Next he took a hymn he had not learned, and applied to his mother when
he came to a word he did not know, which was very often. As soon as
she told him one, he hunted about until he found another and another
specimen of the same, and so went on until he had fixed it quite in his
mind.
At length he began to compare words that were like each other, and
by discovering wherein they looked the same, and wherein they looked
different, he learned something of the sound of the letters. For
instance, in comparing _the_ and _these_, although the one sound of the
two letters, _t_ and _h_, puzzled him, and likewise the silent _e_, he
conjectured that the _s_ must stand for the hissing sound; and when he
looked at other words which had that sound, and perceived an _s_ in
every one of them, then he was sure of it. His mother had no idea how
fast he was learning; and when about a fortnight after he had begun, she
was able to take him in hand, she found, to her astonishment, that he
could read a great many words, but that, when she wished him to spell
one, he had not the least notion what she meant.
"Isn't that a _b_?" she said, wishing to help him to find out a certain
word for himself.
"I don't know," answered Willie.
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