Page:Women worth emulating (1877) Internet Archive.djvu/54

38 In his few, very few, intervals of leisure, and by subtracting from the hours of sleep in summer mornings, William Hutton managed to cultivate his mind; and growing fond of books, he also began a little traffic in them by buying a book for his own reading and then selling it to obtain another. By tact and shrewdness he managed to make a profit out of his little trading. It Was well that he did; for on his being out of his time as a stockinger—though he worked two years as a journeyman—trade was bad and employment uncertain, and so he bought himself an old bookbinder's press, and taught himself enough of the art of bookbinding to renovate the shabby and tattered books which alone he had the means to purchase. He took a little shop, and his sister Catherine came to live with him; and with tender gratitude he recounts:—

"I set off at five every Saturday morning, carried a burden of from three pounds weight to thirty, opened shop (or stall) at ten, starved in it all day upon bread and cheese and half a pint of ale, took from one to six shillings, shut up at four, and by trudging through the solitary night and deep roads five hours, I arrived at Nottingham by nine, where I always found a mess of milk porridge by the fire prepared by my invaluable sister."

We can picture the welcome and the smile that greeted the weary, foot-sore man, as he entered his dwelling, and cannot doubt that to his sister's care and kindness it was due that his health and life