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Other Spellers 215
father in the face. He clasped his arm around his pa's leg, and hung down his head. But though this little boy had done wrong he despised a falsehood. He told the facts as nigh as he could remember, without any quibbling. Jack's father was so glad to find him honest in owning his fault that he did not say a harsh word.
Jack had turns of the colic, especially, if he eat unripe fruit; but he bore these things like a young philosopher, and felt above the silly whining, that is sometimes heard among children. The whooping cough, he passed lightly through, and considered it hardly worth minding; but he found the measles much more serious, and at one time rather forgetting himself was somewhat peevish.
The narrative continues to tell of Jack's cleverness and the increasing honors he won through five chapters. " But there is no lasting happiness here below," it says, and the final pages record that Mr. Halyard had his best horse stolen and that he was to an expense of "above sixty dollars in chacing the thief, and getting back the horse." Soon afterward a flood drowned five of his cattle and a number of his sheep, his crops were much damaged, and he himself was " taken extremely sick with a bilious fever " and died. His dying precepts fittingly close the story.
One would fancy there could not be another youth with the perfections of Jack Halyard; yet that this impression is a mistake is shown by the tale below, which is also taken from Jones's speller.
THE LITTLE SAWYER, FRANK LUCAS.
Mrs. Corbon kept a village school in the state of New-York. She had a noble mind and was a friend to all good |
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