In 1776 Bell’s facilities for printing had enabled him to produce an edition of “Little Goody Two-Shoes,” which seems likely to have been the only story-book printed during the troubled years of the Revolution. Besides this, Bell printed in 1777 “Aesop’s Fables,” as did also Robert Aitkin; and J. Crukshank had issued during the war an A B C book, written by the old schoolmaster, A. Benezet, who had drilled many a Philadelphian in his letters. After the Revolution Benjamin Bache apparently printed children’s books in considerable quantities, and orders were sent by other firms to England for juvenile reading-matter.

New England also has records of the sale of these small books in several towns soon after peace was established. John Carter, “at Shakespeare’s Head,” in Providence, announced by a broadside issued in November, seventeen hundred and eighty-three, that he had a large assortment of stationers’ wares, and included in his list “Gilt Books for Children,” among which were most of Newbery’s publications. In Hartford, Connecticut, where there had been a good press since seventeen hundred and sixty-four, “The Children’s Magazine” was reprinted in seventeen hundred and eighty-nine. Its preposterous titles are noteworthy, since it is probable that this was the first attempt at periodical literature made for young people in America. One number contains:

The autograph of Eben Holt makes the contents of the magazine ludicrous as subjects of interest to a boy But having nothing better, Eben most surely read it from cover to cover.

In 1761, at the age of ten, Thomas had set up as his “’Prentice’s Token,” a primer issued by A. Barclay in Cornhill, Boston, entitled “Tom Thumb’s Play-Book, To Teach Children their letters as soon as they can speak.” Although this primer was issued by Barclay, Thomas had already served four years in a printer’s office, for according to his own statement he had been sent at the age of six to learn his trade of Zechariah Fowle. Here, as ’prentice, he may have helped to set up the stories of the “Holy Jesus” and the “New Gift,” and upon the cutting of their rude illustrations perhaps took his first lessons in engraving. For we know that by seventeen hundred and sixty-four he did fairly good work upon the “Book of Knowledge” from the press of the old printer. Upon the fly-leaf of a copy of this owned by the American Antiquarian Society, founded by Thomas, is the statement in the Worcester printer’s handwriting, “Printed and cuts engraved by I. Thomas then 13 years of age for Z. Fowle when I. T. was his Apprentice: bad as the cuts are executed, there was not at that time an artist in Boston who could have done them much better. Some time before, and soon after there were better engravers in Boston.” These cuts, especially the frontispiece representing a boy with a spy-glass and globe, and with a sextant at his feet, are far from poor work for a lad of thirteen. “The battered dictionary,” says Dr. Nichols, “and the ink-stained Bible which he found in Fowle’s office started him in his career, and the printing-press, together with an invincible determination to excel in his calling, carried him onward, until he stands to-day with Franklin and Baskerville, a type of the man who with few educational advantages succeeds because he loves his art for his art’s sake.”

In supplying to American children a home-made library, Thomas, although he did no really original work for children, such as his English prototype, Newbery, had accomplished, yet had a motive which was not altogether selfish and pecuniary. The prejudice against anything of British manufacture was especially strong in the vicinity of Boston; and it was an altogether natural expression of this spirit that impelled the Worcester printer, as soon as his business was well established, to begin to reprint the various little histories. These reprints were all pirated from Newbery and his successors, Newbery and Carnan; but they compare most favorably with them, and so far surpassed the work of any other American printer of children’s books (except possibly those of Bache in Philadelphia) that his work demands more than a passing mention.

Beginning, like most printers, with the production of a primer in seventeen hundred and eighty-four, by seventeen hundred and eighty-six Thomas was well under way in his work for children. In that year at least eleven little books bore his imprint and were sent to his Boston agents to be sold. In the “Worcester Magazine” for June, 1786, Thomas addressed an “Advertisement to Booksellers,” as follows: “A large assortment of all the various sizes of Children’s Books, known by the name of Newbery’s Little Books for Children, are now republished by I. Thomas in Worcester, Massachusetts. They are all done excellently in his English Method, and it is supposed the paper, printing, cuts, and binding are in every way equal to those imported from England. As the Subscriber has been at great expense to carry on this particular branch of Printing extensively, he hopes to meet with encouragement from the Booksellers in the United States.”

Evidently he did meet with great encouragement from parents as well as booksellers; and it is suspected that the best printed books bearing imprints of other booksellers were often printed in Worcester and bound according to the taste and facilities of the dealer. That this practice of reprinting the title-page and rebinding was customary, a letter from Franklin to his nephew in Boston gives indisputable evidence:

Franklin’s reference to the Philadelphia manner of binding toy-books in marbled paper indicates that this home-made product was already displacing the attractive imported gilt embossed and parti-colored covers used by Thomas, who seems never to have adopted this ugly dress for his juvenile publications. As the demand for his wares increased, Thomas set up other volumes from Newbery’s stock, until by seventeen hundred and eighty-seven he had reproduced practically every item for his increasing trade. It was his custom to include in many of these books a Catalogue of the various tales for sale, and in “The Picture Exhibition” we find a list of fifty-two stories to be sold for prices varying from six pence to a shilling and a half.

These books may be divided into several classes, all imitations of the English adult literature then in vogue. The alphabets and primers, such as the “Little Lottery Book,” “Christmas Box,” and “Tom Thumb’s Play-thing,” are outside the limits of the present subject, since they were written primarily to instruct; and while it is often difficult to draw the line where amusement begins and instruction sinks to the background, the title-pages can usually be taken as evidence at least of the author’s intention. These other books, however, fall naturally under the heads of jest and puzzle books, nature stories, fables, rhymes, novels, and stories—all prototypes of the nursery literature of to-day.

The jest and joke books published by Thomas numbered, as far as is known to the writer, only five. Their titles seem to offer a feast of fun unfulfilled by the contents. “Be Merry & Wise, or the Cream of the Jests and the Marrow of Maxims,” by Tommy Trapwit, contained concentrated extracts of wisdom, and jokes such as were current among adults. The children for whom they were meant were accustomed to nothing more facetious than the following jest: “An arch wag said, Taylors were like Woodcocks for they got their substance by their long bills.” Perhaps they understood also the point in this: “A certain lord had a termagant wife, and at the same time a chaplain that was a tolerable poet, whom his lordship desired to write a copy of verses upon a shrew. I can’t imagine, said the chaplain, why your lordship should want a copy, who has so good an original.” Other witticisms are not quotable.

Conundrums played their part in the eighteenth century juvenile life, much as they do to-day. These were to be found in “A Bag of Nuts ready Cracked,” and “The Big and Little Puzzling Caps.” “Food for the Mind” was the solemn title of another riddle-book, whose conundrums are very serious matters. Riddle XIV of the “Puzzling Cap” is typical of its rather dreary contents:

This was a nut also “ready cracked” by the answer reproduced in the illustration.

Nature stories were attempted under the titles of “The Natural History of Four Footed Beasts,” “Jacky Dandy’s Delight; or the History of Birds and Beasts in Verse and Prose,” “Mr. Telltruth’s Natural History of Birds,” and “Tommy Trip’s History of Beasts and Birds.” All these were written after Oliver Goldsmith’s “Animated Nature” had won its way into great popularity. As a consequence of the favorable impression this book had made, Goldsmith is supposed to have been asked by Newbery to try his hand upon a juvenile natural history.

Possibly it was as a result of Newbery’s request that we have the anonymous “Jacky Dandy’s Delight” and “Tommy Trip’s History of Beasts and Birds.” The former appears to be a good example of Goldsmith’s facility for amusing himself when doing hack-work for Newbery. How like Goldsmith’s manner is this description of a monkey:

To poke fun in an offhand manner at little boys and girls seemed to have been the only conception of humor to be found in the children’s books of the period, if we except the “Jests” and the attempts made in a ponderous manner on the title-pages. The title of “The Picture Exhibition; containing the Original Drawings of Eighteen Disciples.... Published under the Inspection of Mr. Peter Paul Rubens,...” is evidently one of Newbery’s efforts to be facetious. To the author, the pretence that the pictures were by “Disciples of Peter Paul Rubens” evidently conveyed the same idea of wit that “Punch” has at times represented to others of a later century.

Fables have always been a mine of interest to young folks, and were interspersed liberally with all moral tales, but “Entertaining Fables” bears upon its title-page a suggestion that the children’s old friend, “Aesop,” appeared in a new dress.

Another series of books contained the much abridged novels written for the older people. “Peregrine Pickle” and “Roderick Random” were both reprinted by Isaiah Thomas as early as seventeen hundred and eighty-eight. These tales of adventure seem to have had their small reflections in such stories as “The Adventures of a Pincushion,” and “The Adventures of a Peg-top,” by Dorothy Kilner, an Englishwoman. Mention has already been made of “Pamela” and “Clarissa” in condensed form. These were books of over two hundred pages; but most of the toy-books were limited to less than one hundred. A remarkable instance of the pith of a long plot put into small compass was “The History of Tom Jones.” A dog-eared copy of such an edition of “Tom Jones” is still in existence. Its flowery Dutch binding covers only thirty-one pages, four inches long, with a frontispiece and five wood-cut illustrations. In so small a space no detailed account of the life of the hero is to be expected; nevertheless, the first paragraph introduces Tom as no ordinary foundling. Mr. Allworthy finds the infant in his bed one evening and rings up his housekeeper Mrs. Deborah Wilkins. “She being a strict observer of decency was exceedingly alarmed, on entering her master’s room, to find him undressed, but more so on his presenting her with the child, which he ordered immediately to be taken care of.” The story proceeds—with little punctuation to enable the reader to take breath—to tell how the infant is named, and how Mr. Allworthy’s nephew, Master Bilfil, is also brought under that generous and respectable gentleman’s protection. Tommy turned out “good,” as Mr. Allworthy had hoped when he assumed charge of him; and therefore eventually inherited riches and gained the hand of Miss Sophia Western, with whom he rode about the country in their “Coach and Six.”

Of the stories in this juvenile library, the names, at least, of “Giles Gingerbread,” “Little King Pippin,” and “Goody Two-Shoes” have been handed down through various generations. One hundred years ago every child knew that “Little King Pippin” attained his glorious end by attention to his books in the beginning of his career; that “Giles Gingerbread” first learned his alphabet from gingerbread letters, and later obtained the patronage of a fine gentleman by spelling “apple-pye” correctly. Thus did his digestion prove of material assistance in mental gymnastics.

But the nursery favorite was undoubtedly “Margery, or Little Goody Two-Shoes.” She was introduced to the reader in her “state of rags and care,” from which she gradually emerged in the chapters entitled, “How and about Little Margery and her Brother;” “How Little Margery obtained the name of Goody Two-Shoes;” “How she became a Tutoress” to the farmers’ families in which she taught spelling by a game; and how they all sang the “Cuz’s Chorus” in the intervals between the spelling lesson and the composition of sentences like this: “I pray God to bless the whole country, and all our friends and all our enemies.” Like the usual heroine of eighteenth century fiction, she married a title, and as Lady Jones was the Lady Bountiful of the district. From these tales it is clear that piety as the chief end of the story-book child has been succeeded by learning as the desideratum; yet morality is still pushed into evidence, and the American mother undoubtedly translated the ethical sign-boards along the progress of the tale into Biblical admonitions.

All the books were didactic in the extreme. A series of four, called “The Mother’s,” “Father’s,” “Sister’s,” and “Brother’s Gifts,” is a good example of this didactic method of story-telling. “The Father’s Gift” has lessons in spelling preceded by these lines:

“The Mother’s Gift” was confined largely to the same instructive field, but had one or two stories which conformed to the sentiment of the author of “The Adventures of a Pincushion,” who stated her motive to be “That of providing the young reader with a few pages which should be innocent of corrupting if they did not amuse.”

“The Brother’s” and “Sister’s Gifts,” however, adopt a different plan of instruction. In “The Brother’s Gift” we find a brother solicitous concerning his sister’s education: “Miss Kitty Bland was apt, forward and headstrong; and had it not been for the care of her brother, Billy, would have probably witnessed all the disadvantages of a modern education”! Upon Kitty’s return from boarding-school, “she could neither read, nor sew, nor write grammatically, dancing stiff and awkward, her musick inelegant, and everything she did bordered strongly on affectation.” Here was a large field for reformation for Billy to effect. He had no doubts as to what method to pursue. She was desired to make him twelve shirts, and when the first one was presented to him, “he was astonished to find her lacking in so useful a female accomplishment.” Exemplary conversation produced such results that the rest of the garments were satisfactory to the critical Billy, who, “as a mark of approbation made her a present of a fine pair of stays.”

“The Sister’s Gift” presents an opposite picture. In this case it is Master Courtley who, a “youth of Folly and Idleness,” received large doses of advice from his sister. This counsel was so efficient with Billy’s sensitive nature that before the story ends, “he wept bitterly, and declared to his sister that she had painted the enormity of his vices in such striking colors, that they shocked him in the greatest degree; and promised ever after to be as remarkable for generosity, compassion and every other virtue as he had hitherto been for cruelty, forwardness and ill-nature.” Virtue in this instance was its own reward, as Billy received no gift in recognition of his changed habits.

To the modern lover of children such tales seem strangely ill-suited to the childish mind, losing, as they do, all tenderness in the effort of the authors (so often confided to parents in the preface) “to express their sentiments with propriety.” Such criticism of the style and matter of these early attempts to write for little people was probably not made by either infant or adult readers of that old-time public. The children read what was placed before them as intellectual food, plain and sweetened, as unconcernedly as they ate the food upon their plates at meal-time. That their own language was the formal one of the period is shown by such letters as the following one from Mary Wilder, who had just read “The Mother’s Gift:”

Nursery rhymes and jingles of these present days have all descended from song-books of the eighteenth century, entitled “Little Robin Red Breast,” “A Poetical Description of Song Birds,” “Tommy Thumb’s Song-Book,” and the famous “Melodies of Mother Goose,” whose name is happily not yet relegated to the days of long ago. Two extracts from the “Poetical Description of Song Birds” will be sufficient to show how foreign to the birds familiar to American children were the descriptions:

The Bullfinch

The Twite

Reflections of the prevailing taste of grown people for biography are suggested in three little books, of two of which the author was Mrs. Pilkington, who had already written several successful stories for young ladies. Her “Biography for Girls” contains various novelettes, in each of which the heroine lives the conventional life and dies the conventional death of the period, and receives a laudatory epitaph. They are remarkable only as being devoid of any interest. Her “Biography for Boys” does not appear to have attained the same popularity as that for girls. A third book, “The Juvenile Biographers,” containing the “Lives of Little Masters and Misses,” is representative of the changes made in many books by the printer to cater to that pride in the young Republic so manifest in all local literary productions. In one biography we note a Representative to the Massachusetts Assembly:

“As Master Sammy had always been a very sober and careful child, and very attentive to his Books, it is no wonder that he proved, in the End, to be an excellent Scholar.

“Accordingly, when he had reached the age of fourteen, Mr. William Goodall, a wealthy merchant in the city of Boston, took him into his counting house, in order to bring him up in the merchantile Way, and thereby make his Fortune.

“This was a sad Stroke to his poor Sister Nancy, who having lost both her Papa and Mama, was now likely to lose her Brother likewise; but Sammy did all he could to appease her, and assured her, that he would spend all his leisure Time with her. This he most punctually performed, and never were Brother and Sister as happy in each other’s company as they were.

“Mr. William Goodall was highly satisfied with Sammy’s Behaviour, and dying much about the Time that Miss Nancy was married to the Gentleman, he left all his business to Sammy, together with a large Capital to carry it on. So much is Mr. Careful esteemed (for we must now no longer call him Master Sammy) that he was chosen in the late General Election, Representative in the General Court, for one of the first Towns in New England, without the least expense to himself. We here see what are the Effects of Good Behaviour.”

This adaptation of the English tale to the surroundings of the American child is often found in Thomas’s reprints, and naturally, owing to his enthusiasm over the recent change in the form of government, is made wholly by political references. Therefore while the lark and the linnet still sang in songs and the cowslips were scattered throughout the nature descriptions, Master Friendly no longer rode in the Lord Mayor’s coach, but was seated as a Congressman in a sedan chair, “and he looked—he looked—I do not know what he looked like, but everybody was in love with him.” The engraver as well as the biographer of the recently made Representative was evidently at a loss as to his appearance, as the four dots indicating the young gentleman’s features give but a blank look perhaps intended to denote amazement at his election.

The illustrations of Thomas’s toy reprints should not be overlooked. The Worcester printer seems to have rewritten the “Introduction” to “Goody Two-Shoes,” and at the end he affixed a “Letter from the Printer which he desires may be inserted.

This apology for the character of the illustrations serves as an introduction to a most interesting subject of conjecture as to the making of the cuts, and particularly as to the engraving of the frontispiece in “Goody Two-Shoes.”

It will be remembered that Isaiah Thomas in his advertisement to booksellers had expressly mentioned the great expense he had incurred in bringing out the juvenile books in “the English method.” But Mr. Edwin Pearson, in his delightful discussion of “Banbury Chap-Books,” has also stated that the wood-cut frontispiece in the first American edition of “Goody Two-Shoes,” printed by Thomas, was engraved by Bewick, the famous English illustrator. A comparison of the reproduction of the Bewick engraving in Mr. Pearson’s book with the frontispiece in Thomas’s edition shows so much difference that it is a matter of regret that Mr. Pearson withheld his authority for attributing to Bewick the representation of Margery Two-Shoes. Besides the inference from Thomas’s letter that the poor cuts would be improved before another edition should be printed, there are several points to be observed in comparing the cuts. In the first place, the execution in the Thomas cut suggests a different hand in the use of the tools; again, the reversed position of the figure of “Goody” indicates a copy of the English original. Also the expression of Thomas’s heroine, although slightly mincing, is less distressed than the British dame’s, to say nothing of the variation in the fashion of the gowns. And such details as the replacing of the English landscape by the spire of a meeting-house in the distance seem to confirm the impression that the drawing was made after, but not by Bewick. In the cuts scattered throughout the text the same difference in execution and portrayal of the little schoolmistress is noticeable. Margery, upon her rounds to teach the farmers’ children to spell such words as “plumb-pudding” “(and who can suppose a better?),” presents her full face in the Newbery edition, and but a three-quarter view to her American admirers.

These facts, together with the knowledge that Isaiah Thomas was a fair engraver himself, make it possible that his apology for the first impression of the tiny classic was for his own engraving, which he thought to better.

Thomas not only copied and pirated Newbery’s juvenile histories, but he adopted his method of advertising by insertions in the text of these tales. For example, in “The Travels of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself,” the little reader was told, “If you learn this Book well and are good, you can buy a larger and more complete History of Mr. Crusoe at your friend the Bookseller’s in Worcester near the Court House.” In “The Mother’s Gift,” there is described well-brought-up Miss Nugent displaying to ill-bred Miss Jones, “a pretty large collection of books neatly bound and nicely kept,” all to be had of Mr. Thomas; and again Mr. Careful, in “Virtue and Vice,” “presented at Christmas time to the sons and daughters of his friends, little Gilt Books to read, such as are sold at Mr. Thomas’ near the Court House in Worcester.”

Thomas and his son continued to send out these toy-books until their gay bindings faded away before the novelty of the printed paper covers of the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER V

1790-1800

The Child and his Book at the End of the Century

Any attempt to trace the slow development of the American child’s story of the nineteenth century must inevitably be made through the school-books written during the previous one. Before this, English books had been adapted to the American trade. But now the continued interest in education produced text-books pervaded with the American spirit. They cannot, therefore, be ignored as sporadically in the springtime of the young Republic, they, like crocuses, thrust forward in the different states their blue and yellow covers.

Next to clergymen, schoolmasters received the veneration of the people, for learning and godliness went hand in hand. It was the schoolmaster who reinforced the efforts of the parents to make good Americans of the young folks, by compiling text-books which outsold the English ones hitherto used. In the new editions of the old “New England Primer,” laudatory verse about General Washington replaced the alphabet rhyme:

Proud parents thereafter heard their infants lisp:

For older pupils Noah Webster’s speller almost superseded Dilworth’s, and his “Little Readers’ Assistant” became the First Reader of many children. Webster as schoolmaster in a country district prepared this book for his own scholars. It was printed in Hartford in seventeen hundred and ninety, and contained a list of subjects suitable for farmers’ children:

Bennington, Vermont, contributed in “The Little Scholar’s Pretty Pocket Companion in Rhyme and Verse,” this indirect allusion to political affairs:

But the most naïve attempt to inculcate patriotism together with a lesson in obedience is found in “The Child’s Instructor,” published about seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and written by a Philadelphian. Philadelphia had become the residence of the President—a fact that may account for one of the stories in this book about an infant prodigy called Billy. “The child at five years of age was always good and obedient, and prone to make such a remark as, ‘If you would be wise you must always attend to your vowels and consonants.’ When General Washington came to town Billy’s mama asked him to say a speech to the ladies, and he began, ‘Americans! place constantly before your eyes, the deplorable scenes of your servitude, and the enchanting picture of your deliverance. Begin with the infant in his cradle; let the first word he lisps be Washington.’ The ladies were all delighted to hear Billy speak so well. One said he should be a lawyer, and another said he should be President of the United States. But Billy said he could not be either unless his mama gave him leave.”123-*

Another Philadelphian attempted to embody political sentiment in “A Tale—The Political Balance; or, The Fate of Britain and America Compared.” This juvenile has long since disappeared, but it was advertised by its printer, Francis Bailey, in seventeen hundred and ninety-two, together with “The History of the Little Boy found under a Haycock,” and several other books for children. One year later a “History of the American Revolution” for children was also printed in Philadelphia for the generation who had been born since the war had ended. This was written in the Biblical phraseology introduced and made popular by Franklin in his famous “Parable against Persecution.”

This enthusiasm over the results of the late war and scorn for the defeated English sometimes indeed cropped out in the Newbery reprints. An edition (1796) of “Goody Two-Shoes” contains this footnote in reference to the tyranny of the English landlord over Goody’s father:

“Such is the state of things in Britain. AMERICANS prize your liberty, guard your rights and be happy.”123-†

In this last decade of the century that had made a nation of the colonial commonwealths, the prosperity of the country enabled more printers to pirate the generally approved Newbery library. Samuel Hall in Boston, with a shop near the court-house, printed them all, using at times the dainty covers of flowery Dutch or gilt paper, and again another style of binding occasionally used in England. “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin,” for instance, has a quaint red and gilt cover, which according to Mr. Charles Welsh was made by stamping paper with dies originally used for printing old German playing-cards. He says: “To find such a cover can only be accounted for by the innocence of the purchasers as to the appearance of his Satanic Majesty’s picture cards and hence [they] did not recognize them.” In one corner of the book cover is impressed the single word “Münch,” which stamps this paper as “made in Germany.” Hall himself was probably as ignorant of the original purpose of the picture as the unsuspecting purchaser, who would cheerfully have burned it rather than see such an instrument of the Devil in the hands of its owner, little Sally Barnes.

Of Samuel Hall’s reprints from the popular English publications, “Little Truths” was in all probability one of the most salable. So few books contained any information about America that one of these two volumes may be regarded as of particular interest to the young generation of his time. The author of “Little Truths,” William Darton, a Quaker publisher in London, does not divulge from what source he gleaned his knowledge. His information concerning Americans is of that misty description that confuses Indians (“native Americans”) with people of Spanish and English descent. The usual “Introduction” states that “The author has chose a method after the manner of conversations between children and their instructor,” and the dialogue is indicated by printing the children’s observations in italics. These volumes were issued for twenty years after they were introduced by Hall, and those of an eighteen hundred Philadelphia edition are bound separately. Number one is in blue paper with copper-plate pictures on both covers. This volume gives information regarding farm produce, live-stock, and about birds quite unfamiliar to American children. But the second volume, in white covers, introduces the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and his pipe-smoking incident, made very realistic in the copper-plate frontispiece. The children’s question, “Did Sir Walter Raleigh find out the virtues of tobacco?” affords an excellent opportunity for a discourse upon smoking and snuff-taking. These remarks conclude with this prosaic statement: “Hundreds of sensible people have fell into these customs from example; and, when they would have left them off, found it a very great difficulty.” Next comes a lesson upon the growth of tobacco leading up to a short account of the slave-trade, already a subject of differing opinion in the United States, as well as in England. Of further interest to small Americans was a short tale of the discovery of this country. Perhaps to most children their first book-knowledge of this event came from the pages of “Little Truths.”

Hall’s books were not all so proper for the amusement of young folks. A perusal of “Capt. Gulliver’s Adventures” leaves one in no doubt as to the reason that so many of the old-fashioned mothers preferred to keep such tales out of children’s hands, and to read over and over again the adventures of the Pilgrim, Christian. Mrs. Eliza Drinker of Philadelphia in seventeen hundred and ninety-six was re-reading for the third time “Pilgrim’s Progress,” which she considered a “generally approved book,” although then “ridiculed by many.” The “Legacy to Children” Mrs. Drinker also read aloud to her grandchildren, having herself “wept over it between fifty and sixty years ago, as did my grandchildren when it was read to them. She, Hannah Hill, died in 1714, and ye book was printed in 1714 by Andrew Bradford.”

But Mrs. Drinker’s grandchildren had another book very different from the pious sayings of the dying Hannah. This contained “64 little stories and as many pictures drawn and written by Nancy Skyrin,” the mother of some of the children. P. Widdows had bound the stories in gilt paper, and it was so prized by the family that the grandmother thought the fact of the recovery of the book, after it was supposed to have been irretrievably lost, worthy of an entry in her journal. Careful inquiry among the descendants of Mrs. Drinker has led to the belief that these stories were read out of existence many years ago. What they were about can only be imagined. Perhaps they were incidents in the lives of the same children who cried over the pathetic morbidity of Hannah’s dying words; or possibly rhymes and verses about school and play hours of little Philadelphians; with pictures showing bait-the-bear, trap-ball, and other sports of days long since passed away, as well as “I Spie Hi” and marbles, familiar still to boys and girls.