﻿292 PICTORIAL MISCELLANY. 



As I took part of her speech as a hint to myself, I gave her six- 

 pence, and believing there was some story worth the hearing, I 

 begged my new acquaintance to call on me in the evening and re- 

 late it, instead of hindering her business and mine by listening to it 

 at that moment ; although I suspect she would have been nothing 

 loth to have given me the full and particular account there and then, 

 for she told me she knew every circumstance " concarning him and 

 his." 



I proceeded without further delay to the "big, grand shop," where 

 I saw in the master the veritable Billy Egg. He was a fine, portly 

 personage, with a good open countenance, and it was evident he 

 could not have acquired his nickname from bearing even the most 

 remote resemblance to an egg. He served me himself with zeal and 

 civility, and my purchases were soon completed. 



In the evening my old apple-woman was true to her appointment, 

 and from her I gathered the following particulars : William Car- 

 ter was a poor boy, the eldest of a large family, who, with their 

 mother, were left destitute by the death of their father. Their poor 

 neighbors were charitable, as the poor, to their credit be it spoken, so 

 often are ; and one took one child, and one another, until something 

 could be thought of and done for their subsistence. William had 

 made the most of the scanty schooling his father had afforded him, 

 and could read a little. He was, moreover, a steady, hardworking 

 boy ; yet the only occupation he was able to obtain was that of tend- 

 ing a cow on the border of a large bog. In return for this service, 

 he was comfortably lodged and fed, and for a time the clothes he had 

 were sufficient. He was in the habit of saving any scraps of printed 

 paper, which fell in his way, and by means of these he somewhat 

 improved in his reading ; for while the cow was munching away, 

 little Billy had ample time for his studies, without neglecting her 

 either, for he made it a point of looking out for the sweetest grass, 

 and leading her to it. 



By his care and attention, he gave such satisfaction to his em- 

 ployer, that by the time his clothes were worn out, he was allowed 

 wages sufficient to replenish them ; and his good behavior gave such 

 confidence and respectability to his family, that a neighboring far- 

 mer engaged one of his younger brothers in a capacity similar to his 



