Field Teachers.
“I will now tell you of a little boy who determined to be idle:—
“‘I do hate my tasks,’ said little Robert,—‘I wish there never had been a school in the whole world. I think the man that first thought of a school must have been a very cruel, hardhearted man, and could never have been a child. What is the good of sitting, and spell, spell, spell? First, learn this by heart, and then that; then say the multiplication table; and then say the pence table; and then the Latin grammar; and then the catechism; and then read; and then write; and then cypher; and then, and then, and then——. But there is no end to it,’ said Master Robert.
“‘But there is one good thing,—we can play truant; and so I am off for a ramble, and am determined to be as idle as ever I can be. I am resolved not to do anything to-day; I will do nothing but caper, and run, and catch butterflies, and make ducks and drakes in the water, and blow the heads off the dandelions, and kick my hat about for sport, and roll about among the daisies. There, you stupid old spelling-book,’ continued he, giving it a toss into a corner,—‘go and take your rest there. If you were as tired of me, as I am of you, we should never see each other again.’
“So saying, little Robert ran out at the garden gate, bounded over the next meadow, leaped over hedge and ditch, up hill and down dell, till, at last, he thought no one would follow him.
“So he leaped, and capered, and rolled on the grass. He took up many a dandelion stalk, and blew off the winged seeds; at last he approached a pond, and began to make ducks and drakes in the water. At this sport he continued for some time, but at last grew tired; he then set himself down in the warm sun. The smell of the flowers and vernal grass quite overpowered him, and so, in a short time, he fell fast asleep.
“No sooner had he fallen asleep than he began to dream. He dreamed that a number of birds, and beasts, and insects, were humming and singing about him, and that they were busied in all sorts of ways. On a tall tree, just above him, he thought he saw a monkey swinging by his tail to and fro, with his arms folded, and looking as if he was half asleep. This monkey very much resembled himself.
“Buzz, buzz, buzz, went a bee, close to his ear, as he thought. ‘What makes you so merry, Mr. Bee?’ said the little boy. The bee never turned to look at him, but immediately dived deeply into the bell of a flower, and licked out all the honey, and scraped up the wax; then he came out, and dived into another flower, singing all the time. ‘What makes you so merry, Mr. Bee?’ called out Robert, a second time. ‘Because I have got something to do,’ said the bee. ‘And pray what can you have to do?’ the little boy thought he said to the bee. ‘Oh! a great deal,’ said the bee:—‘I have to visit above a thousand flowers this afternoon; I have to go to my hive, and back, a score of times; I have honey to put in my cells, and wax to make, and a great deal to do.’ And hum, hum, hum—bum, bum—m-m-m, z-z-z-z-z; and so the bee put its head into another flower.
“‘But you seem so merry,’ said Robert: ‘you seem so merry, Mr. Bee.’
“‘That is because I have plenty to do:—
‘To work is my delight,
From morning until night.’
“So the bee flew away, and the little boy thought that he got up, and walked, and walked, till he reached a wood. He came to a sunny bank, and sat down upon it. He had not sat long, however, before he felt a smart pinch on his leg, and leaped up in great consternation,—he looked, and saw an ant; it appeared to him as if the ant spoke. ‘Go away, you idle boy,’ said the ant; ‘see what mischief you have done,—you are breaking down our city walls, and destroying our dwellings. Why do you not work as we do?—Look at us!’
“So the little boy looked, and beheld a great number of ants, some bringing small grains and seeds up the steep bank, some scooping out the ground with their paws, some pushing, some pulling, some running hither and thither, but all busy.
“‘Why, how you do work?’ said Robert.
“‘Yes,’ said the ant. ‘Winter will come, you know; besides, we are never so happy as when we are at work,—that is the greatest pleasure we have. Our fathers worked, our mothers worked, our little ones work,—we all work here.—There is nobody idle.’
“‘Then, if you are so fond of work, you may work by yourselves,’ said Robert; so he walked away, and set himself down upon a little hillock, at no great distance.
“Presently he felt the ground shake under him, and heard a slight noise in the earth: a little animal peeped from the turf close by.—‘Ha!’ said Robert, ‘that is a mouse.—No; it is a ——. What is your name, pray?’
“‘My name is mole,’ said the little animal; ‘I am very busy just now, and cannot stop to talk to you. You would oblige me, however, by moving a little further, for I cannot do my work properly if you do not.’
“‘Work again?’ said Robert.
“‘Yes: I have my castle to build; a great many trenches to place round it; a number of galleries to construct, with various outlets, that I may not be caught napping by my enemies. I have plenty to do, I assure you; but the more I have to do, the happier I am. So, go along.’
“Robert moved off, for he began to be ashamed of himself; and, as he passed through the trees, he felt something pass over his eyes;—it was the long thread of a spider, which had just began to form its web. The spider was suspended from the branch of a tree.
“‘Little boy,’ said the spider, ‘can you not find anything better to do than to come and spoil my work?’
“‘Work again?’ said Robert.
“‘Yes,’ said the spider. ‘I should be sorry to live without work; and, if you will stop a minute, I will show you how I make my web.’ So saying, the spider passed his threads from bough to bough; formed it in one place, and tied it in another;—now tightened it;—now made it secure in its weaker parts; and, at last, gave it a shake in every part, to see that it was firm. ‘There,’ said he, ‘that task is done, and now for a fat fly for supper.’
“‘Task?—do not talk of tasks, I pray you,’ said Robert.
“‘It is no task to me, I can assure you,’ said the spider; ‘but, have the goodness to stand on one side, if you please, for I see you are not fond of work. If you won’t do any good, do not do any harm.’
“‘No,’ said Robert, ‘I came out to play.’
“‘Play, play?’ said the spider; ‘I never heard of such a thing.’
“Robert was glad to get away from the spider, and said, ‘You are an ugly looking thing,’ and left him. He had not gone far, however, before he saw a beautiful bird, with a twig in his bill. ‘Bird,’ said he, ‘I want to speak with you.’ ‘I have no time,’ said the bird,—‘I am busy,—I have my nest to build.’
“Presently a rabbit crept from the underwood, with some dried grass in its mouth. ‘Bunny! Bunny!’ said Robert. ‘I can’t stop,’ said the rabbit: ‘I am particularly engaged.’
“‘Well,’ thought the little boy, ‘everything seems very ill-natured;’ and so he wandered to the side of a rivulet, and began to throw pebbles in the water; whereupon he thought a beautiful little boy, with flowing locks, came up out of the spring, and said,—‘Why do you disturb me, little boy?’
“‘I am only playing,’ said Robert.
“‘But I have a great deal to do,’ said the river sprite, ‘and must not be interrupted. I have a long journey to perform; and, although I am only a rivulet now, I shall some day be a river. I have to afford moisture to millions of plants; drink to thousands of animals; to bear heavy burdens; to turn mills; to grind corn; and to do a great number of things. There are few so busy as I am;—so, go along, little boy, to some one who has time to idle away.’
“‘Then I will go the wind,’ said Robert; ‘I have heard the wind called the idle wind.’ ‘Stop,’ said the wind, with a violent gust just in his face; ‘hold, if you please,—I am not so idle as you think me.’
“‘Not idle!—why, what do you do, I should like to know?’
“‘I am just going to turn a few hundred mills between this and the seacoast, and then I have a few thousand ships to convey into port. Besides this, I have to disperse, as I go along, a great variety of seeds. I have also to carry the clouds from one part to the other, that they may discharge their showers in different places; and, then, I exercise the trees, and shrubs, and plants; I do not like to see anything idle.’ Thus saying, the wind started off at a rapid rate.
“‘Well,’ said Robert, ‘I am quite tired of talking to all these things, and was it not for the nice, warm, soft, sunshine, I should really think everything was busy; but that seems as if it would be as playful and careless as myself. How it dances and capers in the brook; and how softly it slumbers in the pond.’
“‘Not so fast,’ said a beam of the sun, which, glancing among the trees, stood like a spirit of light; ‘not so fast, little boy, I have more to do than you think for; I have millions of plants to bring forth out of the earth, fruits to ripen, seeds to perfect. I am the least idle of anything; I go from world to world, from clime to clime: now I am melting the ice at the poles, and now bringing to maturity the vegetation of the torrid zone. I am never idle, even in playing on the waters. It is true, I laugh and sparkle on the brooks and rivulets; but this is because I am happy. You thought I was sleeping in the lake;—at that very moment I was busily employed in bringing to perfection a number of water plants and young fish. I am never idle; and, to show you that I am not, I will just take the skin off your nose.’
“So saying, the hot and mid-day sun, which had all this time been scorching little Robert, raised a very fine blister on the bridge of his nose. Robert felt the smart,—he leaped up,—and behold it was a dream!
“Yes, all was a dream, except the last part of it. The sun had, indeed, taken the skin off the little boy’s nose; but he had been taught a lesson, which he was not soon likely to forget.
“He went home, therefore; and, as he walked onwards, came to the conclusion, that everything had some task to accomplish,—some duty to perform,—something to do. That nothing seemed to live for itself alone; that the idle are sure to get into mischief; and that to be idle was to be unnatural. He went, therefore, to his tasks, made up for lost time, soon mastered the Latin grammar and the multiplication table,[15] and ever afterwards found something to do.—Martin’s Holiday Book.”
[15] There is a corollary to this lesson, which my young readers ought not to forget, namely, that when Adam was placed in Paradise, he had something given him to do,—to dress the garden, and to keep it.—Gen. ii.