too, but Johnny had raised his curiosity to see the factory so much,
that he answered, "Oh no, pray let me go with you, for though I don't
understand a factory much now, I dare say I shall when I see it; Johnny
and Betsey have told me all about it; I shall know the great wheel,
and the spindles, and what the children are doing when they fasten the
broken threads together."
His parents, finding he had learnt so much already, promised he should
go with them.
"And pray, Papa, let us go to the factory at Milford, where Johnny's
uncle works;" and he was much pleased when he heard that was the
factory they intended seeing, as it belonged to Mr. Joseph Strutt.
It was now time for them to return to the inn; so they took leave of
the blind woman and her family.
"I am afraid you will soon forget me," said Willy sorrowfully; "I wish
I had something to give you for a keepsake to make you remember me;"
and he felt in his pockets, and found a teetotum and a few marbles,
besides the ball, which he did not like to part with, his Papa having
just given it to him; so he gave the teetotum to Betsey and the marbles
to Johnny, and they promised to keep them for his sake. Willy was very
sorry to part with his young friends, and the old ones too, for he
liked them all: Granny, because she took such good care of her blind
daughter, and looked so cheerful and good tempered; and the blind
woman, because he pitied her; and Martha, because she was his first
friend; and Johnny and Betsey, because they had all been so happy
together;--so, for one reason or other, he liked them all.
TREES.
When Willy and his parents returned to the inn, they could talk of
nothing but Mr. Joseph Strutt, and the beautiful gardens.
"I declare," said Willy's mother, "I never felt so proud in my life as
when he gave me his arm to walk about the gardens; I fancied every body
who passed us and smiled, seemed to think how happy I must be; and then
he showed me all the curious trees which came from foreign countries;
for, said he, I wish these gardens not only to amuse the people, but
to teach them something; therefore I have planted trees and shrubs of
various sorts, that those who wish to study the properties of plants
may learn them, and turn their knowledge to some purpose; thus I have
tried to make these gardens useful as well as pleasant."
"But, Mamma," said Willy, "are trees of any other use but to look
pretty and shade us from the sun?" This was the last use Willy had made
of them, and he did not just then think of any other.
"Willy!" exclaimed his mamma, "was the cherry-tree you climbed this
morning of no other use?"
"Oh, to be sure! ripe cherries grow upon it, and they are so good to
eat; and then there are apples on apple-trees, and pears on pear-trees,
and fruit of some kind or other on all the trees; but no," continued
he, "after a little thinking, there is no fruit on the oak tree, nor on
the elm, nor on a great many other trees."
"Yes, there is," replied his mamma, "but the fruit is not good for us
to eat; the oak bears acorns, which the pigs are fond of."
"And I like them to play with, but not to eat; and I like
horse-chestnuts to play with, but I like the good chestnuts to eat."
"Well," observed his mother, "the oak and the elm, and the pine and the
beech, and all those trees which do not bear fruit fit for us to eat,
are of use to us for other purposes."
"Oh yes, their fruit is fit to play with."
"Something better than that, Willy; cannot you find out?"
Willy thought and thought again, but he would not guess, as some
children do, hap-hazard, without any reason; so his mamma helped him
a little by bidding him go and stamp upon the floor, in a part of the
room where the boards were uncovered.
Willy, who was never fond of standing still, and preferred running
or stamping to walking, set off with a hop, skip, and a jump, to the
further end of the room, where the floor was uncovered, and began
stamping on the boards with all his might; at length he suddenly
stopped and exclaimed, "Ah, the boards! the boards are made of wood,
and wood is made of the trunk of a tree; so that is the use of trees
which do not bear good fruit."
"And of those which do, sometimes," replied his mother: "the wood of
the cherry-tree is one of the lightest; so if you want to have some
light chairs that children can move about, you must have them made of
the planks of the cherry-tree. The oak and the elm, and all those
large trees whose fruit is not good to eat, are called forest trees,
because they commonly grow in woods or forests; but fruit trees we
plant nearer home, in our orchards and gardens, that we may easily
gather the fruit."
"Oh yes," cried Willy, "as Anna and I did."
"Well," continued his mother, "trees and plants of all kinds have many
more uses than you can understand at your age, or than I can tell you,
old as I am. But there is one thing you must remember, which is, that
all plants were first created by God Almighty, and that all that He
makes is useful and good."
"But, Mamma," said Willy, thoughtfully, "I remember your telling me
once never to touch the berries which grew on the laurel bush on the
lawn, because they were poisonous; and nurse says there are a great
many other plants that are poisonous. Why did God make them, Mamma,
for, you know, poisons kill people?"
"God made poisons to cure people," replied she: "do you remember last
week when you suffered so much from the ear-ache?"
"Oh, that I do, the pain was so bad. I think I shall never forget it.
I could not sleep all night; and as soon as it was light, nurse went
to fetch you, and you laid my aching ear on your shoulder, and then you
poured three drops of something which looked like water into my drink,
and it took the pain away, and I fell asleep. Was it those three drops
that cured the pain?"
"Yes, and it was those drops too which sent you to sleep."
"Oh, if I had known that, I do think I should have drunk up the whole
of the bottle; it was but a little one, you know."
"Well, my dear, the drops I poured into your drink were poison; if I
had given you six drops instead of three, they would have made you
ill, and if you had swallowed all that was in the bottle, it would
have killed you. So you see that poisons may kill as well as cure. God
created plants which are poisonous to cure us when we are ill; they are
then wholesome and good for us."
"Then God is very good to have made these plants, though they are
poisonous?"
"Yes, my dear. Whatever God creates is for some good purpose, though we
cannot always understand it.
"There are a great many poisons of different sorts; most of them take
away pain and send you to sleep, others cure particular diseases. Your
grandmamma scarcely ever sleeps without taking morphine."
"Yes, I know that," said Willy, "but I did not think, that morphine was
a poison. I suppose that is why she keeps it locked up."
"Yes, for fear that the children should hurt themselves with it. But,
now, Willy, it is time for you to go to bed; and after all you have
seen and done to-day, you must be tired, and will go to sleep without
taking any poison."
Willy kissed his papa and mamma, and was just going out of the room,
when the waiter brought in a parcel directed to Master Willy.
"That's me," exclaimed Willy: "what can it be?"
"Let us open the parcel," said his mother, "and then we shall find out
what it is."
They untied the string, and unfolded the paper which covered the
parcel, and what should there be within but a large piece of plumcake!
"Oh! I know what it is," said Willy, "though I never saw it before; it
is a piece of the cake Granny slapped so hard, and they have sent it
me, because I gave them the teetotum and the marbles."
This proved true; but until Willy explained it, his papa and mamma
could not understand what he meant.
Willy begged they would taste the cake, and having eaten a little bit
himself, he went to bed and soon fell asleep.
THE FACTORY VISITED.
The next day they went to see the factory, or cotton mills, at Milford.
As there was no railroad from Derby to Milford, they were driven with
horses, and Willy was very glad to see his old friends, the horses,
once more. It is true, that they did not go so fast as the train, and
that he was impatient to arrive, and was continually popping his head
out of the window in hopes of seeing the factory. His father told him
that he must look out for the smoke from the chimney of the great steam
engine which put all the machinery in motion; but Willy answered, "It
is a water-wheel, Papa, not a steam-engine, that makes every thing turn
at these mills. Johnny told me so." Willy felt a sort of pride that
he knew something his papa did not; but when he thought about it, he
said to himself, it would be very foolish to be proud of that, 'for it
was only by chance I heard it.' At last they reached Milford, and the
carriage drove into a large court-yard surrounded by buildings in which
the work was carried on. Willy was at first a good deal bewildered at
the sight of the machinery, and the noise it made in working. In one
room he saw large bales of cotton wool which had been brought from
foreign countries, and which men were unpacking. Willy observed that
it looked untidy and dirty, not like the nice cotton wool mamma had at
home.
"You will see the difference after it is carded," said one of the men.
"We begin by carding or pulling it to pieces, and then we squeeze it
between two great rollers, and you shall see how clean it comes out."
And he took them into another room, where the wool came out from
between two rollers, and it looked so white and soft that Willy said,
it put him in mind of wreaths of snow. He asked this man if he knew a
little boy called Johnny, whose mother was blind.
"Yes," replied he, "I am his uncle. Have you seen him lately? I have
not heard of him for a long time."
Willy was much pleased to have found out Johnny's uncle, and to be
able to tell him that Johnny was well, and to give him news of all the
family.
They then went into another work-room, where they saw the cotton
twisting into threads, and the children busy joining these threads when
they broke. This pleased him much, for after all he had heard from
Johnny, they seemed like old acquaintances; but he asked what those
children were doing who went about wiping every thing.
"All this twisting and twirling of the cotton wool," said his father,
"makes a great deal of dust, which would injure the machinery, and
prevent it from working, if it collected on it; so these children are
employed to wipe it away, and keep every thing clean."
They then went into another room where the cotton-thread, which had
been wound off from the spindles after it had been sufficiently spun,
was being made up into skeins, and this was done by women and children.
At last they were taken to see the great water-wheel which put all the
machinery into motion, and Willy declared that it was as big again as
the wheel at the corn-mill, and he thought it must be as strong as a
hundred horses to be able to make so many things move.
"Everything seems alive in the factory," said he; "nothing stands still
except the people, who are really alive, and they move only when they
have threads to tie, or other work to do, whilst the machinery is at
work all day long; it works a great deal harder, and does a great deal
more, than all the live people."
"Very true," observed his papa, "but the machinery would work to no
purpose if these living people did not set things to rights when they
went wrong."
"Yes," said Willy, "if there was nobody to join the threads when they
broke, the wheel might go round and round for ever; there would be no
thread to twist."
He then asked if all the people who worked in the factory were paid for
it.
"Certainly," replied his papa, "they are paid by the person to whom the
factory belongs."
"He must have a great deal of money to pay so many people; where does
he get it all?"
"By selling the thread after it is spun," said his mamma.
"There must be a great deal of cotton-thread to sell, indeed," said
Willy; "but do you think he will get money enough for it, to pay all
these people?"
"Yes, and a great deal more; for he must get money enough to pay for
the cotton, which comes from countries a great way off, and for all
the machinery. And then he must get something over, for he would not
take so much trouble, if he did not make some profits to put into his
pocket."
"What are _profits_?" inquired Willy.
"I will tell you what profits are," said his mother; "it is the
_little over_ which the landlady makes at the inn."
"But a manufacture is not at all like an inn," observed Willy.
"Not much," replied she; "but the manufacturer buys the cotton, and
when he has spun it into thread he sells it again, and he sells it for
more than it cost him, and what he gets over is profit."
"Oh yes, now I understand it," said Willy, "and with what he gets over
he buys clothes and dinners for his children, and sends them to school,
as the landlady did."
"Yes," said his father, "he may spend his profits in whatever manner
he chooses. And it has pleased the good Mr. Joseph Strutt, to whom this
factory belongs, to spend a great deal of his profits in making that
fine garden for the people."
"Oh how good he is!" cried Willy. "But, Papa, does every body who sells
things sell them for a little more than the things cost him?"
"Yes," said his father. "But we have had enough of buying and selling
now, and I should think more than enough to puzzle your little head."
"I was puzzled," said Willy, "till I thought of the landlady at the inn
and her pockets full of money, made by people paying a little over,
and then I understood it."
The next day they continued their journey by railway, and arrived
safely at grandmamma's country-house, where they were to spend a month.
THE COUNTRY HOUSE.
Willy was highly delighted with every thing he saw at his grandmamma's
house; it was quite unlike his papa's house in town; the rooms were
smaller, and the curtains, and tables, and chairs were not so fine; but
then there were cows with their calves in the cow-house, and horses
with their young colts in the stables, and sheep in the meadows with
their lambs skipping about them, and hens with their chickens in the
poultry yard, and ducks and geese swimming in the pond; and they all
looked as if they were so happy and so hungry; for, excepting the
birds, which were swimming in the water, they were all busy eating. "As
for the cows and sheep," said Willy, "they may eat all day long, and I
believe they do; for only look at that cow, Grandmamma, lying down to
rest; she is still chewing the grass she has been eating."
"That cows always do," replied his grandmother; "when they eat grass
they do not chew it, but put it into a sort of bag, or pouch, they have
inside them, and when the bag is full they lie down, and whilst they
are resting they bring the grass out of this pouch back into their
mouths, chew it at their leisure, and then swallow it, just as we do
our food."
Grandmamma then took Willy to a little garden, which had been made on
purpose for him. "The gardener," said she, "has got it into very good
order for you, and you are to keep it so. Look at these rows of peas,
they are now in blossom--next week these blossoms will fall."
"Oh! I shall be very sorry for that," said Willy; "they look so
pretty, and they smell so sweet," added he, putting his nose close to
one of the flowers, "it is a pity they do not last longer."
"But when they are gone something better, though not so pretty, will
come in their place; instead of flowers, there will be peas in a pod."
"I know what pea-pods are," said Willy, "very well; for though we have
no garden in London, the cook buys peas, and sometimes Mamma lets me
shell them. I like shelling peas very much, the pod cracks and opens so
nicely, and the pretty little round peas lie so straight in a row. But
how can these flowers turn into pods? they are not the least like pods."
"Perhaps we may find a pod already formed," said his grandmother, "and
then you will see." So she took Willy by the hand, and they looked
carefully all over the row of peas a long time without success; at last
they found upon one stalk the remains of a flower, the greater part
of which had already fallen to the ground. Grandmamma picked off what
remained, and then showed Willy a very small pod; but she would not
open it, "because," she said, "the peas would be too small to eat, she
thought not larger than pins heads; next week," added she, "they will
be fit to gather, and then you will give mamma and me a dish of peas
from your garden." Willy was highly pleased at this idea, and declared
he would shell them himself; he only regretted that next week would be
so long coming.
"Well," said his grandmamma, "let us see if there is nothing ripe for
you to gather now. Here are some lettuces, rather small yet, it is
true, but I think, if you choose two or three of the largest, they will
make a salad."
"Oh, Grandmamma," said Willy, "they must be large enough, for they are
twenty times bigger than a pea."
"That don't signify; peas and lettuces cannot be compared together,
they are so different." She then took out her garden-knife, and showed
Willy how to cut a lettuce, and having cut one herself, she let Willy
cut two; the first he cut rather awkwardly, but with the second he
succeeded tolerably well. "Now," said he, "I must take them in to the
cook, to be boiled."
"No, you are thinking again of your peas; lettuces are eaten without
any boiling; you have only to wash them well, and pour some oil and
vinegar over them, with a little salt, and they will make a nice salad."
Willy then gathered a nosegay for his mamma: he chose first a
full-blown rose; "then," said he, "there must be some buds too; little
buds are like the little children of the rose, and mamma is very fond
of little children;" then he gathered some jessamine and several other
flowers, and was very proud that this beautiful nosegay should come
from his own garden, and he felt that he loved his grandmamma better
than ever for having given it to him. The only fear he had was that
he should not know how to keep it in order; "I have seen a gardener
dig and hoe," said he, "but their spades and hoes are so large and so
heavy, that when I tried to use them, I could scarcely lift them."
Grandmamma then called to the gardener, who was at work in another part
of the garden, and he came up, holding his spade in his hand. Willy
tried to handle it, but he could scarcely lift it from the ground.
He looked very sorrowful, but grandmamma smiled, and said, "Little
children must have little tools to work with." She then took him to
a tool-house, where, amongst a number of large tools, she found a
complete set of small ones, fit for a boy of Willy's age to use. Oh!
if you had but seen how he jumped about for joy, and then sprang up to
kiss his grandmamma for her charming present!
"These tools will be of no use," said she, "unless you know how to work
with them; but if you are a good child, and mind what the gardener
tells you, you will learn to be a little gardener yourself."
"That I will," said Willy; "I shall be a little gardener, just big
enough for my little garden."
They then returned to the house, and grandmamma took out her
spinning-wheel and began to spin. This delighted Willy, who immediately
told her all he had seen at the factory, and how much her wheel was
like the machinery there; and then he laughed, and said, "that her foot
had been compared to a steam-engine."
"Not quite so powerful," replied she; "but it is strong enough to set
every thing going in my little factory; and a factory it is, as well
as the great ones, for it makes thread as good as they do, though not
so much, I must allow."
THE GARDENER.
The gardener, who had promised to teach Willy gardening, said he was
just then very busy about his celery, but that if he would come to him
in the evening he would be at leisure; "or if," added he, "you like to
come and see me at work now, you may learn something." Willy willingly
agreed to do this; so he tied up his tools, and carried them over his
shoulder. The gardener said, "if he meant to see him work, he must not
meddle with his tools, as it would interrupt him, and he should not be
able to get on with his work." Willy promised he would not use his new
tools, but he could not bear to part with them.
When they reached the celery bed, Willy thought the celery looked very
nice and clean, and that the gardener was going to gather it, for he
remembered having eaten some in salad; and he asked the gardener if he
would give him "one stick of celery to put into his salad of lettuces?"
but the gardener said, the celery was not fit for gathering yet; and,
to Willy's great surprise, he found that the gardener was busy covering
all these plants with earth, and patting it over them with his spade,
just as if they were dirty rubbish, fit for nothing but to be buried in
the ground. He could not help crying out, "Oh dear! how can you cover
that nice celery with dirt? you will quite spoil it."
"Not a bit," replied the gardener; "it will grow much finer and whiter
under the ground than above it. If I let it grow up like other plants,
it would be green like them, and so bitter that you could not eat it;
but when it is covered up from the light it grows white and crisp, and
good to eat."
"Well," said Willy, "I never should have thought that all that dirty
earth could have done it any good."
"Your nurse will call this earth dirt if it gets upon your clothes and
soils them; but I can tell you, that earth is one of the best things we
have. What would become of this garden if there were not earth for the
trees and plants of all sorts to grow in? Why, you would have neither
flowers nor fruit, and I'm sure that would not please you!"
"No indeed," said Willy, "but you do not cover all the other plants
with earth, as you do the celery?"
"No, because we do not want them to grow white; they do much better
with green leaves and coloured blossoms and fruit; so we only cover
their roots with earth: that is what all plants want. Ah! you little
know all the good that happens under this dirty ground, which you
despise so much. Have you never sown any seeds?"
"Oh yes, very often."
"Well, then, you know, seeds are little brown things, much of the
colour of dirt, and perhaps you may think no better of them than you do
of earth; but do you know what they grow into when they are sown?"
"Yes; they turn into flowers, and leaves, and all sorts of pretty
things. But I cannot think how all this happens in that dark dirty
place underground. I wish I could make a hole down deep enough in the
earth to see how the seed is changing into the pretty plant."
"But if you did," replied the gardener, "you could not see what passed
there, it is so dark. We none of us know how it is done; but we know
who it is that does it. It is the good God, who does so many wonderful
things; and we must never forget to thank him for it. However, I know a
little more about it than you do, for I have done nothing but work in
the garden these fifty years and more. I have sown so many seeds, and
watered so many flowers, and gathered so much fruit, that it would be
strange if I did not know something about it."
"But you cannot see in the dark any better than I can," said Willy: "so
how can you know what happens to the seed underground?"
"It is not by looking at the seed underground, but by taking it up when
it is beginning to grow, that I see how it grows. Come along with me,"
said he, taking Willy by the hand, and carrying his hoe with the other;
and he led him to another part of the garden, where there was a bed of
fresh earth raked over, quite smooth and neat.
"Are you going to sow some seeds in this bed?" asked Willy, "for there
is nothing growing in it?"
"I sowed the seeds some days ago, and by this time I am sure they are
all growing; that is, beginning to change into plants; but they have
not had time to grow up above ground yet:" then he took his hoe, and
turned up a little bit of the earth, and there he found three or four
seeds of kidney beans beginning to sprout out and grow. He took up one,
and showing it to Willy, said, "Look here, what has happened to this
seed!"
"I don't know," replied Willy, "but I think it must have been broken
in falling, when it was sown, for you see it is split quite open, and
spoiled; so this poor seed will never grow."
"It is not spoiled at all," said the gardener; "for it must be split
open to be changed into a plant. The skin of the seed cracks, and
through the crack the little stem or stalk of the plant grows up."
"But there is nothing growing out of this split seed."