“The first lesson would be to teach you to do some common, easy work, steadily.”
“Why, father, I can do that now, without being taught.”
“I think you are mistaken about that. A boy works steadily when he goes directly forward in his work, without stopping to rest, or to contrive new ways of doing it, or to see other people, or to talk. Now, do you think you could work steadily an hour, without stopping for any of these reasons?”
“Why—yes,” said Rollo.
“I will try you to-morrow,” said his father.
The Old Nails.
The next morning, after breakfast, Rollo's father told him he was ready for him to go to his work. He took a small basket in his hand, and led Rollo out into the barn, and told him to wait there a few minutes, and he would bring him something to do.
Rollo sat down on a little bundle of straw, wondering what his work was going to be.
Presently his father came back, bringing in his hands a box full of old nails, which he got out of an old store-room, in a corner of the barn. He brought it along, and set it down on the barn floor.