After uncle Brown had gone home, Charley determined he would begin to be
industrious at once. So he went up to his room, and began to arrange
his shelves, which his father had put up for the purpose. As he put each
one in its place, he examined it very carefully, and tried to recall
every thing his uncle had told him about it, so that it might be fixed
fast and clear in his memory, for he wished to tell his father and
mother and his favorite playmates the wonderful things he had heard. He
looked sharp too, to find in them other curious things, which his uncle
Brown hadn't mentioned, that he might ask him about them when he came
out again, or hunt them up in the books his uncle was to bring him.
As fast, as he put up a bird or shell, he wrote down, on a slip of stout
paper, in a large, neat hand (for he was quite a nice penman) the place
and name of the bird, or animal, that once lived in the shell, and where
was its native place, and fastened it with tacks above it.
Though he worked very steadily, it occupied all his spare time, out of
school, for several days.
Next he asked his father to get him a good sized blank book to make a
catalogue of his Museum, which his father did very willingly. Then
Charley wrote down in this the name and the native place of each of his
birds, and under this he recorded all his uncle told him about them. He
left besides, under each name, a page or two blank, so that he might
have room to set down whatever else he might find out about them.
All this took his spare hours for several days more, and after finishing
his labels on his Museum and his Catalogue, he felt quite proud of their
orderly and neat appearance and he had good reason to feel satisfied
for they made a very pretty show. Then he invited his father and mother
to walk up and see what he had done, for he had before requested them
not to come up, till he got ready for them. They were both very much
pleased with all his doings, and praised him a good deal. They said,
they hoped that he would be as neat and orderly in all he did, as he had
been here, for it would help him very much in his studies or in his
business matters. They told him there was a good saying, which he had
better write down and put up over his little desk, so that he could
often see it, "A place for every thing, and every thing in its place."
They said, too, it was an excellent plan to write down, as he had in his
catalogue, all the particulars he knew about anything, for he could
understand and remember them better, when they had once been all put on
paper.
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