"I do not think, at last, that I shall like to be a surgeon," said
Gustavus to his papa, as he trotted by his side on his little poney.
"Edward Somerville is to be a clergyman: and he has been telling me that
he is to go to Oxford, and then he is to have a living, and will have a
nice snug parsonage-house, and can keep a horse, and some dogs, and have
a pretty garden; whilst I shall be moped up in a town, curing wounds,
and mending broken bones--I shall not like it at all."
"It was your own choice," answered his papa; "but if you think you
should like better to take orders, I am sure I have no objection."
Three months after this conversation, Gustavus being invited to
accompany some friends to see a review, he returned home with his little
head so filled with military ideas, that he was certain, he said,
nothing could be so delightful and so happy as the life of an officer;
and that travelling about and seeing different places was better than
all the snug parsonage-houses in England. But, not many months from that
time, going with his papa to Portsmouth, to visit his elder brother, who
belonged to the navy, he was so struck with the novelty of the scene
(having never seen a man of war before), thought there was so much
bustle and gaiety in it, that it must be the pleasantest life in the
world, and earnestly requested that he might be allowed to go to sea.
His papa now thought it time to represent to him the folly and
imprudence of being so unsettled. "My dear boy," said he, taking him
affectionately by the hand, "if you continue thus changing your mind
every three months, you will never be any thing but an idle fellow, and
your youth will be lost in preparations for different professions; or,
should you remain long enough fixed to have entered into any line of
life, you will not be long before you will desire to quit it for
another, of which you will probably be entirely ignorant, and by that
means ruin your fortune, and expose yourself to ridicule.
"You make me recollect two boys I once knew, and whose story has often
been the subject of conversation, in a winter's evening, at the house of
an old clergyman, from whom I received the first principles of the
virtuous education my father had the goodness to bestow upon me.
"Robin was the son of a farmer who lived in the village; his uncle kept
a grocer's shop in the next market town, and had a son named Richard.
They were very clever boys, both understood the business they had been
bred to extremely well, and, at the age of sixteen, were become very
useful to their parents; but about that time they took it into their
heads to grow tired of the employment they were engaged in, and to wish
to change places with each other; Robin fancying that he should like
extremely to be a grocer, and Richard, that nothing could possibly be so
pleasant and agreeable as working in the fields.
"The two fathers, who wished for nothing so much as the happiness of
their children, were much grieved at this whim; for they very well knew,
that all they had been learning could be of no use to them, if they were
now to change their situations, and would be exactly so much time and
labour lost, and every thing was to begin again; but Robin and Richard
thought differently, and said they could not see that there was any
thing to learn.
"Their fathers desired they might change places for one month, and
agreed that if in that time they saw no reason why they should not
remain, the one to learn the business of a farmer, and the other to
serve in a grocer's shop, they would willingly consent to indulge them
in their inclination; and accordingly, on the day on which Richard was
sent out to work in a large turnip field, Robin, decorated with a pair
of white sleeves, and an apron before him, was placed behind his uncle's
counter.
"The first day he did nothing but grin and stare about him, dip his
fingers in the jars of honey, and fill his pockets with currants,
raisins, and figs, and he thought it pleasant enough; but the moment he
was set at work, he found himself so aukward, that, if he had not been
ashamed, he would have begged to return immediately to his plough and
his spade. Notwithstanding his earnest endeavours, he could not by any
means contrive to tie up a pound of rice, for when he had folded the
paper at one end, and, as he thought, secured it, he let it run out at
the other; and something of the same kind happening to every thing he
undertook, the shop was strewed from one end to the other with rice,
tea, and sugar; and his uncle told him he was only wasting his goods,
and doing mischief, without being of the smallest use. If he was sent
out with any parcels, he was sure to lose his way, and ramble about
whole hours together, till somebody was sent in search of him. No one
pitied him; he was the jest of the whole family; and, before half the
month was expired, he begged in the most earnest manner, that he might
return to the farm.
"Richard, who had never been much exposed either to heat or cold,
desired his uncle would excuse his working till the cool of the evening;
but the farmer laughed at him, and asked him if he thought that would be
the way to get his work done. He was therefore obliged to go out and
attempt something, but his whole day's work might have been done in a
couple of hours by a country boy of twelve years of age, and would also
have been much better done, for poor Richard did not know what he was
about.
"At five o'clock he said he must go and get his tea; but his uncle told
him they never drank any such slops, and promised him a good mess of
porridge for his supper, if he made haste to finish his work.
"Richard _could not_ work; he had done nothing right, and the next day
he found it worse and worse; he did not know even how to handle a spade,
much less how to make use of it. He sauntered about, with his arms
across, the whole long summer's day, doing nothing, yet tired and
uncomfortable: he had nobody to speak to--he could not find one idle
person; even his aunt, when he went to seek her, was busy in her dairy,
and told him to go and mind his business, and not lounge about and
disturb those who were inclined to work.
"Every creature he saw had some employment which they understood, and
appeared to take pleasure in, whilst he, unable to do the same, and
weary of wandering alone, from the garden to the field, and from the
field to the garden, wished a thousand times he had never quitted his
father's shop, where, being able to act his part as well as other
people, he felt himself of some consequence: now he was nobody, he was
in every one's way, and all were tired of him.
"Robin and Richard were glad to return to their own homes, and re-assume
their former employments, in which they prospered so well, that they
never after felt the least inclination to quit them, and are at this
time living in ease and plenty, respected and esteemed by their friends
and neighbours."