Part 5

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.

When they reached the celery bed, Willy thought the celery looked very nice and clean, and that the gardener was going to gather it, for he remembered having eaten some in salad; and he asked the gardener if he would give him "one stick of celery to put into his salad of lettuces?" but the gardener said, the celery was not fit for gathering yet; and, to Willy's great surprise, he found that the gardener was busy covering all these plants with earth, and patting it over them with his spade, just as if they were dirty rubbish, fit for nothing but to be buried in the ground. He could not help crying out, "Oh dear! how can you cover that nice celery with dirt? you will quite spoil it."

"Not a bit," replied the gardener; "it will grow much finer and whiter under the ground than above it. If I let it grow up like other plants, it would be green like them, and so bitter that you could not eat it; but when it is covered up from the light it grows white and crisp, and good to eat."

"Well," said Willy, "I never should have thought that all that dirty earth could have done it any good."

"Your nurse will call this earth dirt if it gets upon your clothes and soils them; but I can tell you, that earth is one of the best things we have. What would become of this garden if there were not earth for the trees and plants of all sorts to grow in? Why, you would have neither flowers nor fruit, and I'm sure that would not please you!"

"No indeed," said Willy, "but you do not cover all the other plants with earth, as you do the celery?"

"No, because we do not want them to grow white; they do much better with green leaves and coloured blossoms and fruit; so we only cover their roots with earth: that is what all plants want. Ah! you little know all the good that happens under this dirty ground, which you despise so much. Have you never sown any seeds?"

"Oh yes, very often."

"Well, then, you know, seeds are little brown things, much of the colour of dirt, and perhaps you may think no better of them than you do of earth; but do you know what they grow into when they are sown?"

"Yes; they turn into flowers, and leaves, and all sorts of pretty things. But I cannot think how all this happens in that dark dirty place underground. I wish I could make a hole down deep enough in the earth to see how the seed is changing into the pretty plant."

"But if you did," replied the gardener, "you could not see what passed there, it is so dark. We none of us know how it is done; but we know who it is that does it. It is the good God, who does so many wonderful things; and we must never forget to thank him for it. However, I know a little more about it than you do, for I have done nothing but work in the garden these fifty years and more. I have sown so many seeds, and watered so many flowers, and gathered so much fruit, that it would be strange if I did not know something about it."

"But you cannot see in the dark any better than I can," said Willy: "so how can you know what happens to the seed underground?"

"It is not by looking at the seed underground, but by taking it up when it is beginning to grow, that I see how it grows. Come along with me," said he, taking Willy by the hand, and carrying his hoe with the other; and he led him to another part of the garden, where there was a bed of fresh earth raked over, quite smooth and neat.

"Are you going to sow some seeds in this bed?" asked Willy, "for there is nothing growing in it?"

"I sowed the seeds some days ago, and by this time I am sure they are all growing; that is, beginning to change into plants; but they have not had time to grow up above ground yet:" then he took his hoe, and turned up a little bit of the earth, and there he found three or four seeds of kidney beans beginning to sprout out and grow. He took up one, and showing it to Willy, said, "Look here, what has happened to this seed!"

"I don't know," replied Willy, "but I think it must have been broken in falling, when it was sown, for you see it is split quite open, and spoiled; so this poor seed will never grow."

"It is not spoiled at all," said the gardener; "for it must be split open to be changed into a plant. The skin of the seed cracks, and through the crack the little stem or stalk of the plant grows up."

"But there is nothing growing out of this split seed."

"No, there has not been time for the stem to grow long enough to get through the crack. But let us go to the other end of the row, where the seeds were sown a day or two earlier." They did so, and upon turning up the earth they found several seeds in which a little stem was growing out of the split seed. This delighted Willy, who also picked up a seed which seemed to have two stems, but the gardener told him one of them was the root of the plant, and would grow down into the ground instead of upright into the air. Then looking carefully along the bed, they saw several tiny stems, scarcely bigger than threads, peeping above ground.

"I should like to know all about these seeds and flowers," said Willy, "it is so very curious."

"I cannot teach you more than I have learnt myself by working in my garden; but there are many people who know more about it from reading in books, and I dare say when you grow up your papa will teach you more about it."

The good old gardener then took Willy back to the house; and every evening Willy went with him to learn how to work in his little garden. The following week the peas were large enough to gather, and Willy shelled them himself; and, I believe, he watched them whilst they were boiling on the fire; and if he had been strong enough I do think he would have carried them himself and placed them on the dinner table; however, he had the satisfaction of seeing them, and hearing them praised by his parents, and he thought he had never tasted any thing so good in all his life.

THE LITTLE COWARD.

When Willy had been some time at his grandmother's, and made acquaintance with every thing about the farm, and had been taught by the old gardener to take care of his little garden, his grandmother told him that she expected some friends from London. She said they would bring with them a little boy about his own age, who, she hoped, would make a pleasant companion for him; "I do not know him," added she, "but as he has always lived in London, I dare say every thing in the country will be new to him and amuse him." The thoughts of a play-fellow pleased Willy much, and he was watching the greater part of the day for the arrival of the carriage: at last he heard the trotting of the horses, and the rolling of the wheels, and presently a carriage stopped at the door, and the bell rung. The party soon alighted, and appeared in the drawing-room; but the little boy, whose name was Tommy, attracted all Willy's attention. There was some shyness between them at first, but they soon got over it, and made acquaintance; and then Willy took Tommy away to show him his garden. There they feasted on gooseberries and currants; but unfortunately Tommy, in thrusting his hand into a gooseberry-bush, got a thorn into one of his fingers, which hurt him sadly.

"Oh! you must come in and have it taken out," said Willy, "and then the pain will be over."

But Tommy did not like to do this, for he fancied that taking it out would give him still more pain; however he was ashamed to say so, and went into the house and told his mamma what had happened.

"You see, Mamma," said he, "that I was not afraid of thrusting my hand into the gooseberry-bush." Poor Tommy knew he was a coward, and therefore he was very glad when he had any thing which he thought courageous to boast of.

"I think it would have been better if you had been afraid," replied his mother. "There is always danger of being pricked, at least by thorns, when you put your hand into a gooseberry-bush, and you should never run into danger when there is no reason for it."