Before the sun went down he knew and could read at sight
at least a dozen words.
For the moment he saw that he ought to learn to read, he ran to his
mother, and asked her to teach him. She was delighted, for she had begun
to be a little doubtful whether his father's plan of leaving him alone
till he wanted to learn was the right one. But at that precise moment
she was too busy with something that must be done for his father to
lay it down and begin teaching him his letters. Willie was so eager to
learn, however, that he could not rest without doing something towards
it. He bethought himself a little--then ran and got Dr Watts's hymns for
children. He knew "How doth the little busy bee" so well as to be able
to repeat it without a mistake, for his mother had taught it him, and he
had understood it. You see, he was not like a child of five, taught to
repeat by rote lines which could give him no notions but mistaken ones.
Besides, he had a good knowledge of words, and could use them well in
talk, although he could not read; and it is a great thing if a child can
talk well before he begins to learn to read.
He opened the little book at the Busy Bee, and knowing already enough to
be able to divide the words the one from the other, he said to himself--
"The first word must be _How_.
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