Charlie was ten years old, and his teacher thought he should begin to write compositions. So she gave him a list of words, and told him to write a letter or story, and put them all in.

The words were these: Begun, Write, Boy, Hook, Two, Black, Said, Basket, Knife, Chair, Eyes, Ground.

Charlie went home; and, before he went out to play in the afternoon, his mother said, "You had better work a while on your composition."

"Oh, I never can do it!" he said. "Mother, you try too, and see if you can write one." So she took his list and wrote this true story,—

"A little boy with roguish black eyes was sitting on the floor, playing with some spools that he had taken from his mother's work-basket, which she had left in a chair. All at once he saw a cow coming up the yard. He dropped every thing, and ran to drive her out. She threw up her head, and looked so fierce, that he was afraid she would hook him, and back he ran to the house.

"Then he spied a fruit-knife on the ground, where he had left it when he was eating an apple in the morning. He picked it up, and carried it to his mother, who had just begun to write, and she said, that, if he would keep still about two minutes, she would attend to him."