“Women in England spin twine and make lines with a large wheel, which a little boy turns; and when the little boy gets tired, the woman sings to him, to cheer him up,—
‘Twelve o’clock by the weaver’s watch,
The setting of the sun;
Heave away, my little boy,
And you’ll leave off when you’re done.’
And the little boy will brighten up, and make the wheel fly, because he’s going to leave off when he’s done.“
“You are a little boy, Charlie,” said Sally, who was listening with great attention, “to know so much about the affairs of older people.”
“Ah, mother, misery makes boys sharp to learn. If you was a little boy, and your mother had but one cow, and she churned, and you asked her for a little piece of butter, and she said, with the tear in her eye, ‘No, my child, it must go to pay the rent;’ if you brought in a whole hat full of eggs, and had not eaten an egg for a year, and should long for one, O, so much, and cry, and say, ‘O, mother, do give me just one egg!’ and she said, ‘No, my child, they must all be sold, for we are behindhand with the rent;’ you would know what paying rent means.”
“Well, Charlie, you shall have all the butter you want every time I churn; and I’ll spread your bread both sides, and on the edges.”
“I shouldn’t think,” said Joe, “a man could get a living by basket-making. It can’t be much of a trade. Anybody can make a basket that has got any Indian suet. I can make as good a basket as anybody.”