry, for I hoped I should sometime visit him, for I loved him very
much, and I guess he would have loved me some, for I like old people,
and always mean to treat them with respect. How cruel it was for
others to write books and pretend that Peter Parley wrote them!--for
it seems that this shortened his life. I am glad, however, that Mr.
Merry has his writings, for I think he loves his little friends so well
that he will frequently publish some of them. I said that I loved Peter
Parley, and I guess you will not think it strange that I should, when
I tell you what a useful little book he once published, and how much
pleasure I took in reading it. He wrote a great many interesting pieces
which I read and studied, and they did me much good, I think. I hope
that the little readers of the Museum will learn a good deal from what
they read.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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