Part 4

"So do I," replied Johnny, "it is much pleasanter to be running about out of doors after cattle, than to be shut up in the factory,--except perhaps in winter, when you often get wet through. That is why my uncle went to the factory; he got an ague by working out of doors in the rain, and was so bad he lost all his strength, and could hardly lift a spade. So, when he was better, he said he would go to the factory, where they do not work so hard, and are always under cover. When folks are not strong, a factory suits them best. Then every body could not find work at a farm, so some must go to the factory, whether they like it or not."

"But what sort of work is done in a farm?" inquired Willy.

"We grow corn to make bread, and breed cattle for meat."

"Then you make bread and meat for poor people's dinners," said Willy. "I am sure that is very good of you."

"Oh! but father don't give it away," said Johnny, "he could not afford that; he helps the poor people as much as he can, and pays them wages for their work; but his corn he sells to the baker, who makes it into bread; and his cattle to the butcher, who makes it into meat; and they sell it both to rich and poor, they care not which, so that they do but get paid for it."

"But the poor have no money to pay with," observed Willy.

"Then they must work to earn money; and that they may do either in a farm or a factory. Why, in a factory, as I told you, even little children get paid for their work."

"But what does your father do with all the money he gets for the corn and cattle he sells to the baker and the butcher? for he don't want to buy meat, nor bread, nor fowls, nor eggs, nor milk; for he gets all those things from his farm."

"Yes, we get plenty to eat and to drink too from the farm," answered Johnny, "for we make cider from our apples, and we brew beer from our barley. But we want a great many other things besides food. We must have clothes to keep us warm; and the factory people provide us with clothes as we provide them with food."

"But," said Willy, "they do not make clothes at the factory, they only make thread."

"Ay," replied Johnny, "but there are a great many other factories where they make things for clothes, such as silk, and linen, and cotton, and woollen cloth."

"Then," added Willy, "the thread they make at Milford serves the tailors and mantua makers, who make up the clothes, to sew them with. Well, how nicely that is contrived! people all help one another; it is tit for tat, like Betsey and her hens."

The children now returned to their parents, whom they found sitting on a bench.

Willy then made his request, and was much pleased to hear his mother say that they intended seeing the factory the next day; "but," added she, "we did not mean to take you with us; we thought you were too young to understand it, and that you would like better to stay with your friend Anna, and help her to gather fruit."

Willy thought that gathering fruit with Anna was a very nice thing too, but Johnny had raised his curiosity to see the factory so much, that he answered, "Oh no, pray let me go with you, for though I don't understand a factory much now, I dare say I shall when I see it; Johnny and Betsey have told me all about it; I shall know the great wheel, and the spindles, and what the children are doing when they fasten the broken threads together."

His parents, finding he had learnt so much already, promised he should go with them.

"And pray, Papa, let us go to the factory at Milford, where Johnny's uncle works;" and he was much pleased when he heard that was the factory they intended seeing, as it belonged to Mr. Joseph Strutt.

It was now time for them to return to the inn; so they took leave of the blind woman and her family.

"I am afraid you will soon forget me," said Willy sorrowfully; "I wish I had something to give you for a keepsake to make you remember me;" and he felt in his pockets, and found a teetotum and a few marbles, besides the ball, which he did not like to part with, his Papa having just given it to him; so he gave the teetotum to Betsey and the marbles to Johnny, and they promised to keep them for his sake. Willy was very sorry to part with his young friends, and the old ones too, for he liked them all: Granny, because she took such good care of her blind daughter, and looked so cheerful and good tempered; and the blind woman, because he pitied her; and Martha, because she was his first friend; and Johnny and Betsey, because they had all been so happy together;--so, for one reason or other, he liked them all.

TREES.

When Willy and his parents returned to the inn, they could talk of nothing but Mr. Joseph Strutt, and the beautiful gardens.

"I declare," said Willy's mother, "I never felt so proud in my life as when he gave me his arm to walk about the gardens; I fancied every body who passed us and smiled, seemed to think how happy I must be; and then he showed me all the curious trees which came from foreign countries; for, said he, I wish these gardens not only to amuse the people, but to teach them something; therefore I have planted trees and shrubs of various sorts, that those who wish to study the properties of plants may learn them, and turn their knowledge to some purpose; thus I have tried to make these gardens useful as well as pleasant."

"But, Mamma," said Willy, "are trees of any other use but to look pretty and shade us from the sun?" This was the last use Willy had made of them, and he did not just then think of any other.

"Willy!" exclaimed his mamma, "was the cherry-tree you climbed this morning of no other use?"

"Oh, to be sure! ripe cherries grow upon it, and they are so good to eat; and then there are apples on apple-trees, and pears on pear-trees, and fruit of some kind or other on all the trees; but no," continued he, "after a little thinking, there is no fruit on the oak tree, nor on the elm, nor on a great many other trees."

"Yes, there is," replied his mamma, "but the fruit is not good for us to eat; the oak bears acorns, which the pigs are fond of."

"And I like them to play with, but not to eat; and I like horse-chestnuts to play with, but I like the good chestnuts to eat."

"Well," observed his mother, "the oak and the elm, and the pine and the beech, and all those trees which do not bear fruit fit for us to eat, are of use to us for other purposes."

"Oh yes, their fruit is fit to play with."

"Something better than that, Willy; cannot you find out?"

Willy thought and thought again, but he would not guess, as some children do, hap-hazard, without any reason; so his mamma helped him a little by bidding him go and stamp upon the floor, in a part of the room where the boards were uncovered.

Willy, who was never fond of standing still, and preferred running or stamping to walking, set off with a hop, skip, and a jump, to the further end of the room, where the floor was uncovered, and began stamping on the boards with all his might; at length he suddenly stopped and exclaimed, "Ah, the boards! the boards are made of wood, and wood is made of the trunk of a tree; so that is the use of trees which do not bear good fruit."

"And of those which do, sometimes," replied his mother: "the wood of the cherry-tree is one of the lightest; so if you want to have some light chairs that children can move about, you must have them made of the planks of the cherry-tree. The oak and the elm, and all those large trees whose fruit is not good to eat, are called forest trees, because they commonly grow in woods or forests; but fruit trees we plant nearer home, in our orchards and gardens, that we may easily gather the fruit."

"Oh yes," cried Willy, "as Anna and I did."

"Well," continued his mother, "trees and plants of all kinds have many more uses than you can understand at your age, or than I can tell you, old as I am. But there is one thing you must remember, which is, that all plants were first created by God Almighty, and that all that He makes is useful and good."

"But, Mamma," said Willy, thoughtfully, "I remember your telling me once never to touch the berries which grew on the laurel bush on the lawn, because they were poisonous; and nurse says there are a great many other plants that are poisonous. Why did God make them, Mamma, for, you know, poisons kill people?"

"God made poisons to cure people," replied she: "do you remember last week when you suffered so much from the ear-ache?"

"Oh, that I do, the pain was so bad. I think I shall never forget it. I could not sleep all night; and as soon as it was light, nurse went to fetch you, and you laid my aching ear on your shoulder, and then you poured three drops of something which looked like water into my drink, and it took the pain away, and I fell asleep. Was it those three drops that cured the pain?"

"Yes, and it was those drops too which sent you to sleep."

"Oh, if I had known that, I do think I should have drunk up the whole of the bottle; it was but a little one, you know."

"Well, my dear, the drops I poured into your drink were poison; if I had given you six drops instead of three, they would have made you ill, and if you had swallowed all that was in the bottle, it would have killed you. So you see that poisons may kill as well as cure. God created plants which are poisonous to cure us when we are ill; they are then wholesome and good for us."

"Then God is very good to have made these plants, though they are poisonous?"

"Yes, my dear. Whatever God creates is for some good purpose, though we cannot always understand it.

"There are a great many poisons of different sorts; most of them take away pain and send you to sleep, others cure particular diseases. Your grandmamma scarcely ever sleeps without taking morphine."

"Yes, I know that," said Willy, "but I did not think, that morphine was a poison. I suppose that is why she keeps it locked up."

"Yes, for fear that the children should hurt themselves with it. But, now, Willy, it is time for you to go to bed; and after all you have seen and done to-day, you must be tired, and will go to sleep without taking any poison."

Willy kissed his papa and mamma, and was just going out of the room, when the waiter brought in a parcel directed to Master Willy.

"That's me," exclaimed Willy: "what can it be?"

"Let us open the parcel," said his mother, "and then we shall find out what it is."

They untied the string, and unfolded the paper which covered the parcel, and what should there be within but a large piece of plumcake!

"Oh! I know what it is," said Willy, "though I never saw it before; it is a piece of the cake Granny slapped so hard, and they have sent it me, because I gave them the teetotum and the marbles."

This proved true; but until Willy explained it, his papa and mamma could not understand what he meant.

Willy begged they would taste the cake, and having eaten a little bit himself, he went to bed and soon fell asleep.

THE FACTORY VISITED.

The next day they went to see the factory, or cotton mills, at Milford. As there was no railroad from Derby to Milford, they were driven with horses, and Willy was very glad to see his old friends, the horses, once more. It is true, that they did not go so fast as the train, and that he was impatient to arrive, and was continually popping his head out of the window in hopes of seeing the factory. His father told him that he must look out for the smoke from the chimney of the great steam engine which put all the machinery in motion; but Willy answered, "It is a water-wheel, Papa, not a steam-engine, that makes every thing turn at these mills. Johnny told me so." Willy felt a sort of pride that he knew something his papa did not; but when he thought about it, he said to himself, it would be very foolish to be proud of that, 'for it was only by chance I heard it.' At last they reached Milford, and the carriage drove into a large court-yard surrounded by buildings in which the work was carried on. Willy was at first a good deal bewildered at the sight of the machinery, and the noise it made in working. In one room he saw large bales of cotton wool which had been brought from foreign countries, and which men were unpacking. Willy observed that it looked untidy and dirty, not like the nice cotton wool mamma had at home.

"You will see the difference after it is carded," said one of the men. "We begin by carding or pulling it to pieces, and then we squeeze it between two great rollers, and you shall see how clean it comes out." And he took them into another room, where the wool came out from between two rollers, and it looked so white and soft that Willy said, it put him in mind of wreaths of snow. He asked this man if he knew a little boy called Johnny, whose mother was blind.

"Yes," replied he, "I am his uncle. Have you seen him lately? I have not heard of him for a long time."

Willy was much pleased to have found out Johnny's uncle, and to be able to tell him that Johnny was well, and to give him news of all the family.

They then went into another work-room, where they saw the cotton twisting into threads, and the children busy joining these threads when they broke. This pleased him much, for after all he had heard from Johnny, they seemed like old acquaintances; but he asked what those children were doing who went about wiping every thing.

"All this twisting and twirling of the cotton wool," said his father, "makes a great deal of dust, which would injure the machinery, and prevent it from working, if it collected on it; so these children are employed to wipe it away, and keep every thing clean."

They then went into another room where the cotton-thread, which had been wound off from the spindles after it had been sufficiently spun, was being made up into skeins, and this was done by women and children. At last they were taken to see the great water-wheel which put all the machinery into motion, and Willy declared that it was as big again as the wheel at the corn-mill, and he thought it must be as strong as a hundred horses to be able to make so many things move.

"Everything seems alive in the factory," said he; "nothing stands still except the people, who are really alive, and they move only when they have threads to tie, or other work to do, whilst the machinery is at work all day long; it works a great deal harder, and does a great deal more, than all the live people."

"Very true," observed his papa, "but the machinery would work to no purpose if these living people did not set things to rights when they went wrong."

"Yes," said Willy, "if there was nobody to join the threads when they broke, the wheel might go round and round for ever; there would be no thread to twist."

He then asked if all the people who worked in the factory were paid for it.

"Certainly," replied his papa, "they are paid by the person to whom the factory belongs."

"He must have a great deal of money to pay so many people; where does he get it all?"

"By selling the thread after it is spun," said his mamma.

"There must be a great deal of cotton-thread to sell, indeed," said Willy; "but do you think he will get money enough for it, to pay all these people?"

"Yes, and a great deal more; for he must get money enough to pay for the cotton, which comes from countries a great way off, and for all the machinery. And then he must get something over, for he would not take so much trouble, if he did not make some profits to put into his pocket."

"What are _profits_?" inquired Willy.

"I will tell you what profits are," said his mother; "it is the _little over_ which the landlady makes at the inn."

"But a manufacture is not at all like an inn," observed Willy.

"Not much," replied she; "but the manufacturer buys the cotton, and when he has spun it into thread he sells it again, and he sells it for more than it cost him, and what he gets over is profit."

"Oh yes, now I understand it," said Willy, "and with what he gets over he buys clothes and dinners for his children, and sends them to school, as the landlady did."

"Yes," said his father, "he may spend his profits in whatever manner he chooses. And it has pleased the good Mr. Joseph Strutt, to whom this factory belongs, to spend a great deal of his profits in making that fine garden for the people."

"Oh how good he is!" cried Willy. "But, Papa, does every body who sells things sell them for a little more than the things cost him?"

"Yes," said his father. "But we have had enough of buying and selling now, and I should think more than enough to puzzle your little head."

"I was puzzled," said Willy, "till I thought of the landlady at the inn and her pockets full of money, made by people paying a little over, and then I understood it."

The next day they continued their journey by railway, and arrived safely at grandmamma's country-house, where they were to spend a month.

THE COUNTRY HOUSE.

Willy was highly delighted with every thing he saw at his grandmamma's house; it was quite unlike his papa's house in town; the rooms were smaller, and the curtains, and tables, and chairs were not so fine; but then there were cows with their calves in the cow-house, and horses with their young colts in the stables, and sheep in the meadows with their lambs skipping about them, and hens with their chickens in the poultry yard, and ducks and geese swimming in the pond; and they all looked as if they were so happy and so hungry; for, excepting the birds, which were swimming in the water, they were all busy eating. "As for the cows and sheep," said Willy, "they may eat all day long, and I believe they do; for only look at that cow, Grandmamma, lying down to rest; she is still chewing the grass she has been eating."

"That cows always do," replied his grandmother; "when they eat grass they do not chew it, but put it into a sort of bag, or pouch, they have inside them, and when the bag is full they lie down, and whilst they are resting they bring the grass out of this pouch back into their mouths, chew it at their leisure, and then swallow it, just as we do our food."

Grandmamma then took Willy to a little garden, which had been made on purpose for him. "The gardener," said she, "has got it into very good order for you, and you are to keep it so. Look at these rows of peas, they are now in blossom--next week these blossoms will fall."

"Oh! I shall be very sorry for that," said Willy; "they look so pretty, and they smell so sweet," added he, putting his nose close to one of the flowers, "it is a pity they do not last longer."

"But when they are gone something better, though not so pretty, will come in their place; instead of flowers, there will be peas in a pod."

"I know what pea-pods are," said Willy, "very well; for though we have no garden in London, the cook buys peas, and sometimes Mamma lets me shell them. I like shelling peas very much, the pod cracks and opens so nicely, and the pretty little round peas lie so straight in a row. But how can these flowers turn into pods? they are not the least like pods."

"Perhaps we may find a pod already formed," said his grandmother, "and then you will see." So she took Willy by the hand, and they looked carefully all over the row of peas a long time without success; at last they found upon one stalk the remains of a flower, the greater part of which had already fallen to the ground. Grandmamma picked off what remained, and then showed Willy a very small pod; but she would not open it, "because," she said, "the peas would be too small to eat, she thought not larger than pins heads; next week," added she, "they will be fit to gather, and then you will give mamma and me a dish of peas from your garden." Willy was highly pleased at this idea, and declared he would shell them himself; he only regretted that next week would be so long coming.

"Well," said his grandmamma, "let us see if there is nothing ripe for you to gather now. Here are some lettuces, rather small yet, it is true, but I think, if you choose two or three of the largest, they will make a salad."

"Oh, Grandmamma," said Willy, "they must be large enough, for they are twenty times bigger than a pea."

"That don't signify; peas and lettuces cannot be compared together, they are so different." She then took out her garden-knife, and showed Willy how to cut a lettuce, and having cut one herself, she let Willy cut two; the first he cut rather awkwardly, but with the second he succeeded tolerably well. "Now," said he, "I must take them in to the cook, to be boiled."

"No, you are thinking again of your peas; lettuces are eaten without any boiling; you have only to wash them well, and pour some oil and vinegar over them, with a little salt, and they will make a nice salad."

Willy then gathered a nosegay for his mamma: he chose first a full-blown rose; "then," said he, "there must be some buds too; little buds are like the little children of the rose, and mamma is very fond of little children;" then he gathered some jessamine and several other flowers, and was very proud that this beautiful nosegay should come from his own garden, and he felt that he loved his grandmamma better than ever for having given it to him. The only fear he had was that he should not know how to keep it in order; "I have seen a gardener dig and hoe," said he, "but their spades and hoes are so large and so heavy, that when I tried to use them, I could scarcely lift them." Grandmamma then called to the gardener, who was at work in another part of the garden, and he came up, holding his spade in his hand. Willy tried to handle it, but he could scarcely lift it from the ground. He looked very sorrowful, but grandmamma smiled, and said, "Little children must have little tools to work with." She then took him to a tool-house, where, amongst a number of large tools, she found a complete set of small ones, fit for a boy of Willy's age to use. Oh! if you had but seen how he jumped about for joy, and then sprang up to kiss his grandmamma for her charming present!

"These tools will be of no use," said she, "unless you know how to work with them; but if you are a good child, and mind what the gardener tells you, you will learn to be a little gardener yourself."

"That I will," said Willy; "I shall be a little gardener, just big enough for my little garden."

They then returned to the house, and grandmamma took out her spinning-wheel and began to spin. This delighted Willy, who immediately told her all he had seen at the factory, and how much her wheel was like the machinery there; and then he laughed, and said, "that her foot had been compared to a steam-engine."

"Not quite so powerful," replied she; "but it is strong enough to set every thing going in my little factory; and a factory it is, as well as the great ones, for it makes thread as good as they do, though not so much, I must allow."

THE GARDENER.

The gardener, who had promised to teach Willy gardening, said he was just then very busy about his celery, but that if he would come to him in the evening he would be at leisure; "or if," added he, "you like to come and see me at work now, you may learn something." Willy willingly agreed to do this; so he tied up his tools, and carried them over his shoulder. The gardener said, "if he meant to see him work, he must not meddle with his tools, as it would interrupt him, and he should not be able to get on with his work." Willy promised he would not use his new tools, but he could not bear to part with them.