[
25]
vigorous boy!
When he was fourteen years old, he wrote to her his first love-letter.
The village schoolmaster taught for very low wages, and was not remarkably well-qualified for his task; as was generally the case at that early period.
Isaac's labor was needed on the farm all the summer; consequently, he was able to attend school only three months during the winter.
He was, therefore, so little acquainted with the forms of letter-writing, that he put Sarah's name inside the letter, and his own on the outside.
She, being an only daughter, and a great pet in her family, had better opportunities for education.
She told her young lover that was not the correct way to write a letter, and instructed him how to proceed in future.
From that time, they corresponded constantly.
Isaac likewise formed a very strong friendship with his cousin Joseph Whitall, who was his schoolmate, and about his own age. They shared together all their joys and troubles, and were companions in all boyish enterprises.
Thus was a happy though laborious childhood passed in the seclusion of the woods, in the midst of home influences and rustic occupations.
His parents had no leisure to bestow on intellectual culture; for they had a numerous family of children, and it required about all their time to feed and clothe them respectably.
But they were worthy, kind-hearted people, whose moral precepts