But she knew her deficiencies, and earned money enough
to leave her work and attend a day-school part of the year.
She was an ambitious scholar, and she persuaded me into studying
the German language with her. A native professor had formed a
class among young women connected with the mills, and we joined
it. We met, six or eight of us, at the home of two of these young
women,--a factory boarding-house,--in a neat little parlor
which contained a piano. The professor was a music-teacher also,
and he sometimes brought his guitar, and let us finish our
recitation with a concert. More frequently he gave us the songs
of Deutschland that we begged for. He sang the "Erl-King" in his
own tongue admirably. We went through Follen's German Grammar and
Reader:--what a choice collection of extracts that "Reader" was!
We conquered the difficult gutturals, like those in the numeral
"acht und achtzig" (the test of our pronouncing abilities) so
completely that the professor told us a native really would
understand us! At his request, I put some little German songs
into English, which he published as sheet-music, with my name.
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