“‘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.”