“O mother, how can there be joy if life is all work and never any fun?” He took her hand and pressed it against his cheek.
“There’s a little secret about work; with grown-ups it is often their play; and they like it.”
“Do you like to work?” His tone was insistent; and he lifted his head and looked hard at her, as if to challenge the tiniest bit of insincerity that might be lurking back of the words. “Like to work?” he repeated with added emphasis.
“Billy, I don’t think you could possibly have been happier on your birthday than I was; yet I was so tired that night that I could not sleep. The work of that day was play to me.”
Billy threw both arms around her and hugged her.
“And there are many times when the duty itself is disagreeable, yet doing it brings a finer joy than shirking it ever could bring.”
“Then I’ll be a—a preacher if I ought to. But gee! it’s rocky!”
“O Billy,” his mother laughed, “you need not decide to-night. Besides, it was all Bess’s nonsense. I can’t quite imagine my heedless boy in a pulpit.”
Billy thought he detected a touch of resigned disappointment in her words, and looked up with a sudden wonder widening his eyes, making them shine even in the dim light of the shaded lamp. “Do you want me to preach, mamma?”
“Not unless you wish to so much that you will not do anything else, Billy. The world needs preachers of the right kind sadly; and the right kind take up the calling reverently, though they know it will bring them small worldly return and much toil.”