Farmer Cropwell.
One warm morning, early in the spring, just after the snow was melted off
from the ground, Rollo and his father went to take a walk. The ground by
the side of the road was dry and settled, and they walked along very
pleasantly; and at length they came to a fine-looking farm. The house was
not very large, but there were great sheds and barns, and spacious yards,
and high wood-piles, and flocks of geese, and hens and turkeys, and cattle
and sheep, sunning themselves around the barns.
Rollo and his father walked into the yard, and went up to the end door, a
large pig running away with a grunt when they came up. The door was open,
and Rollo’s father knocked at it with the head of his cane. A
pleasant-looking young woman came to the door.
“Is Farmer Cropwell at home?” said Rollo’s father.
“Yes, sir,” said she, “he is out in the long barn, I believe.”
“Shall I go there and look for him?” said he.
“If you please, sir.”
So Rollo’s father walked along to the barn.
It was a long barn indeed. Rollo thought he had never seen so large a
building. On each side was a long range of stalls for cattle, facing
towards the middle, and great scaffolds overhead, partly filled with hay
and with bundles of straw. They walked down the barn floor, and in one
place Rollo passed a large bull chained by the nose in one of the stalls.
The bull uttered a sort of low growl or roar, as Rollo and his father
passed, which made him a little afraid; but his attention was soon
attracted to some hens, a little farther along, which were standing on the
edge of the scaffolding over his head, and cackling with noise enough to
fill the whole barn.
[Illustration: The Bull Chained by the Nose.]
When they got to the other end of the barn, they found a door leading out
into a shed; and there was Farmer Cropwell, with one of his men and a
pretty large boy, getting out some ploughs.
“Good morning, Mr. Cropwell,” said Rollo’s father; “what! are you going to
ploughing?”
“Why, it is about time to overhaul the ploughs, and see that they are in
order. I think we shall have an early season.”
“Yes, I find my garden is getting settled, and I came to talk with you a
little about some garden seeds.”
The truth was, that Rollo’s father was accustomed to come every spring,
and purchase his garden seeds at this farm; and so, after a few minutes,
they went into the house, taking Rollo with them, to get the seeds that
were wanted, out of the seed-room.
What they called the seed-room was a large closet in the house, with
shelves all around it; and Rollo waited there a little while, until the
seeds were selected, put up in papers, and given to his father.
When this was all done, and they were just coming out, the farmer said,
“Well, my little boy, you have been very still and patient. Should not you
like some seeds too? Have you got any garden?”
“No, sir,” said Rollo; “but perhaps my father will give me some ground for
one.”
“Well, I will give you a few seeds, at any rate.” So he opened a little
drawer, and took out some seeds, and put them in a piece of paper, and
wrote something on the outside. Then he did so again and again, until he
had four little papers, which he handed to Rollo, and told him to plant
them in his garden.
Rollo thanked him, and took his seeds, and they returned home.
Work and Play.
On the way, Rollo thought it would be an excellent plan for him to have a
garden, and he told his father so.
“I think it would be an excellent plan myself,” said his father. “But do
you intend to make work or play of it?”
“Why, I must make work of it, must not I, if I have a real garden?”
“No,” said his father; “you may make play of it if you choose.”
“How?” said Rollo.
“Why, you can take a hoe, and hoe about in the ground as long as it amuses
you to hoe; and then you can plant your seeds, and water and weed them
just as long as you find any amusement in it. Then, if you have any thing
else to play with, you can neglect your garden a long time, and let the
weeds grow, and not come and pull them up until you get tired of other
play, and happen to feel like working in your garden.”
“I should not think that that would be a very good plan,” said Rollo.
“Why, yes,” replied his father; “I do not know but that it is a good plan
enough,--that is, for _play_. It is right for you to play sometimes; and I
do not know why you might not play with a piece of ground, and seeds, as
well as with any thing else.”
“Well, father, how should I manage my garden if I was going to make _work_
of it?”
“O, then you would not do it for amusement, but for the useful results.
You would consider what you could raise to best advantage, and then lay
out your garden; not as you might happen to _fancy_ doing it, but so as to
get the most produce from it. When you come to dig it over, you would not
consider how long you could find amusement in digging, but how much
digging is necessary to make the ground productive; and so in all your
operations.”
“Well, father, which do you think would be the best plan for me?”
“Why, I hardly know. By making play of it, you will have the greatest
pleasure as you go along. But, in the other plan, you will have some good
crops of vegetables, fruits, and flowers.”
“And shouldn’t I have any crops if I made play of my garden?”
“Yes; I think you might, perhaps, have some flowers, and, perhaps, some
beans and peas.”
Rollo hesitated for some time which plan he should adopt. He had worked
enough to know that it was often very tiresome to keep on with his work
when he wanted to go and play; but then he knew that after it was over,
there was great satisfaction in thinking of useful employment, and in
seeing what had been done.
That afternoon he went out into the garden to consider what he should do,
and he found his father there, staking out some ground.
“Father,” said he, “whereabouts should you give me the ground for my
garden?”
“Why, that depends,” said his father, “on the plan you determine upon. If
you are going to make play of it, I must give you ground in a back corner,
where the irregularity, and the weeds, will be out of sight. But if you
conclude to have a real garden, and to work industriously a little while
every day upon it, I should give it to you there, just beyond the
pear-tree.”
Rollo looked at the two places, but he could not make up his mind. That
evening he asked Jonas about it, and Jonas advised him to ask his father
to let him have both. “Then,” said he, “you can work on your real garden
as long as there is any necessary work to be done, and then you could go
and play about the other with James or Lucy, when they are here.”
Rollo went off immediately, and asked his father. His father said there
would be some difficulties about that; but he would think of it, and see
if there was any way to avoid them.
The next morning, when he came in to breakfast, he had a paper in his
hand, and he told Rollo he had concluded to let him have the two gardens,
on certain conditions, which he had written down. He opened the paper, and
read as follows:--
-------------------------------------
“_Conditions on which I let Rollo have two pieces of land to cultivate_;
the one to be called his _working-garden_, and the other his
_playing-garden_.
“1. In cultivating his working-garden, he is to take Jonas’s advice, and
to follow it faithfully in every respect.
“2. He is not to go and work upon his playing-garden, at any time, when
there is any work that ought to be done on his working-garden.
“3. If he lets his working-garden get out of order, and I give him notice
of it; then, if it is not put perfectly in order again within three days
after receiving the notice, he is to forfeit the garden, and all that is
growing upon it.
“4. Whatever he raises, he may sell to me, at fair prices, at the end of
the season.”
Planting.
Rollo accepted the conditions, and asked his father to stake out the two
pieces of ground for him, as soon as he could; and his father did so that
day. The piece for the working-garden was much the largest. There was a
row of currant-bushes near it, and his father said he might consider all
those opposite his piece of ground as included in it, and belonging to
him.
So Rollo asked Jonas what he had better do first, and Jonas told him that
the first thing was to dig his ground all over, pretty deep; and, as it
was difficult to begin it, Jonas said he would begin it for him. So Jonas
began, and dug along one side, and instructed Rollo how to throw up the
spadefuls of earth out of the way, so that the next spadeful would come up
easier.
Jonas, in this way, made a kind of a trench all along the side of Rollo’s
ground; and he told Rollo to be careful to throw every spadeful well
forward, so as to keep the trench open and free, and then it would be easy
for him to dig.
Jonas then left him, and told him that there was work enough for him for
three or four days, to dig up his ground well.
Rollo went to work, very patiently, for the first day, and persevered an
hour in digging up his ground. Then he left his work for that day; and the
next morning, when the regular hour which he had allotted to work arrived,
he found he had not much inclination to return to it. He accordingly asked
his father whether it would not be a good plan to plant what he had
already dug, before he dug any more.
“What is Jonas’s advice?” said his father.
“Why, he told me I had better dig it all up first; but I thought that, if
I planted part first, those things would be growing while I am digging up
the rest of the ground.”
“But you must do, you know, as Jonas advises; that is the condition. Next
year, perhaps, you will be old enough to act according to your own
judgment; but this year you must follow guidance.”
Rollo recollected the condition, and he had nothing to say against it; but
he looked dissatisfied.
“Don’t you think that is reasonable, Rollo?” said his father.
“Why; I don’t know,” said Rollo.
“This very case shows that it is reasonable. Here you want to plant a part
before you have got the ground prepared. The real reason is because you
are tired of digging; not because you are really of opinion that that
would be a better plan. You have not the means of judging whether it is,
or is not, now, time to begin to put in seeds.”
Rollo could not help seeing that that was his real motive; and he promised
his father that he would go on, though it was tiresome. It was not the
hard labor of the digging that fatigued him, for, by following Jonas’s
directions, he found it easy work; but it was the sameness of it. He
longed for something new.
He persevered, however, and it was a valuable lesson to him; for when he
had got it all done, he was so satisfied with thinking that it was fairly
completed, and in thinking that now it was all ready together, and that he
could form a plan for the whole at once, that he determined that forever
after, when he had any unpleasant piece of work to do, he would go on
patiently through it, even if it was tiresome.
With Jonas’s help, Rollo planned his garden beautifully. He put double
rows of peas and beans all around, so that when they should grow up, they
would enclose his garden like a fence or hedge, and make it look snug and
pleasant within. Then, he had a row of corn, for he thought he should like
some green corn himself to roast. Then, he had one bed of beets and some
hills of muskmelons, and in one corner he planted some flower seeds, so
that he could have some flowers to put into his mother’s glasses, for the
mantel-piece.
Rollo took great interest in laying out and planting his ground, and in
watching the garden when the seeds first came up; for all this was easy
and pleasant work. In the intervals, he used to play on his
pleasure-ground, planting and digging, and setting out, just as he
pleased.
Sometimes he, and James, and Lucy, would go out in the woods with his
little wheelbarrow, and dig up roots of flowers and little trees there,
and bring them in, and set them out here and there. But he did not proceed
regularly with this ground. He did not dig it all up first, and then form
a regular plan for the whole; and the consequence was, that it soon became
very irregular. He would want to make a path one day where he had set out
a little tree, perhaps, a few days before; and it often happened that,
when he was making a little trench to sow one kind of seeds, out came a
whole parcel of others that he had put in before, and forgotten.
Then, when the seeds came up in his playing-garden, they came up here and
there, irregularly; but, in his working-garden, all looked orderly and
beautiful.
One evening, just before sundown, Rollo brought out his father and mother
to look at his two gardens. The difference between them was very great;
and Rollo, as he ran along before his father, said that he thought the
working plan of making a garden was a great deal better than the playing
plan.
“That depends upon what your object is.”
“How so?” said Rollo.
“Why, which do you think you have had the most amusement from, thus far?”
“Why, I have had most amusement, I suppose, in the little garden in the
corner.”
“Yes,” said his father, “undoubtedly. But the other appears altogether the
best now, and will produce altogether more in the end. So, if your object
is useful results, you must manage systematically, regularly, and
patiently; but if you only want amusement as you go along, you had better
do every day just as you happen to feel inclined.”
“Well, father, which do you think is best for a boy?”
“For quite small boys, a garden for play is best. They have not patience
or industry enough for any other.”
“Do you think I have patience or industry enough?”
“You have done very well, so far; but the trying time is to come.”
“Why, father?”
“Because the novelty of the beginning is over, and now you will have a
good deal of hoeing and weeding to do for a month to come. I am not sure
but that you will forfeit your land yet.”
“But you are to give me three days’ notice, you know.”
“That is true; but we shall see.”
The Trying Time.
The trying time did come, true enough; for, in June and July, Rollo found
it hard to take proper care of his garden. If he had worked resolutely an
hour, once or twice a week, it would have been enough; but he became
interested in other plays, and, when Jonas reminded him that the weeds
were growing, he would go in and hoe a few minutes, and then go away to
play.
At last, one day his father gave him notice that his garden was getting
out of order, and, unless it was entirely restored in three days, it must
be forfeited.
Rollo was not much alarmed, for he thought he should have ample time to do
it before the three days should have expired.
It was just at night that Rollo received his notice. He worked a little
the next morning; but his heart was not in it much, and he left it before
he had made much progress. The weeds were well rooted and strong, and he
found it much harder to get them up than he expected. The next day, he did
a little more, and, near the latter part of the afternoon, Jonas saw him
running about after butterflies in the yard, and asked him if he had got
his work all done.
“No,” said he; “but I think I have got more than half done, and I can
finish it very early to-morrow.”
“To-morrow!” said Jonas. “To-morrow is Sunday, and you cannot work then.”
“Is it?” said Rollo, with much surprise and alarm; “I didn’t know that.
What shall I do? Do you suppose my father will count Sunday?”
“Yes,” said Jonas, “I presume he will. He said, three _days_, without
mentioning any thing about Sunday.”
Rollo ran for his hoe. He had become much attached to his ground, and was
very unwilling to lose it; but he knew that his father would rigorously
insist on his forfeiting it, if he failed to keep the conditions. So he
went to work as hard as he could.
It was then almost sundown. He hoed away, and pulled up the weeds, as
industriously as possible, until the sun went down. He then kept on until
it was so dark that he could not see any longer, and then, finding that
there was considerable more to be done, and that he could not work any
longer, he sat down on the side of his little wheelbarrow, and burst into
tears.
He knew, however, that it would do no good to cry, and so, after a time,
he dried his eyes, and went in. He could not help hoping that his father
would not count the Sunday; and “If I can only have Monday,” said he to
himself, “it will all be well.”
He went in to ask his father, but found that he had gone away, and would
not come home until quite late. He begged his mother to let him sit up
until he came home, so that he could ask him, and, as she saw that he was
so anxious and unhappy about it, she consented. Rollo sat at the window
watching, and, as soon as he heard his father drive up to the door, he
went out, and, while he was getting out of the chaise, he said to him, in
a trembling, faltering voice,
“Father, do you count Sunday as one of my three days?”
“No, my son.”
Rollo clapped his hands, and said, “O, how glad!” and ran back. He told
his mother that he was very much obliged to her for letting him sit up,
and now he was ready to go to bed.
He went to his room, undressed himself, and, in a few minutes, his father
came in to get his light.
“Father,” said Rollo, “I am very much obliged to you for not counting
Sunday.”
“It is not out of any indulgence to you, Rollo; I have no right to count
Sunday.”
“No right, father? Why, you said three days.”
“Yes; but in such agreements as that, three working days are always meant;
so that, strictly, according to the agreement, I do not think I have any
right to count Sunday. If I had, I should have felt obliged to count it.”
“Why, father?”
“Because I want you, when you grow up to be a man, to be _bound_ by your
agreements. Men will hold you to your agreements when you are a man, and I
want you to be accustomed to it while you are a boy. I should rather give
up twice as much land as your garden, than take yours away from you now;
but I must do it if you do not get it in good order before the time is
out.”
“But, father, I shall, for I shall have time enough on Monday.”
“True; but some accident may prevent it. Suppose you should be sick.”
“If I was sick, should you count it?”
“Certainly. You ought not to let your garden get out of order; and, if you
do it, you run the risk of all accidents that may prevent your working
during the three days.”
Rollo bade his father good night, and he went to sleep, thinking what a
narrow escape he had had. He felt sure that he should save it now, for he
did not think there was the least danger of his being sick on Monday.
A Narrow Escape.
Monday morning came, and, when he awoke, his first movement was, to jump
out of bed, exclaiming,
“Well, I am not sick this morning, am I?”
He had scarcely spoken the words, however, before his ear caught the sound
of rain, and, looking out of the window, he saw, to his utter
consternation, that it was pouring steadily down, and, from the wind and
the gray uniformity of the clouds, there was every appearance of a settled
storm.
“What shall I do?” said Rollo. “What shall I do? Why did I not finish it
on Saturday?”
He dressed himself, went down stairs, and looked out at the clouds. There
was no prospect of any thing but rain. He ate his breakfast, and then went
out, and looked again. Rain, still. He studied and recited his morning
lessons, and then again looked out. Rain, rain. He could not help hoping
it would clear up before night; but, as it continued so steadily, he began
to be seriously afraid that, after all, he should lose his garden.
He spent the day very anxiously and unhappily. He knew, from what his
father had said, that he could not hope to have another day allowed, and
that all would depend on his being able to do the work before night.
At last, about the middle of the afternoon, Rollo came into the room where
his father and mother were sitting, and told his father that it did not
rain a great deal then, and asked him if he might not go out and finish
his weeding; he did not care, he said, if he did get wet.
“But your getting wet will not injure you alone--it will spoil your
clothes.”
“Besides, you will take cold,” said his mother.
“Perhaps he would not take cold, if he were to put on dry clothes as soon
as he leaves working,” said his father; “but wetting his clothes would put
you to a good deal of trouble. No; I’d rather you would not go, on the
whole, Rollo.”
Rollo turned away with tears in his eyes, and went out into the kitchen.
He sat down on a bench in the shed where Jonas was working, and looked out
towards the garden. Jonas pitied him, and would gladly have gone and done
the work for him; but he knew that his father would not allow that. At
last, a sudden thought struck him.
“Rollo,” said he, “you might perhaps find some old clothes in the garret,
which it would not hurt to get wet.”
Rollo jumped up, and said, “Let us go and see.”
They went up garret, and found, hanging up, quite a quantity of old
clothes. Some belonged to Jonas, some to himself, and they selected the
worst ones they could find, and carried them down into the shed.
Then Rollo went and called his mother to come out, and he asked her if she
thought it would hurt those old clothes to get wet. She laughed, and said
no; and said she would go and ask his father to let him go out with them.
In a few minutes, she came back, and said that his father consented, but
that he must go himself, and put on the old clothes, without troubling his
mother, and then, when he came back, he must rub himself dry with a towel,
and put on his common dress, and put the wet ones somewhere in the shed to
dry; and when they were dry, put them all back carefully in their places.
[Illustration: Work in the Rain.]
Rollo ran up to his room, and rigged himself out, as well as he could,
putting one of Jonas’s great coats over him, and wearing an old
broad-brimmed straw hat on his head. Thus equipped, he took his hoe, and
sallied forth in the rain.
At first he thought it was good fun; but, in about half an hour, he began
to be tired, and to feel very uncomfortable. The rain spattered in his
face, and leaked down the back of his neck; and then the ground was wet
and slippery; and once or twice he almost gave up in despair.
He persevered, however, and before dark he got it done. He raked off all
the weeds, and smoothed the ground over carefully, for he knew his father
would come out to examine it as soon as the storm was over. Then he went
in, rubbed himself dry, changed his clothes, and went and took his seat by
the kitchen fire.
His father came out a few minutes after, and said, “Well, Rollo, have you
got through?”
“Yes, sir,” said Rollo.
“Well, I am _very_ glad of it. I was afraid you would have lost your
garden. As it is, perhaps it will do you good.”
“How?” said Rollo. “What good?”
“It will teach you, I hope, that it is dangerous to neglect or postpone
doing one’s duty. We cannot always depend on repairing the mischief. When
the proper opportunity is once lost, it may never return.”
Rollo said nothing, but he thought he should remember the lesson as long
as he lived.
He remembered it for the rest of that summer, at any rate, and did not run
any more risks. He kept his ground very neat, and his father did not have
to give him notice again. His corn grew finely, and he had many a good
roasting ear from it; and his flowers helped ornament the parlor
mantel-piece all the summer; and the green peas, and the beans, and the
muskmelons, and the other vegetables, which his father took and paid for,
amounted to more than two dollars.
Advice.
“Well, Rollo,” said his father, one evening, as he was sitting on his
cricket before a bright, glowing fire, late in the autumn, after all his
fruits were gathered in, “you have really done some work this summer,
haven’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Rollo; and he began to reckon up the amount of peas, and
beans, and corn, and other things, that he had raised.
“Yes,” said his father, “you have had a pretty good garden; but the best
of it is your own improvement. You are really beginning to get over some
of the faults of _boy work_.”
“What are the faults of boy work?” said Rollo.
“One of the first is, confounding work with play,--or rather expecting the
pleasure of play, while they are doing work. There is great pleasure in
doing work, as I have told you before, when it is well and properly done,
but it is very different from the pleasure of play. It comes later;
generally after the work is done. While you are doing your work, it
requires _exertion_ and _self-denial_, and sometimes the sameness is
tiresome.
“It is so with _men_ when they work, but they expect it will be so, and
persevere notwithstanding; but _boys_, who have not learned this, expect
their work will be play; and, when they find it is not so, they get tired,
and want to leave it or to find some new way.
“You showed your wish to make play of your work, that day when you were
getting in your chips, by insisting on having just such a basket as you
happened to fancy; and then, when you got a little tired of that, going
for the wheelbarrow; and then leaving the chips altogether, and going to
piling the wood.”
“Well, father,” said Rollo, “do not men try to make their work as pleasant
as they can?”
“Yes, but they do not continually change from one thing to another in
hopes to make it _amusing_. They always expect that it will be laborious
and tiresome, and they understand this beforehand, and go steadily forward
notwithstanding. You are beginning to learn to do this.
“Another fault, which you boys are very apt to fall into, is impatience.
This comes from the first fault; for you expect, when you go to work, the
kind of pleasure you have in play, and when you find you do not obtain it,
or meet with any difficulties, you grow impatient, and get tired of what
you are doing.
“From this follows the third fault--_changeableness_, or want of
perseverance. Instead of steadily going forward in the way they commence,
boys are very apt to abandon one thing after another, and to try this new
way, and that new way, so as to accomplish very little in any thing.”
“Do you think I have overcome all these?” said Rollo.
“In part,” said his father; “you begin to understand something about them,
and to be on your guard against them. But you have only made a beginning.”
“Only a beginning?” said Rollo; “why, I thought I had learned to work
pretty well.”
“So you have, for a little boy; but it is only a beginning, after all. I
don’t think you would succeed in persevering steadily, so as to accomplish
any serious undertaking now.”
“Why, father, _I_ think I should.”
“Suppose I should give you the Latin grammar to learn in three months, and
tell you that, at the end of that time, I would hear you recite it all at
once. Do you suppose you should be ready?”
“Why, father, that is not _work_.”
“Yes,” said his father, “that is one kind of work,--and just such a kind
of work, so far as patience, steadiness, and perseverance, are needed, as
you will have most to do, in future years. But if I were to give it to you
to do, and then say nothing to you about it till you had time to have
learned the whole, I have some doubts whether you would recite a tenth
part of it.”
Rollo was silent; he knew it would be just so.
“No, my little son,” said his father, putting him down and patting his
head, “you have got a great deal to learn before you become a man; but
then you have got some years to learn it in; that is a comfort. But now it
is time for you to go to bed; so good night.”