Then he looked about him and saw that there were a great
many ways of getting money, that is, a great many things for doing which
people would give money; and he saw that some of those ways were better
than others, and he thought his father's way the very best of all. I
give these as specimens of the lessons he learned by listening to his
father and mother as they talked together. But he had another teacher.
Down the street of the village, which was very straggling, with nearly
as many little gardens as houses in it, there was a house occupied by
several poor people, in one end of which, consisting just of a room and
a closet, an old woman lived who got her money by spinning flax into
yarn for making linen. She was a kind-hearted old creature--widow,
without any relation near to help her or look after her. She had had one
child, who died before he was as old as Willie. That was forty years
before, but she had never forgotten her little Willie, for that was his
name too, and she fancied our Willie was like him. Nothing, therefore,
pleased her better than to get him into her little room, and talk to
him. She would take a little bit of sugar-candy or liquorice out of her
cupboard for him, and tell him some strange old fairy tale or legend,
while she sat spinning, until at last she had made him so fond of her
that he would often go and stay for hours with her.
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