Part 15 (1/2)

”Oh, yes, long ago,” cried Mona. ”He's always up first in the house, and as soon as he's dressed he calls me. He'll be at breakfast by this time, and wondering what can have become of me.”

So Willie went with her, and there was Mr Shepherd, as she had said, already seated at breakfast.

”What have you been about, Mona, my child?” he asked, as soon as he had shaken hands with Willie.

”We've been helping the sun to rise,” said Mona, merrily.

”No, no,” said Willie; ”we've only been having a peep at him in bed, before he got up.”

”Oh, yes,” chimed in Mona. ”And he was so fast asleep!--and snoring,”

she added, with a comical expression and tone, as if it were a thing not to be mentioned save as a secret.

But Willie did not like the word, and her father was of the same mind.

”No, no,” said Mr Shepherd; ”that's not respectful, Mona. I don't like you to talk that way, even in fun, of the great light of the earth.

There are more good reasons for objecting to it than you would quite understand yet. Willie would not talk like that, I am sure. Tell me what you have been about, my boy.”

Willie explained the whole matter, and asked if he might call Mona the next time he went out with his kite in the morning.

Mr Shepherd consented at once; and Mona said he had only to call from his window into their garden, and she would be sure to hear him even if she was asleep.

The next thing Willie did was to construct a small windla.s.s in the garden, with which to wind up or let out the string of the kite; and when the next fit morning arrived, Mona and he went out together. The wind blowing right through the garden, they did not go to the open field, but sent up the kite from the windla.s.s, and Mona was able by means of the winch to let out the string, while Willie kept watching for the moment when the golden ball should catch the light. They did the same for several mornings after, and Willie managed, with the master's help, to calculate exactly the height to which the ball had flown when first it gained a peep of the sun in bed.

One windy evening they sent the kite up in the hope that it would fly till the morning; but the wind fell in the night, and when the sun came near there was no golden ball in the air to greet him. So, instead of rejoicing in its glitter far aloft, they had to set out, guided by the string, to find the fallen Lucifer. The kite was of small consequence, but the golden ball Willie could not replace. Alas! that very evening he had added a great length of string--so much, that when the wind ceased the kite could just reach the river, into which it fell; and when the searchers at length drew Sun-scout from the water they found his glory had departed; the golden ball had been beaten and ground upon the stones of the stream, and never more did they send him climbing up the heavens to welcome the lord of day.

Indeed, it was many years before Willie flew a kite again, for, after a certain conversation with his grandmother, he began to give a good deal more time to his lessons than hitherto; and while his recreations continued to be all of a practical sort, his reading was mostly such as prepared him for college.

CHAPTER XVIII.

WILLIE'S TALK WITH HIS GRANDMOTHER.

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?”