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DIAMOND LEARNS TO READ
THE question of the tall gentleman as to whether Diamond could
read or not set his father thinking it was high time he could;
and as soon as old Diamond was suppered and bedded, he began the
task that very night. But it was not much of a task to Diamond,
for his father took for his lesson-book those very rhymes his mother
had picked up on the sea-shore; and as Diamond was not beginning
too soon, he learned very fast indeed. Within a month he was able
to spell out most of the verses for himself.
But he had never come upon the poem he thought he had heard his
mother read from it that day. He had looked through and through
the book several times after he knew the letters and a few words,
fancying he could tell the look of it, but had always failed to find
one more like it than another. So he wisely gave up the search till
he could really read. Then he resolved to begin at the beginning,
and read them all straight through. This took him nearly a fortnight.
When he had almost reached the end, he came upon the following verses,
which took his fancy much, although they were certainly not very
like those he was in search of.
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