They went on working together for some time, and talking while they worked. Rollo was continually asking his father questions, and his father sometimes answered them, and sometimes did not, but was silent and thoughtful, as if he was thinking of something else. But whether he got answers or not, Rollo went on talking.
“Father,” said Rollo, at length, after a short pause, during which he had been busily at work putting twigs into his wheelbarrow, “Henry has got a very interesting book.”
His father did not answer.
“I think it is a very interesting book indeed. Should not you like to read it, father?”
His father was just then reaching up very high to saw off a pretty large limb, and he paid no attention to what Rollo was saying. So Rollo went on talking half to himself—
“One story is about Aladdin and his lamp. If he rubbed his lamp, he could have whatever he wished; something would come, I have forgotten what its name was, and bring him whatever he asked for.”
Just then, down came the great branch which his father had been sawing off, falling from its place on the tree to the ground.
Rollo looked at it a moment, and then, when his father began sawing again, he said,
“Should not you like such a lamp, father?”
“Such a lamp as what, my son?” said his father.
“Why, such a one as Aladdin’s.”
“Aladdin’s! why, what do you know of Aladdin’s lamp?”
“Why, I read about it in Henry’s story book,” said Rollo. “I just told you, father.”
“Did you?” said his father. “Won’t you just hand me up the paint brush?”
“Well, father,” said Rollo, as he handed him the brush, “don’t you wish you had an Aladdin’s lamp?”
“No, not particularly,” said his father.
“O father!” exclaimed Rollo, with surprise, “I am sure I do. Don’t you wish I had such a lamp, father?”
“No,” said his father.
“Why, father, I really think I could do some good with it. For instance, I could just rub my lamp, and then have all your trees pruned for you, at once, without any further trouble.”
“But that would not be worth while; for you might have a much larger and better garden than this made at once, with thousands of trees, bearing delicious fruit; and ponds, and waterfalls, and beautiful groves.”
“O, so I could,” said Rollo.
“And, then, how soon do you think you should get tired of it, and want another?”
“O, perhaps, I should want another pretty soon; but then I could have another, you know.”
“Yes, and how long do you think you could find happiness, in calling beautiful gardens into existence, one after another?”
“O, I don’t know;—a good while.”
“A day?”
“O, yes, father.”
“A week?”
“Why, perhaps, I should be tired in a week.”
“Then all your power of receiving enjoyment from gardens would be run out and exhausted in a week; whereas mine, without any Aladdin’s lamp, lasts me year after year, pleasantly increasing all the time without ever reaching satiety.”
“What is satiety, father?”
“The feeling we experience when we have had so much of a good thing that we are completely tired and sick of it. If I should give a little child as much honey as he could eat, or let him play all the time, or buy him a vast collection of pictures, he would soon get tired of these things.”
“O father, I never should get tired of looking at pictures.”
“I think you would,” said his father.
Here the conversation stopped a few minutes, while Rollo went to wheel away a load of his sticks. Before he returned, he had prepared himself to renew his argument. He said,
“Father, even if I did get tired of making beautiful gardens, I could then do something else with the lamp, and that would give me new pleasure.”
“Yes, but the new pleasure would be run out and exhausted just as soon as the pleasure of having a garden would have been; so that you would, in a short time, be satiated with every thing, and become completely wretched and miserable.”
“But, father,” said Rollo, after being silent a little while, “I don’t think I should get tired of my beautiful gardens very soon: I don’t think I should get tired even of looking at pictures of them.”
“Should you like to try the experiment?”
“Yes, sir,” said Rollo, very eagerly.
Rollo’s father had a great many books of pictures and engravings of various kinds in his library; and sometimes he used to allow the children to see them, but only a very few at a time. They had not yet seen them all. He only allowed them to see them as fast as they had time to examine them thoroughly, and read about them and understand them. But now he said to Rollo,
“I could let you have all the books of prints and engravings I have got, and see them all at one time, and that would be giving you Aladdin’s lamp, exactly, so far as my pictures are concerned.”
“Well,” said Rollo, clapping his hands.
“But then, in a short time, you would get tired of looking at them; you would become satiated, and would in fact spoil the whole pleasure by attempting to enjoy it too fast. But then I think it would perhaps do you good.”
“How, father?”
“Why, by teaching you the value of moderation, and the uselessness of Aladdin’s lamps in all human enjoyments. It would be a very valuable experiment in intellectual philosophy, which I think it very probable might be of use to you. So, if you please, you may try it.”
“Well, father, I am sure I should like to see the pictures.”
“That is all settled then,” said his father; “some day you shall.”
THE GREAT BEETLE AND WEDGE
Rollo was coming home one morning after having been away on an errand, and he saw a large wood pile near Farmer Cropwell’s door. Now it happened that Rollo had once been on a journey pretty far back into the country; it was at the time when Jonas told him and Lucy the stories related in the book called “Jonas’s Stories.” On that journey, Jonas had one day told him that the sap of the maple-tree was sweet, and had let him taste of some, where it oozed out at the end of the log. Seeing Farmer Cropwell’s wood pile reminded Rollo of this; and he thought he would look at the ends of all the logs, and see if he could not find some drops of sweet sap there.
But he could not, for two reasons: none of those trees were maple-trees, and then, besides, they were all dry. There was no sap in them of any kind; at least, not enough to ooze out. While Rollo was looking there, one of Farmer Cropwell’s large boys came out with an axe in his hand. He rolled out a pretty large log of wood, though it was not very long, and struck his axe into the end of it, as if he was going to split it.
“I don’t believe you can split that great log,” said Rollo.
“I don’t expect to do it with the axe,” said the boy, as he left the axe sticking in the log.
“How then?” said Rollo.
“I have got beetle and wedges here, round behind the wood pile.”
So the boy went to another side of the wood pile, and brought a large beetle and an iron wedge. When he got back to his log, he started out the axe which he had left sticking into it. Then Rollo saw that the axe had made a little indentation, or cleft, in the wood. He put the point of