46 THE SHAMROCK. 



I did : and he would write it out twenty times, 

 with great delight : but still preferred the symbol 

 of the red hand. It may be asked why I did not 

 advance him farther in language ? There was a re- 

 luctance on his part which I could not surmount, 

 and which he in some measure accounted for, by 

 saying that he liked to talk to me, but not to others. 

 He used the word " brother," to explain the sen- 

 sation occasioned by any effort in the way of ac- 

 quiring grammatical learning, and went off to his 

 pencils with such glee, that, as he was a good deal 

 employed about the house and garden, and evidently 

 drooped when much confined to sedentary occupa- 

 tion, I yielded to his choice, determined to settle 

 him, after a while, to his studies ; and conscious 

 that he was right in the remark which he made to 

 me, that his not being able to talk better kept him 

 out of the way of many bad things. His sister, 

 who came over to me five months before his death, 

 could not read ; consequently they had no com- 

 munication but by signs ; and often have I been 

 amazed to witness the strong argumentative dis- 

 cussions that went forward between them on the 

 grand question of religion. She looked on Jack 

 as an apostate ; while his whole soul was engaged 

 in earnest prayer, that she also might come out 

 from her idolatrous church. 



But to resume the subject of that spiritual teach- 

 ing : knowing as I did, how ignorant the boy was 



