So why should he be ashamed?
People are often ashamed of what they need not be ashamed of.

Again, they are often not at all ashamed of what they ought to be ashamed of, and will turn up their faces to the sun when they ought to hide them in the dust.

If, for instance, Willie had ever put on a sulky face when his mother asked him to hold the baby for her, that would have been a thing for shame of which the skin of his face might well try to burn itself off; but not to be able to read before he had even been made to think about it, was not at all a thing to be ashamed of: it would have been more of a shame to be ashamed.

Now that it had been put into his head, however, to think what a good thing reading was, all this would apply no longer.

It was a very different thing now.
The other subject which occupied his thoughts was this: Everybody was so kind to him--so ready to do things for him--and, what was of far more consequence, to teach him to do them himself; while he, so far as he could think, did nothing for anybody! That could not be right; it _could_ not be--for it was not reasonable.