88 GENEROUS THOUGHT AND DEED. 



chuckle sometimes over what he read in 

 gardening papers and books; and he once 

 showed me a paper, too learned for me to 

 understand, where a man thought he'd made 

 a wonderful discovery, and other people 

 thought so too, and he got more than praise 

 for it ; but my friend after a while upset the 

 whole thing, though he thought nothing 

 more of himself for doing it, but was pleased 

 that he'd saved gardening a deal of mis- 

 chief. He was so honest, too ; for when the 

 youngster that lived with them talked of the 

 writer, and called him a humbug, my friend 

 stopped him, and said he must not say so. 

 The author had been too quick, and hadn't 

 searched long enough, and been short of 

 patience ; and he bid the boy learn a lesson 

 from it, and not make a guess and then try 

 to prop it up, but go on thinking he might 

 be wrong till he proved himself right. " Be- 

 sides which," said he, laughing, "you ought 

 to speak well of him ; for if he hadn't made 

 his blunder, I shouldn't have won my credit." 

 It seemed this lad's parents wanted to make 

 him a first-rate gardener, which was what 

 he wanted himself, and so they sent him off 

 several hundred miles from home to learn 



