When the lad was about
nine years old, while playing bat and ball at school, he lamed his foot
so badly that he used two crutches for more than a year. His foot ceased
to grow like the other, and the doctors of the town were called in to
examine the little lame boy. He was not perfectly restored till he was
twelve years old. His kind-hearted schoolmaster, Joseph Worcester, the
author of the Dictionary, came every day to the house to hear the boy's
lessons, so that he did not fall behind in his studies. [There is a
tradition in the Manning family that Mr. Worcester was very much
interested in Maria Manning (a sister of Mrs. Hawthorne), who died in
1814, and that this was one reason of his attention to Nathaniel.] The
boy used to lie flat upon the carpet, and read and study the long days
through. Some time after he had recovered from this lameness he had an
illness causing him to lose the use of his limbs, and he was obliged to
seek again the aid of his old crutches, which were then pieced out at
the ends to make them longer. While a little child, and as soon almost
as he began to read, the authors he most delighted in were Shakespeare,
Milton, Pope, and Thomson. The "Castle of Indolence" was an especial
favorite with him during boyhood. The first book he bought with his own
money was a copy of Spenser's "Faery Queen.
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