Page:A Picture-book without Pictures and Other Stories (1848).djvu/20

 Terrified almost out of his senses lest he should meet the ghost, he set out on his homeward way, and reached his own door without any such apparition presenting itself, but for all that, his father died on the third day.

From this time young Andersen was left to himself. The whole instruction that he ever received was in a charity-school, and consisted of reading, writing, and arithmetic, but of the two last he knew scarcely anything.

About this time he was engaged by the widow of a clergyman in Odense, to read aloud to herself and her sister-in-law. She was the widow of a clergyman who had written poems. In this house Andersen first heard the appellation of poet; and saw with what love the poetical talent of the deceased pastor was regarded. This sunk deeply into his mind; he read tragedies, and resolved to become a poet, as this good man had been before him.

He wrote a tragedy, therefore, which the two ladies praised highly; it was handed about in manuscript, and people laughed at