It neither appealed to nor was read by the cultivated and instructed few, but it reached the homes of the masses of the people.

It found its way to the bench of the mechanic, to the house of the farmer, to the log cabins of the frontiersman and pioneer.

It was carried across the continent on the first waves of advancing settlement.

Its anecdotes and its simplicity of thought commended it to children both at home and at school, and, passing through edition after edition, its statements were widely spread, and it colored insensibly the ideas of hundreds of persons who never had heard even the name of the author.

To Weems we owe the anecdote of the cherry-tree, and other tales of a similar nature.