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One evening in winter, when he had been putting coals on his grannie's fire, she told him to take a chair beside her, as she wanted a little talk with him. He obeyed her gladly.
"Well, Willie," she said, "what would you like to be?"
Willie had just been helping to shoe a horse at the smithy, and, in fact, had driven one of the nails—an operation perilous to the horse. Full of the thing which had last occupied him, he answered without a moment's hesitation—
"I should like to be a blacksmith, grannie."
The old lady smiled. She had seen more black on Willie's hands than could have come from the coals, and judged from that and his answer that he had just come from the smithy.
An unwise grandmother, had she wished to turn him from the notion, would have started an objection at once—probably calling it a dirty trade, or a dangerous trade, or a trade that the son of a professional man could not be allowed to follow; but Willie's grandmother knew better, and went on talking about the thing in the quietest manner.
"It's a fine trade," she said; "thorough manly work, and healthy,
I believe, notwithstanding the heat. But why would you take to it,
Willie?"
Willie fell back on his principles, and thought for a minute.
"Of course, if I'm to be any good at all I must have a hand in what
Hector calls the general business of the universe, grannie."
"To be sure; and that, as a smith, you would have; but why should you choose to be a smith rather than anything else in the world?"
"Because—because—people can't get on without horse-shoes, and ploughs and harrows, and tires for cart-wheels, and locks, and all that. It would help people very much if I were a smith."
"I don't doubt it. But if you were a mason you could do quite as much to make them comfortable; you could build them houses."
"Yes, I could. It would be delightful to build houses for people. I should like that."
"It's very hard work," said his grandmother. "Only you wouldn't mind that, I know, Willie."
"No man minds hard work," said Willie. "I think I should like to be a mason; for then, you see, I should be able to look at what I had done. The ploughs and carts would go away out of sight, but the good houses would stand where I had built them, and I should be able to see how comfortable the people were in them. I should come nearer to the people themselves that way with my work. Yes, grannie, I would rather be a mason than a smith."
"A carpenter fits up the houses inside," said his grandmother. "Don't you think, with his work, he comes nearer the people that live in it than the mason does?"
"To be sure," cried Willie, laughing. "People hardly see the mason's work, except as they're coming up to the door. I know more about carpenter's work too. Yes , grannie, I have settled now; I'll be a carpenter—there!" cried Willie, jumping up from his seat. "If it hadn't been for Mr Spelman, I don't see how we could have had you with us, grannie. Think of that!"
"Only, if you had been a tailor or a shoemaker, you would have come still nearer to the people themselves."
"I don't know much about tailoring," returned Willie. "I could stitch well enough, but I couldn't cut out. I could soon be a shoemaker, though. I've done everything wanted in a shoe or a boot with my own hands already; Hector will tell you so. I could begin to be a shoemaker to-morrow. That is nearer than a carpenter. Yes."
"I was going to suggest," said his grannie, "that there's a kind of work that goes yet nearer to the people it helps than any of those. But, of course, if you've made up your mind"—
"Oh no, grannie! I don't mean it so much as that—if there's a better way, you know. Tell me what it is."
"I want you to think and find out."
Willie thought, looked puzzled, and said he couldn't tell what it was.
"Then you must think a little longer," said his grandmother. "And now go and wash your hands."