She soon found it--a volume by
some Scotch poet of little fame, whose inward commotions had generated
their own alleviation in the harmonies of ordered words in which they
embodied themselves. In it Annie searched for something to learn before
the following night, and found a ballad the look of which she liked,
and which she very soon remembered as one she had heard her father
read. It was very cold work to learn it at midnight, in winter, and in
a garret too; but so intent was she, that before she went to bed, she
had learned four or five verses so thoroughly that she could repeat
them without thinking of what came next, and these she kept saying over
and over again even in her dreams.
As soon as she woke in the dark morning she put her hand under her
pillow to feel the precious volume, which she hoped would be the bond
to bind her yet more closely to the boat and its builders. She took it
to school in her pocket, learning the whole way as she went, and taking
a roundabout road that her cousins might not interrupt her. She kept
repeating and peeping every possible moment during school hours, and
then all the way home again. So that by the time she had had her
dinner, and the gauzy twilight had thickened to the "blanket of the
dark," she felt quite ready to carry her offering of "the song that
lightens toil," to George Macwha's workshop.
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