Rollo at Work

The Old Nails

The next morning, after breakfast, Rollo's father told him he was ready for him to go to his work. He took a small basket in his hand, and led Rollo out into the barn, and told him to wait there a few minutes, and he would bring him something to do.

Rollo sat down on a little bundle of straw, wondering what his work was going to be.

Presently his father came back, bringing in his hands a box full of old nails, which he got out of an old store-room, in a corner of the barn. He brought it along, and set it down on the barn floor.

“Why, father,” said Rollo, “what am I going to do with those old nails?”

“You are going to sort them. Here are a great many kinds, all together. I want them all picked over—those that are alike put by themselves. I will tell you exactly how to do it.”

Rollo put his hand into the box, and began to pick up some of the nails, and look them over, while his father was speaking; but his father told him to put them down, and not begin until he had got all his directions.

“You must listen,” said he, “and understand the directions now, for I cannot tell you twice.”

He then took a little wisp of straw, and brushed away a clean place upon the barn floor, and then poured down the nails upon it.

“O, how many nails!” said Rollo.

His father then took up a handful of them, and showed Rollo that there were several different sizes; and he placed them down upon the floor in little heaps, each size by itself. Those that were crooked also he laid away in a separate pile.

“Now, Rollo,” said he, “I want you to go to work sorting these nails, steadily and industriously, until they are all done. There are not more than three or four kinds of nails, and you can do them pretty fast if you work steadily, and do not get to playing with them. If you find any pieces of iron, or any thing else that you do not know what to do with, lay them aside, and go on with the nails. Do you understand it all?”

Rollo said he did, and so his father left him, and went into the house. Rollo sat down upon the clean barn floor, and began his task.

“I don't think this is any great thing,” said he; “I can do this easily enough;” and he took up some of the nails, and began to arrange them as his father had directed.

But Rollo did not perceive what the real difficulty in his task was. It was, indeed, very easy to see what nails were large, and what were small, and what were of middle size, and to put them in their proper heaps. There was nothing very hard in that. The difficulty was, that, after having sorted a few, it would become tedious and tiresome work, doing it there all alone in the barn,—picking out old nails, with nobody to help him, and nobody to talk to, and nothing to see, but those little heaps of rusty iron on the floor.

This, I say, was the real trouble; and Rollo's father knew, when he set his little boy about it, that he would soon get very tired of it, and, not being accustomed to any thing but play, would not persevere.

And so it was. Rollo sorted out a few, and then he began to think that it was rather tiresome to be there all alone; and he thought it would be a good plan for him to go and ask his father to let him go and get his cousin James to come and help him.

He accordingly laid down the nails he had in his hand, and went into the house, and found his father writing at a table.

“What is the matter now?” said his father.

“Why, father,” said Rollo, “I thought I should like to have James come and help me, if you are willing;—we can get them done so much quicker if there are two.”

“But my great object is, not to get the nails sorted very quick, but to teach you patient industry. I know it is tiresome for you to be alone, but that is the very reason why I wish you to be alone. I want you to learn to persevere patiently in doing any thing, even if it is tiresome. What I want to teach you is, to work, not to play.”

Rollo felt disappointed, but he saw that his father was right, and he went slowly back to his task. He sorted out two or three handfuls more, but he found there was no pleasure in it, and he began to be very sorry his father had set him at it.

Having no heart for his work, he did not go on with alacrity, and of course made very slow progress. He ought to have gone rapidly forward, and not thought any thing about the pleasantness or unpleasantness of it, but only been anxious to finish the work, and please his father. Instead of that, he only lounged over it—looked at the heap of nails, and sighed to think how large it was. He could not sort all those, possibly, he said. He knew he could not. It would take him forever.

Still he could not think of any excuse for leaving his work again, until, after a little while, he came upon a couple of screws. “And now what shall I do with these?” said he.

He took the screws, and laid them side by side, to measure them, so as to see which was the largest. Then he rolled them about a little, and after playing with them for a little time, during which, of course, his work was entirely neglected, he concluded he would go and ask his father what he was to do with screws.

He accordingly walked slowly along to the house, stopping to look at the grasshoppers and butterflies by the way. After wasting some time in this manner, he appeared again at his father's table, and wanted to know what he should do with the screws that he found among the nails.

“You ought not to have left your work to come and ask that question,” said his father. “I am afraid you are not doing very well. I gave you all the necessary instructions. Go back to your work.”

“But, father,” said Rollo, “as he went out, I do not know what I am to do with the screws. You did not say any thing about screws.”

“Then why do you leave your work to ask me any thing about them?”

“Why,—because,—” said Rollo, hesitating. He did not know what to say.

“Your work is to sort out the nails, and I expect, by your coming to me for such frivolous reasons, that you are not going on with it very well.”

Rollo went slowly out of the room, and sauntered along back to his work. He put the screws aside, and went on with the nails, but he did very little. When the heart is not in the work, it always goes on very slowly.

Thus an hour or two of the forenoon passed away, and Rollo made very little progress. At last his father came out to see what he had done; and it was very plain that he had been idling away his time, and had accomplished very little indeed.

His father then said that he might leave his work and come in. Rollo walked along by the side of his father, and he said to him—

“I see, Rollo, that I shall not succeed in teaching you to work industriously, without something more than kind words.”

Rollo knew not what to say, and so he was silent. He felt guilty and ashamed.

“I gave you work to do which was very easy and plain, but you have been leaving it repeatedly for frivolous reasons; and even while you were over your work, you have not been industrious. Thus you have wasted your morning entirely; you have neither done work nor enjoyed play.

“I was afraid it would be so,” he continued. “Very few boys can be taught to work industriously, without being compelled; though I hoped that my little Rollo could have been. But as it is, as I find that persuasion will not do, I must do something more decided. I should do very wrong to let you grow up an idle boy; and it is time for you to begin to learn to do something besides play.”

He said this in a kind, but very serious tone, and it was plain he was much displeased. He told Rollo, a minute or two after, that he might go, then, where he pleased, and that he would consider what he should do, and tell him some other time.

A Conversation

That evening, when Rollo was just going to bed, his father took him up in his lap, and told him he had concluded what to do.

“You see it is very necessary,” said he, “that you should have the power of confining yourself steadily and patiently to a single employment, even if it does not amuse you. I have to do that, and all people have to do it, and you must learn to do it, or you will grow up indolent and useless. You cannot do it now, it is very plain. If I set you to doing any thing, you go on as long as the novelty and the amusement last, and then your patience is gone, and you contrive every possible excuse for getting away from your task. Now, I am going to give you one hour's work to do, every forenoon and afternoon. I shall give you such things to do, as are perfectly plain and easy, so that you will have no excuse for neglecting your work or leaving it. But yet I shall choose such things as will afford you no amusement; for I want you to learn to work, not play.”

“But, father,” said Rollo, “you told me there was pleasure in work, the other day. But how can there be any pleasure in it, if you choose such things as have no amusement in them, at all?”

“The pleasure of working,” said his father, “is not the fun of doing amusing things, but the satisfaction and solid happiness of being faithful in duty, and accomplishing some useful purpose. For example, if I were to lose my pocket-book on the road, and should tell you to walk back a mile, and look carefully all the way until you found it, and if you did it faithfully and carefully, you would find a kind of satisfaction in doing it; and when you found the pocket-book, and brought it back to me, you would enjoy a high degree of happiness. Should not you?”

“Why, yes, sir, I should,” said Rollo.

“And yet there would be no amusement in it. You might, perhaps, the next day, go over the same road, catching butterflies: that would be amusement. Now, the pleasure you would enjoy in looking for the pocket-book, would be the solid satisfaction of useful work. The pleasure of catching butterflies would be the amusement of play. Now, the difficulty is, with you, that you have scarcely any idea, yet, of the first. You are all the time looking for the other, that is, the amusement. You begin to work when I give you any thing to do, but if you do not find amusement in it, you soon give it up. But if you would only persevere, you would find, at length, a solid satisfaction, that would be worth a great deal more.”

Rollo sat still, and listened, but his father saw, from his looks, that he was not much interested in what he was saying; and he perceived that it was not at all probable that so small a boy could be reasoned into liking work. In fact, it was rather hard for Rollo to understand all that his father said,—and still harder for him to feel the force of it. He began to grow sleepy, and so his father let him go to bed.

Rollo Learns to Work at Last

The next day his father gave him his work. He was to begin at ten o'clock, and work till eleven, gathering beans in the garden. His father went out with him, and waited to see how long it took him to gather half a pint, and then calculated how many he could gather in an hour, if he was industrious. Rollo knew that if he failed now, he should be punished in some way, although his father did not say any thing about punishment. When he was set at work the day before, about the nails, he was making an experiment, as it were, and he did not expect to be actually punished if he failed; but now he knew that he was under orders, and must obey.

So he worked very diligently, and when his father came out at the end of the hour, he found that Rollo had got rather more beans than he had expected. Rollo was much gratified to see his father pleased; and he carried in his large basket full of beans to show his mother, with great pleasure. Then he went to play, and enjoyed himself very highly.