So Rollo stood back, and his father drew up the reins which Jonas had just put into his hands, and guided the horse slowly and carefully out of the yard. Rollo ran along behind the wagon as far as the gate, to see his father go off, and stood there a few minutes, watching him as he rode along, until he disappeared at a turn in the road. He then came back to the yard, and sat down on a log by the side of Jonas, who was busily at work mending the wheelbarrow.
Rollo sat singing to himself for some time, and then he said,
"Jonas, father thinks I am not big enough to work; don't you think I am?"
"I don't know," said Jonas, hesitating. "You do not seem to be very industrious just now."
"O, I am resting now," said Rollo; "I am going to work pretty soon."
"What are you resting from?" said Jonas.
"O, I am resting because I am tired."
"What are you tired of?" said Jonas. "What have you been doing?"
Rollo had no answer at hand, for he had not been doing any thing at all. The truth was, it was pleasanter for him to sit on the log and sing, and see Jonas mend the wheelbarrow, than to go to work himself; and he mistook that feeling for being tired. Boys often do so when they are set to work.
Rollo, finding that he had no excuse for sitting there any longer, presently got up, and sauntered along towards the house, saying that he was going to work, picking up chips.
Now there was, in a certain corner of the yard, a considerable space covered with chips, which were the ones that Rollo had to pick up. He knew that his father wished to have them put into a kind of a bin in the shed, called the chip-bin. So he went into the house for a basket.
He found his mother busy; and she said she could not go and get a basket for him; but she told him the chip-basket was probably in its place in the shed, and he might go and get that.
"But," said Rollo, "that is too large. I cannot lift that great basket full of chips."
"You need not fill it full then," said his mother. "Put in just as many as you can easily carry."
Rollo still objected, saying that he wanted her very much to go and get a smaller one. He could not work without a smaller one.
"Very well," said she, "I would rather that you should not work then. The interruption to me to get up now, and go to look for a smaller basket, will be greater than all the good you will do in picking up chips."
Rollo then told her that his father wanted him to work, and he related to her all the conversation they had had. She then thought that she had better do all in her power to give Rollo a fair experiment; so she left her work, went down, got him a basket which he said was just big enough, and left him at the door, going out to his work in the yard.
A Bad Beginning.
Rollo sat down on the chips, and began picking them up, all around him, and throwing them into his basket. He soon filled it up, and then lugged it in, emptied it into the chip-bin, and then returned, and began to fill it again.
He had not got his basket more than half full the second time, before he came upon some very large chips, which were so square and flat, that he thought they would be good to build houses with. He thought he would just try them a little, and began to stand them up in such a manner as to make the four walls of a house. He found, however, an unexpected difficulty; for although the chips were large and square, yet the edges were so sharp that they would not stand up very well.
Some time was spent in trying experiments with them in various ways; but he could not succeed very well; so he began again industriously to put them into his basket.
When he got the basket nearly full, the second time, he thought he was tired, and that it would be a good plan to take a little time for rest; and he would go and see Jonas a little while.
Now his various interruptions and delays, his conversation with his mother, the delay in getting the basket, and his house-building, had occupied considerable time; so that, when he went back to Jonas, it was full half an hour from the time when he left him; and he found that Jonas had finished mending the wheelbarrow, and had put it in its place, and was just going away himself into the field.
"Well, Rollo," said he, "how do you get along with your work?"
"O, very well," said Rollo; "I have been picking up chips all the time since I went away from you."
Rollo did not mean to tell a falsehood. But he was not aware how much of his time he had idled away.
"And how many have you got in?" said Jonas.
"Guess," said Rollo.
"Six baskets full," said Jonas.
"No," said Rollo.
"Eight."
"No; not so many."
"How many, then?" said Jonas, who began to be tired of guessing.
"Two; that is, I have got one in, and the other is almost full."
"Only two?" said Jonas. "Then you cannot have worked very steadily. Come here and I will show you how to work."
What Rollo Might Do.
So Jonas walked along to the chips, and asked Rollo to fill up that basket, and carry it, and then come back, and he would tell him.
So Rollo filled up the basket, carried it to the bin, and came back very soon. Jonas told him then to fill it up again as full as it was before.
"There," said Jonas, when it was done, "now it is as full as the other was, and I should think you have been less than two minutes in doing it. We will call it two minutes. Two minutes for each basket full would make thirty baskets full in an hour. Now, I don't think there are more than thirty baskets full in all; so that, if you work steadily, but without hurrying any, you would get them all in in an hour."
"In an hour?" said Rollo. "Could I get them all in in an hour?"
"Yes," said Jonas, "I have no doubt you can. But you must not hurry and get tired out. Work moderately, but steadily;-that is the way."
So Jonas went to the field, leaving Rollo to go on with his thirty baskets. Rollo thought it would be a fine thing to get the chips all in before his father should come home, and he went to work very busily filling his basket the third time.
"I can do it quicker," said he to himself. "I can fill the basket a great deal faster than that. I will get it all done in half an hour."
So he began to throw in the chips as fast as possible, taking up very large ones too, and tossing them in in any way. Now it happened that he did fill it this time very quick; for the basket being small, and the chips that he now selected very large, they did not pack well, but lay up in every direction, so as apparently to fill up the basket quite full, when, in fact, there were great empty spaces in it; and when he took it up to carry it, it felt very light, because it was in great part empty.
He ran along with it, forgetting Jonas's advice not to hurry, and thinking that the reason why it seemed so light was because he was so strong. When he got to the coal-bin, the chips would not come out easily. They were so large that they had got wedged between the sides of the basket, and he had hard work to get them out.
This fretted him, and cooled his ardor somewhat; he walked back rather slowly, and began again to fill his basket.
A New Plan.
Before he had got many chips in it, however, he happened to think that the wheelbarrow would be a better thing to get them in with. They would not stick in that as they did in the basket. "Men always use a wheelbarrow," he said to himself, "and why should not I?"
So he turned the chips out of his basket, thus losing so much labor, and went after the wheelbarrow. He spent some time in looking to see how Jonas had mended it, and then he attempted to wheel it along to the chips. He found it quite heavy; but he contrived to get it along, and after losing considerable time in various delays, he at last had it fairly on the ground, and began to fill it.
He found that the chips would go into the wheelbarrow beautifully, and he was quite pleased with his own ingenuity in thinking of it. He thought he would take a noble load, and so he filled it almost full, but it took a long time to do it, for the wheelbarrow was so large that he got tired, and stopped several times to rest.