“I can tell you in another way,” said Miss. Anne. “Suppose a boy should be sent into the pasture to find the cow, and should look about a little while, and then come home and say that he could not find her, when he had only looked over a very small part of the pasture. He would not be persevering. Perhaps there was a brook, and some woods that he ought to go through and look beyond; but he gave up, we will suppose, and thought he would not go over the brook, but would rather come home and say that he could not find the cow. Now, a boy, in such a case, would not be persevering.”
“I should have liked to go over the brook,” said Lucy.
“Yes,” said Miss Anne, “no doubt; but we may suppose that he had been over it so often, that he did not care about going again,—and so he turned back and came home, without having finished his work.”
“His work?” said Lucy.
“Yes,—his duty, of looking for the cow until he found her. He was sent to find the cow, but he did not do it. He became discouraged, and gave up too easily. He did not persevere. Perhaps he kept looking about all the time, while he was in the pasture; and went into all the little groves and valleys where the cow might be hid: and so he was industrious while he was looking for the cow, but he did not persevere.
“And so you see, Lucy,” continued Miss Anne, “a person might persevere without being industrious. For once there was a girl named Julia. She had a flower-garden. She went out one morning to weed it. She pulled up some of the weeds, and then she went off to see a butterfly; and after a time she came back, and worked a little longer. Then some children came to see her; and she sat down upon a seat, and talked with them some time, and left her work. In this way, she kept continually stopping to play. She was not industrious.”
“And did she persevere?” asked Lucy.
“Yes,” said Miss Anne. “She persevered. For when the other children wanted her to go away with them and play, she would not. She said she did not mean to go out of the garden until she had finished weeding her flowers. So after the children had gone away, she went back to her work, and after a time she got it done. She was persevering; that is, she would not give up what she had undertaken until it was finished;—but she was not industrious; that is, she did not work all the time steadily, while she was engaged in doing it. It would have been better for her to have been industrious and persevering too, for then she would have finished her work sooner.”
As Miss Anne said these words, she heard a voice out in the yard calling to her,
“Miss Anne!”