When you begin to study English literature you will hear a great deal
about Samuel Johnson, who wrote one of the first English dictionaries,
and was a great scholar. Johnson's father was a bookseller, who used to
have a little shop in the market-place, where he sold books on
market-days. One day, when Johnson was a boy, his father took sick and
asked Samuel to go to the market-place and sell books for him. Johnson
was ashamed of such work, and refused to go.
But many years afterward, when he had become an old man and was back on
a visit to his native village, he was missed from breakfast one morning
by the friends with whom he was staying. On his return at supper-time he
told his friends how he had spent the day. It was fifty years ago that
day when he had refused to help his father. He says: "To do away with
the sin of this disobedience, I this day went in a post-chaise to
Uttoxeter, and going into the market at the time of high business,
uncovered my head and stood with it bare an hour before the stall which
my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of standers-by and
the inclemency of the weather; a penance by which I trust I have
propitiated Heaven for this only instance, I believe, of contumacy to my
father."
That is a story worth remembering when you are ashamed of doing
something which your parents have asked you to do, perhaps to carry a
parcel on the street or to mow the lawn. You will see sometime, I hope,
that all honest work, if it is well done, is a thing to be proud of,
instead of to be ashamed of. But it may be too late then. Your parents
may have died, and you, like Johnson, will come back with deep sorrow to
think how you had disobeyed and forsaken them when they needed you. The
way to save yourselves such heartache is to be obedient to your parents
as long as they live.