“What is your occupation?”
That was the question which a King of Egypt once put to five brothers who were presented at his court.
“What is your occupation?”
And they replied, “We are shepherds.”
In very early times, a man’s name was often taken from his occupation. If he made shoes for horses, his name was Smith; if he looked after sheep, they called him Shepherd. In that way a great many of our common surnames originated.
If you were called by your occupation, I wonder what it would be. What do you do? Nothing? Suppose then we call you John Nothing, how would you like that? It would be very hard lines, of course, for boys and girls to be called names of that sort, before they have been long enough in the world to choose an occupation for themselves. I am not saying that it would be fair to expect you, at your age, to have earned a name like Carpenter or Taylor or Fisher or Paynter. But there are some things which you are constantly doing which would look very funny if they were put into your names. If, for example, a girl were called Mary Meddler because she was always putting things into disorder, or a boy called Richard Pockets because he was everlastingly dawdling around with his hands in them.
The time will come along quickly enough for you to have a serious occupation, and I don’t want to hurry you in the least. Your business just now is to play all you can, and learn everything that comes in your way. But still, if there is one name better than another that I would like you to be called by it is this— “Helper,” because your occupation is to be on hand when you are wanted to do something useful and helpful for somebody else.
Johnny “Helper,”—that is what his real name was, according to his occupation. And one day, his mother, looking out of the window, said, “Dear me, if that isn’t old Mrs. Brand coming up the road!”
“Yes, it is,” said Johnny.
“She’ll be sure to stay to tea. I won’t say I’m sorry she’s coming, but my work’s all behind today. And my last jar of raspberry jam’s been working, so it isn’t fit to eat, and I haven’t a bit of fruit for tea.”
Johnny wanted to ask what kind of work the raspberry jam had been doing, but he knew it was no time for questions when his mother was worried. So, he said,
“Mother, I think I could find enough strawberries for tea, if I look hard.”
“No, Johnny, I’m quite sure there are not enough of them ripe.”
“But if there were only a few,” insisted Johnny, “you could flatten them out in the dish so they’d look like a good many; and when you said, ‘Have some strawberries, Johnny?’ I’d say, ‘No thank you, Mother,’ and then they’d go round, you see.”
His mother laughed and shook her head, but she said, “Well, you may go and try,”— and, as Mrs. Brand came in at the front door, Johnny slipped out at the back, with a basket in his hand.
“I’ll see, anyhow,” said Johnny to himself, lifting up the biggest strawberry leaves, and delighted at seeing some nice ripe berries; “I thought so, I thought we hadn’t had these two hot days for nothing.”
He bent eagerly over the bed, being careful not to miss any, and wondering all the time why raspberry jam had any work to do, and if it worked as hard as his mother did, or as hard as he was working to get these strawberries. But as the basket filled up, he forgot all about the hard work, as he thought how pleased mother would be to see so many.
When at last he carried them in, his mother was just finishing setting the table for tea, and thinking how trying it was to have nothing but a dish of honey, when Mrs. Brand had bees of her own, and was probably tired of the sight of it. She was just as surprised and delighted as she could be when she saw the strawberries.
“Well, done, Johnny—you are a blessing.” And Johnny sat down to tea as pleased as could be—and when the berries were helped, he said, with a very big smile on his face, which only mother understood, “Yes, if you please, mother!” And she gave him plenty.
Yes, make it your business to be a “Helper.” You are old enough to do that, every one of you.
Some boys are always looking out for the next thing to do for themselves, but it never seems to occur to them that they are in the world to be of use to anyone else. They know when the next cricket match is coming off, but they never know where to find things when they are wanted in the house. They can find time to go and hear the band play in the park, or to see a menagerie coming up the street, although half-an-hour before they were so awfully busy about their lessons that they couldn’t possibly be disturbed to run an errand. “I’ll tell you what it is, Dick,” said his father— “when you want to do anything, nothing’ll stop you, and when you don’t want, nothing’ll make you. What you’ve got to learn is, to think of somebody beside yourself.”
There is no room for lazy people in this world. They are like nettles—a nuisance in gardens, where we want to grow something better. They are only fit for rubbish heaps and ditches, and we leave them there, because it is too much trouble to cut them down.
Take those hands out of your pockets. What is your occupation? Thomas Lazybones sounds bad. Johnny Helper is better.