Then, you can play the violin, and not one of the lads can, though they want to do it very much.

But, best of all, Nat, you really care to learn something, and that is half the battle.

It seems hard at first, and you will feel discouraged, but plod away, and things will get easier and easier as you go on." Nat's face had brightened more and more as he listened, for, small as the list of his learning was, it cheered him immensely to feel that he had anything to fall back upon.

"Yes, I can keep my temper father's beating taught me that; and I can fiddle, though I don't know where the Bay of Biscay is," he thought, with a sense of comfort impossible to express.

Then he said aloud, and so earnestly that Demi heard him: "I do want to learn, and I will try.