Wise in his daily work was he:
To fruits of diligence,
And not to faiths or polity,
He plied his utmost sense.
These perfect in their little parts,
Whose work is all their prize--
Without them how could laws, or arts,
Or towered cities rise?
In watching effects, if only of an electric battery, it is often
necessary to change our place and examine a particular mixture or group
at some distance from the point where the movement we are interested in
was set up. The group I am moving towards is at Caleb Garth's
breakfast-table in the large parlor where the maps and desk were:
father, mother, and five of the children. Mary was just now at home
waiting for a situation, while Christy, the boy next to her, was
getting cheap learning and cheap fare in Scotland, having to his
father's disappointment taken to books instead of that sacred calling
"business."
The letters had come--nine costly letters, for which the postman had
been paid three and twopence, and Mr. Garth was forgetting his tea and
toast while he read his letters and laid them open one above the other,
sometimes swaying his head slowly, sometimes screwing up his mouth in
inward debate, but not forgetting to cut off a large red seal unbroken,
which Letty snatched up like an eager terrier.
The talk among the rest went on unrestrainedly, for nothing disturbed
Caleb's absorption except shaking the table when he was writing.
Two letters of the nine had been for Mary. After reading them, she had
passed them to her mother, and sat playing with her tea-spoon absently,
till with a sudden recollection she returned to her sewing, which she
had kept on her lap during breakfast.
"Oh, don't sew, Mary!" said Ben, pulling her arm down. "Make me a
peacock with this bread-crumb." He had been kneading a small mass for
the purpose.
"No, no, Mischief!" said Mary, good-humoredly, while she pricked his
hand lightly with her needle. "Try and mould it yourself: you have
seen me do it often enough. I must get this sewing done. It is for
Rosamond Vincy: she is to be married next week, and she can't be
married without this handkerchief." Mary ended merrily, amused with
the last notion.
"Why can't she, Mary?" said Letty, seriously interested in this
mystery, and pushing her head so close to her sister that Mary now
turned the threatening needle towards Letty's nose.
"Because this is one of a dozen, and without it there would only be
eleven," said Mary, with a grave air of explanation, so that Letty sank
back with a sense of knowledge.