For Laddie, May and Leon he used the geography, the Bible, Roland's history, the Christian Advocate, and the Agriculturist.

My, but he had them so they could spell! After that, as memory tests, all of us recited our reading lesson for the next day, especially the poetry pieces.

I knew most of them, from hearing the big folks repeat them so often and practise the proper way to read them.

I could do "Rienzi's Address to the Romans," "Casablanca," "Gray's Elegy," or "Mark Antony's Speech," but best of all, I liked "Lines to a Water-fowl." When he was tired, if it were not bedtime yet, all of us, boys too, sewed rags for carpet and rugs.
Laddie braided corn husks for the kitchen and outside door mats, and they were pretty, and "very useful too," like the dog that got his head patted in McGuffey's Second.
Then they picked the apples.

These had to be picked by hand, wrapped in soft paper, packed in barrels, and shipped to Fort Wayne.