“Presented to Ishmael Worth, as a reward of merit, by his friend
     James Middleton.”

Ishmael read that with a new accession of pleasure.  Then he turned the leaves to peep at the hidden jewels in this intellectual casket.  Then he closed the book and laid it on his knees and shut his eyes and held his breath for joy.

He had been enamored of this beauty for months and months.  He had fallen in love with it at first sight, when he had seen its pages open, with a portrait of George Washington on the right and a picture of the Battle of Yorktown on the left, all displayed in the show window of Hainlin’s book shop.  He had loved it and longed for it with a passionate ardor ever since.  He had spent all his half holidays in going to Baymouth and standing before Hamlin’s window and staring at the book, and asking the price of it, and wondering if he should ever be able to save money enough to buy it.  Now, to be in love with an unattainable woman is bad enough, the dear knows!  But to be in love with an unattainable book—­Oh, my gracious!  Lover-like, he had thought of this book all day, and dreamt of it all night; but never hoped to possess it!

And now he really owned it!  He had won it as a reward for courage, truth, and honesty!  It was lying there on his knees.  It was all his own!  His intense satisfaction can only be compared to that of a youthful bridegroom who has got his beloved all to himself at last!  It might have been said of the one, as it is often said of the other, “It was the happiest day of his life!”

Oh, doubtless in after years the future statesman enjoyed many a hard-won victory.  Sweet is the breath of fame!  Sweet the praise of nations!  But I question whether, in all the vicissitudes, successes, failures, trials, and triumphs of his future life, Ishmael Worth ever tasted such keen joy as he did this night in the possession of this book.

He enjoyed it more than wealthy men enjoy their great libraries.  To him, this was the book of books, because it was the history of his own country.

There were thousands and thousands of young men, sons of gentlemen, in schools and colleges, reading this glorious history of the young republic as a task, with indifference or disgust, while this poor boy, in the hill-top hut, pored over its pages with all the enthusiasm of reverence and love!  And why—­what caused this difference?  Because they were of the commonplace, while he was one in a million.  This was the history of the rise and progress of the United States; Ishmael Worth was an ardent lover and worshiper of his country, as well as of all that was great and good!  He had the brain to comprehend and the heart to reverence the divine idea embodied in the Federal Union.  He possessed these, not by inheritance, not by education, but by the direct inspiration of Heaven, who, passing over the wealthy and the prosperous, ordained this poor outcast boy, this despised, illegitimate son of a country weaver, to become a great power among the people! a great pillar of the State.