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II
ROBINSON AS AN APPRENTICE
In this way one year after another slipped by. Robinson was not more
diligent. He was now almost sixteen years old and had not learned
anything. Then came his birthday. In the afternoon his father called
him into his room. Robinson opened the door softly. There sat his
father with a sad face. He looked up and said, "Well, Robinson, all
your schoolmates have long been busy trying to learn something, so
that they may be able to earn their own living. Paul will be a baker,
Robert a butcher, Martin is learning to be a carpenter, Herman a
tailor, Otto a blacksmith, Fritz is going to high school, because he
is going to be a teacher. Now, you are still doing nothing. This will
not do. From this time on I wish you to think of becoming a merchant.
In the morning you will go with me to the store and begin work. If
you are attentive and skillful, when the time comes you can take up
my business and carry it on. But if you remain careless and continue
to idle about, no one will ever want you and you must starve because
you will never be able to earn a living."
So the next morning Robinson went to the store and began work. He
wrapped up sugar and coffee, he weighed out rice and beans. He sold
meal and salt, and when the dray wagon pulled up at the store, loaded
with new goods, he sprang out quickly and helped to unload it. He
carried in sacks of flour and chests of tea, and rolled in barrels
of coffee and molasses. He also worked some at the desk. He looked
into the account books and saw in neat writing, "Goods received" and
"Goods sold." He noticed how his father wrote letters and reckoned
up his accounts. He even took his pen in hand and put the addresses
on the letters and packages as well as he could.
But soon he was back in his careless habits. He was no longer
attentive to business. He wrapped up salt instead of sugar. He put
false weights on the scales. He gave some too much and others too
little. His hands, only, were in the business, his mind was far away
on the ocean with the ships. When he helped unload the wagons, he
would often let the chests and casks drop, so that they were broken
and their contents would run out on the ground. For he was always
thinking, "Where have these casks come from and how beautiful it must
be there!" And many times packages came back because Robinson had
written the name of the place or the country wrong. For when he was
writing the address, he was always thinking, "You will be laid upon
a wagon and will then go into the ship." One day he had to write a
letter to a man far over the sea. He could stand it no longer. His
father had gone out. He threw down the pen, picked up his hat and ran
out to the Hudson to see the ships, and from that time on he spent
more time loitering along the river than he did in the store.
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Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
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