I remember, also, how happy I was in being able to borrow the books of a Mr.Keyes, after a two-mile tramp through the snow, shoeless, my feet swaddled in remnants of rag carpet." "May I have a holiday to-morrow, father ?" asked Theodore Parker one August afternoon.

The poor Lexington millwright looked in surprise at his youngest son, for it was a busy time, but he saw from the boy's earnest face that he had no ordinary object in view, and granted the request.

Theodore rose very early the next morning, walked through the dust ten miles to Harvard College, and presented himself for a candidate for admission.

He had been unable to attend school regularly since he was eight years old, but he had managed to go three months each winter, and had reviewed his lessons again and again as he followed the plow or worked at other tasks.

All his odd moments had been hoarded, too, for reading useful books, which he borrowed.