“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; [pg 125]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 before[pg 126]hand, 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.”

[pg 127]“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 [pg 128]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.”