AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN F. LACEY 385 



kitchen wall from which I learned my letters and learned 

 to read, and I remember my pride when I discovered that 

 without teaching at all I was able to read writing or 

 script from its resemblance to printing. 



The first book of any size that I ever read was Dau- 

 bigne's History of the Reformation, which I read aloud 

 to mother while she sewed and patched and darned and 

 did the household work for a young and growing family. 



The "Diet at Worms" struck me as very amusing, but 

 I became a partisan of Luther in my childhood, and have 

 always admired his sturdy independence ever since. 



Fox's Book of Martyrs was a logical sequel to read 

 after Daubigne, and I read that cheerful volume at my 

 mother's knee also. I commenced to borrow all the books 

 in the town, covered each book carefully with paper, read 

 it with thumb papers and returned it promptly when read, 

 so that there was no one in the village who would not lend 

 me any book that I wanted. 



Pinnock's Goldsmith's Roman History I read with the 

 same avidity as Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack the 

 Giant Killer, and I remember all the details of the work 

 as well as I remember all the other things which were im- 

 printed on my mind when my memory was as susceptible 

 of impressions as the plate of a photographer. But the 

 most delightful period of my life was brought to an end. 

 Father and Uncle Robert, who had recently married 

 Nancy Engle, concluded to remove to Wheeling. 



An auction sale disposed of some of our less movable 

 goods, the old home was rented and soon afterwards sold, 

 and one day in April, 1853, we took passage on the steam- 

 boat Courier for the city of Wheeling, forty miles distant, 

 with a feeling that a great journey was being entered 

 upon, a journey much more extensive and important it 

 seemed, than a subsequent journey across the Atlantic. 

 And indeed it was the starting upon a great journey for 



