“Yes, papa, a great number.”
“Do you know what those pods contain?”
“Yes; little, black, shining seeds; the seeds of the laburnum-tree.”
“I want to have all those seeds, that I may sow them in the ground, and that I may have more laburnum-trees. Now, Frank, if, before the sun sets this evening, you bring me all those seeds, I will give you straw enough to mend the thatch of your house.”
“Thank you, papa. I will work very hard, and gather them as fast as I can.” Frank ran for his basket, and began to pluck the pods from the lower branches of one of the laburnums. Soon he had filled his basket with the pods; and then those which he tried to cram in “at the top of the basket sprang up again, and fell over the sides; so he began to make a heap on the ground of the pods which he afterwards pulled from the tree. When he had finished gathering all that he could reach from the lower branches of one tree, he went to the lower branches of the next, and made a heap under that tree; and so on. There were nine laburnum-trees; and when he had got to the ninth tree, and was pulling the seeds from that, he heard a rustling noise behind him; and, turning round, he saw Pompey, the little dog, dragging the laburnum seeds about in his mouth.
“O Pompey! Pompey! let those alone!” cried Frank.
But as fast as he drove him from one heap, Pompey ran to another, and scratched and scattered about the heaps with his feet; and snatched up the pods in his mouth, and scampered with them over the garden, while Frank ran after him; till at last he caught the dog; and, in spite of Pompey’s struggling, carried him out of the garden, and shut the door. When he had put Pompey out, he collected all his pods together again; and, just when he had done so, the gardener opened the garden door, and Pompey was squeezing in between the gardener’s legs; but Frank called aloud, to beg that the gar-
dener would keep him out; and, every time any body opened the garden door, Frank was obliged to watch, and to call to them, making the same request. This was so troublesome, and interrupted him so often, that Frank thought it would be better to carry his heaps of pods into his garden house, and lock the door, so that Pompey could not get in to pull them about. Frank carried the heaps, dropping many pods by the way, and going backwards and forwards so often, that this took up a great deal of time. He heard the clock strike three.
“Three o’clock already!” said Frank to himself, looking at the number of pods which hung on the upper branches of the laburnums. “How much I have to do, and how little I have done! O Pompey! Pompey! you don’t know the mischief you have done me,” said he, as the dog squeezed his way in, when the gardener again opened the garden door.
“Indeed, master,” said the gardener, “I cannot keep him out.”
“Well, Pompey, come in! you cannot do me any more harm. Now you may run snuffling about the garden as much as you please, for my seeds are safe locked up.”
But, though the pods were safe, yet it wasted Frank’s time sadly to lock and unlock the door every time he had a fresh basket-full to throw into the house; and he was obliged to keep the basket hanging always upon his arm, lest Pompey should get at it. Frank lost time, also, in jumping up and down every five minutes from the stool, on which he was obliged to stand to reach the pods from the higher branches, and moving his stool from place to place took up time. Presently, he had gathered all that he could reach when standing upon the stool, even when he stood on tiptoe, and stretched as far as he could possibly reach. Then there was time lost in fixing a step-ladder, which his father lent to him, upon condition that he should never get upon it till he had fixed it quite steadily, and had put in a certain prop, all which required some minutes to settle properly. The running up and down this ladder, with his basket, continually, as it was filled, tired Frank, and delayed him so much, that he got on with his business very slowly, though he worked as hard as he could.
The morning passed, and the evening came; and, after dinner, Frank jumped from his chair as soon as the table-cloth was taken away, and said he must go to his work, for that he was afraid he should not be able to finish it before sunset. His brother Edward and his three cousins said that they would help him, if his father had no objection. His father said that he had no objection; that he would be glad that they should help Frank, because he had worked hard, and had been so good humored when the little dog had hindered him.
Frank ran to the laburnum-trees, followed by his brother and cousins, rejoicing. As he went, he said, “Now we shall get on so quick! as quickly as we did when you all helped me to move the flower-pots.”
“Yes,” said Edward, “and for the same reason.”
“Yes, because there are so many of us,” said Frank.
“And for another reason,” said Edward.
“What other reason?”
“Look, and you will see,” said his father.
Then Edward settled, that each person should do so, that they might each do what they could do best, and that they might help one another, and do what they wanted, as quickly as they could. Edward was to stand upon the ladder, because he was the tallest, and he could reach most easily to the uppermost branches of the tree; he was not obliged to run up and down the ladder, to carry the seeds; because Frank was appointed to collect and carry the pods off, as fast as Edward gathered and threw them to the ground. Frederick and William sat on the grass at the door of the hut, where the great heap had been collected; and it was Charles’s business to supply them with pods, from which they shelled the seeds. As soon as Edward had finished pulling all the seeds from the trees, he joined Frederick and William, and helped to shell the seeds — that is, to pick them out of the pods; and as soon as Frank had brought from underneath the trees all the pods that had been thrown there, he was set to open the pods, ready for the pickers; and Charles, who had by this time brought out all that were in the hut, was now employed constantly in collecting and throwing into a heap the empty husks; because it was found, that time had been lost in searching the empty husks, which had been often mistaken, at first sight, for full pods.
“Ay,” said Frank, “now I see the other reason that you meant, Edward; I see why we go on so quickly and well; because each person does one thing, and the thing he can do best; so, no time is lost.”
No time was lost. And they finished their work, had the laburnum seeds shelled and collected in a brown paper bag, and all the rubbish and husks cleared away, just as the sun was setting.
“Here are mamma and papa coming to see if we have done!” cried Frank; “and we have done. Come, papa; come as quickly as you please; here are the seeds all ready! But do you know, papa,” continued Frank, as he put the bag of seeds into his father’s hands, “it was as much as ever we could do? for I lost so much time this morning. It was all we could do to make up for it this evening. And, though there were so many of us, and though we all went on as fast as we could, I am sure we should never have finished it in time if we had not managed as we have done.”
His father asked him in what manner they had managed. Frank explained, and showed how they had divided the work among them, so as to save time. His father told him that manufacturers and workmen, who are obliged to do a great deal of work in a short time, always, if they are wise, help one another, and save time, in the same manner that he and his brother and cousins had done. “And this,” added he, turning to Edward “this is what is called the division of labor, “In making this pin,” continued he, taking a pin from Frank’s mother,—”in making a pin, eighteen different workmen are employed. In a manufactory for making pins, each workman does that part which he can do best. One man draws out the wire, of which, the pins are made; another straightens it; a third cuts it; a fourth grinds it at the top, ready to receive the heads. To make the heads, requires the different work of two or three men. Another man’s business is to put on the heads; another’s, to sharpen the points; and sticking the pins in the papers is a business by itself. Now, one workman, if he was to try to make a pin, without any assistance from others, could not, proba
bly, make a single pin; certainly he would not be able to make twenty in a day. But, with even nine men to assist him, dividing the labor amongst them, as I have described to you, they could, altogether, make forty-eight thousand pins in a day; so that each of the ten men might be reckoned to make four thousand eight hundred pins.”
“Ten men make forty-eight thousand pins in a day!” cried Frank; “and one man four thousand eight hundred pins! O papa! is this true?”
“Yes, I believe it is true,” said his father. “When we go in, your brother Edward shall read to us an account of this, if he likes it from the book in which I read it. But, Frank, look! what comes here!” added his father, pointing to a laborer, who now came into the garden with a great bundle of straw. “Where would you like to have it put?” Frank chose to have it in his garden house; and his father ordered that it should be put there. Then Frank thanked his brother and cousins for helping him so kindly; and he said, that he thought he should never forget the advantage of the division of labor.
Some time ago, Frank had told his father that he would persevere in trying to learn to read, that he might be able to employ and to entertain himself. He did as he said that he would do. He persevered, till he had learned to read quite easily. Then he read, in books which his mother lent him, accounts of the camel; of which, ever since he had seen the print of it, he had wished to know the history. He read, also, entertaining accounts of the elephant, and of many other animals. In the books which were lent -to him, he read only what he could understand; when he came to any thing that he did not understand, he asked his father or mother to explain it to him. If they had not time to attend to him, or to answer his questions, he went on to some other part of the book, which he could understand; or he left off reading, and went to do something else. Whenever he felt tired of reading, or whenever he wanted to hear or see something that was going on in the room with him, and found that he could not attend to what he was reading, he always shut the book and put it away; he never kept the book before him when he was tired, or sleepy, or when he was thinking of something else.
So Frank became very fond of reading.
He could now employ himself happily on rainy days, when he could not run out of doors, or when he had no one to talk or to play with in the house. At night, when the candles came, and when all the rest of the family began to read, Frank also could read; and he said, —
“Papa, now I am as happy as you are when the candles come! Thank you, mamma, for teaching me to read.”
His mother gave him a book called “The Book of Trades.” When she gave it to him, she said to him, —
“Frank, there are many parts of this book which you cannot yet understand; but yon will, I think, be entertained by looking over the prints of the men and women at work at their different trades, and you will understand some of the descriptions of what they are doing.”
Frank thanked his mother, and he looked over all the prints in the four volumes of this book. He looked at each print carefully, and examined every thing in it before he turned over the leaf, to look for another.
He was pleased with the print of the chandler, making candles; and of the shoemaker, making shoes; and of the turner, turning at his lathe; and of the rope-maker, making ropes; and of the weaver, working at his loom. After he had looked at thèse prints, he read some of the explanations and descriptions, in hopes that he should be better able to understand the prints. He began with the chandler, who, as his mother told him, is a person who makes candles; and Frank was curious to know how candles are made. But there were several words, in this account of candle-making, of which he did not know the meaning; and there was one whole sentence, about bales of cotton performing quarantine, which puzzled him sadly. His mother explained to him several of the words which he did not understand; but she told him, that she could not then explain to him what was meant by performing quarantine; and that he could understand how candles were made, without having this sentence explained to him.
“Mamma,” said Frank, “I do now know pretty well how they are made; but I think I should understand it all a great deal better, if I were to see it done. Mamma, I wish I could see somebody making candles.”
A few days afterwards, Frank’s mother called him to her, and told him that the cook was going to make some candles. “Should you like to see them made, Frank?”
“Yes, very much indeed!” said Frank; “thank you, mamma, for calling me.”
Then his mother took him to the room where the cook was preparing to make mould candles. The first thing he saw was a large saucepan, which the cook had taken off the fire to cool. Frank asked what was in the saucepan. He was told that it was full of melted mutton-suet. Some suet, which had not been melted, was shown to him; he said that it looked like cold fat, and he was told that this suet was the fat of mutton.
The next thing which Frank saw was a wooden frame, or stand, about the height of a common table. In this stand were a number of round holes, through each of which hung a tube, or hollow pipe, of pewter, the size of a candle. These hollow pipes were taper; that is, narrower at one end than at the other, and growing narrower and narrower by degrees. The largest ends were uppermost, as the pipes hung in the frame; so that they looked like the shape of candles, with the part that is usually lighted hanging downwards; at the narrow end, these pewter tubes were made in the shape of the top of a tallow candle, before it is lighted.
“Mamma, I know what this is!” cried Frank; “and I know what it is for. It is the same sort of thing which I saw in the print of the tallow chandler, in the Book of Trades. These pipes are the moulds in which the candles are to be made; the melted stuff — the melted suet — is to be poured into this open month, and it runs all the way down, down. Then it is left to cool, and then it is pulled out, and the candle is made; this broadest end is the bottom of the candle, which is to go into the candlestick, and this narrow end the top; it is hanging upside-down now. You see I understand it all, mamma!”
“Stay, Frank; do not be in such a hurry; do not be too quick. You do not understand it all, yet. You have not observed or discovered some things, in these moulds, which are necessary to be known; and you have forgotten the most material part of a candle.”
“What can that be, mamma? Tell me, pray.”
“I would rather that you should think, and find it out for yourself, Frank.”
Frank considered a little, and then answered, —
“Mamma, I have thought of every thing, and I can think of nothing else. Here are the moulds, and the melted grease, which is to be poured into the moulds, to make the candle. What can be wanting?”
“How would you light the candle?” said his mother.
“By the wick, to be sure! O the wick! I forgot the wick! Where is the wick? What is the wick made of?”
“It is made of cotton. Look here, master!” said the cook, showing him a ball of coarse cotton.
“And how do you get this cotton into the middle of the candle?”
“That I will show you, sir,” said the cook. She then took one of the candle-moulds out of the wooden frame, in which it hung; and Frank looked at the narrow end, which had hung downwards, and he saw, at the bottom, a little hole; and he said, —
“Here is a little hole; this must be stopped, or else all the melted tallow will run through it. Shall I stop it up with this bit of paper, mamma? I will roll it up and make a stopper, shall I?”
“No, thank you, master!” said the cook. “You shall see how I will stop it up.”
Then she doubled the cotton, which she held in her hand; and she cut off as much as would reach from one end of the candle-mould to the other, and a little more. Then she put the cotton, just where she had doubled it, in at the broadest end of the mould, and she let it fall all down the pipe, to the small hole, at the narrow end; and by means of a wire, she drew the cotton through the hole, leaving a loop of cotton, as long as that which is commonly seen at the wick of a tallow candle which has not been lighted. Then she stuck a peg
of wood into the little hole; this peg, together with the cotton which had been put through the hole, stopped it up completely, so that none of the melted tallow could run through it. She next tied the other ends of the cotton together, and put a small bit of wood, like a skewer, through the loop which she had made by tying the cotton together. This skewer lay across the broad end of the mould, and fitted into two notches, in the outer rim of the mould, at opposite sides. The cotton was now tight in the mould, from top to bottom. Prank looked into the mould, and saw that it was so.
“Cook, why are you so careful to make the cotton tight, and to put it just in the middle of the mould?” said Frank.
“That the wick of my candle may be in the middle,” said the cook. “In good candles, the wick must always be in the middle.” When the cook had put cotton, in the same manner, into all the moulds, she was ready to pour the melted tallow into them. Frank was afraid that the tallow had grown cold, because the saucepan, in which it was, had been taken off the fire some time. But the cook said, it was quite warm enough; that it would not make good candles if it was very hot. As Frank now went close to the large saucepan, he saw that there was a smaller saucepan withinside of it. The smaller saucepan held the melted tallow; and, between the large and the smaller saucepan, the space was filled with water; both at the sides and at the bottom, between the small and large saucepan, there was water. Frank asked the reason of this.
The cook answered, “Master, it is to hinder my tallow from burning, or being made too hot; which would spoil it, as I told you.”
“But how does the water hinder the tallow from being made too hot? for the water is hot itself, is it not?”
“It is, master; but still it keeps the tallow from being too hot; I can’t say how; but I know it is so, and I always do it so.”
“But I ask the reason; I want to know the reason, mamma,” said Frank.
“I will endeavor to explain the reason to you some other time, my dear,” said his mother; “but, first, let us look at what the cook is doing, that you may not miss seeing how candles are made.”
Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth Page 593