“Presently George and his hatchet made their appearance.  ‘George,’ said his father, ’do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry tree yonder in the garden?’ That was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself, and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all conquering truth, he bravely cried out, ’I can’t tell a lie, Pa; you know I can’t tell a lie.  I did cut it with my hatchet!’ ‘Run to my arms, you dearest boy,’ cried his father in transports, ’run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold.  Such an act of heroism is worth more than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold.’”

Franklin’s “Way to Wealth” was considered to be perfectly adapted to all children’s comprehension, and was issued by various publishers of juvenile books.  By eighteen hundred and eight it was illustrated and sold “with fine engravings for twenty-five cents.”

Of patriotic poetry there was much for grown folks, but the “Patriotic and Amatory Songster,” advertised by S. Avery of Boston about the time Weems’s biography was published, seems a title ill-suited to the juvenile public for whom Avery professed to issue it.

Among the books which may be cited as furnishing instructive amusement with less of the admixture of moral purpose was the “London Cries for Children,” with pictures of street peddlers.  This was imitated in America by the publication of the “Cries of New York” and “Cries of Philadelphia.”

In the Lenox Collection there is now one of the various editions of the “Cries of New York” (published in 1808), which is valuable both as a record of the street life of the old-fashioned town of ninety-six thousand inhabitants, and as perhaps the first child’s book of purely local interest, with original woodcuts very possibly designed and engraved by Alexander Anderson.

The “Cries of New York” is of course modelled after the “London Cries,” but the account it gives of various incidents in the daily life of old New York makes us grateful for the existence of this child’s toy.  A picture of a chimney-sweep, for instance, is copied, with his cry of “Sweep, O, O, O, O,” from the London book, but the text accompanying it is altered to accord with the custom in New York of firing a gun at dawn: 

“About break of day, after the morning gun is heard from Governor’s Island, and so through the forenoon, the ears of the citizens are greeted with this uncouth sound from figures as unpleasant to the sight, clothed in rags and covered with soot—­a necessary and suffering class of human beings indeed—­spending their childhood thus.  And in regard to the unnecessary bawling of those sooty boys; it is admirable in such a noisy place as this, where every needless sound should be hushed, that such disagreeable ones should be allowed.  The prices for sweeping chimneys are—­one story houses twelve cents; two stories, eighteen cents; three stories, twenty-five cents, and so on.”