How Willie went on. 151

 

too, by means of which they were able to take in
grannie; and, for a long time now, he had been
doing every little repair wanted in the house. Ifa
lock went wrong, he would have it off at once and
taken to pieces, If less would not do, he carried
it to the smithy, but very seldom troubled Mr
Willett about it, for he had learned to do small
jobs, and to heat and work and temper a piece of
iron within his strength as well as any man. His
mother did not much like this part of his general
apprenticeship, for he would get his hands so black
sometimes on a Saturday afternoon that he could
not get them clean enough for church the next day ;
and sometimes he would come home with little
holes burnt here and there in his clothes by the
sparks from the red-hot iron when beaten on the
anvil. Concerning this last evil, she spoke at length
to Hector, who made him a leather apron, like Mr
Willett’s, which thereafter he always wore when he
had a job to do in the smithy.

It is well, I say, that the utility of such of his
doings as these will be admitted by all; for some
other objects upon which he spent much labour
would, by most people, be regarded as utterly use-
less, Few, for instance, would allow there was any
value in a water-wheel which could grind no corn,
and was of service only to wake him in the middle
of the night—not for work, not for the learning of
a single lesson, but only that he might stare out of