The Project Gutenberg eBook, Gutta-Percha Willie, by George MacDonald

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Title: Gutta-Percha Willie

Author: George MacDonald

Release Date: November 15, 2003 [eBook #10093]

Language: English

Chatacter set encoding: US-ASCII

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GUTTA-PERCHA WILLIE***

E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Andrea Ball, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Gutta Percha Willie: the Working Genius

BY

GEORGE MACDONALD

With eight black and white illustrations by Arthur Hughes

[Illustration: WILLIE'S HORSE-SHOEING FORGE.]

CONTENTS

I. WHO HE WAS AND WHERE HE WAS II. WILLIE'S EDUCATION III. HE IS TURNED INTO SOMETHING HE NEVER WAS BEFORE IV. HE SERVES AN APPRENTICESHIP V. HE GOES TO LEARN A TRADE VI. HOW WILLIE LEARNED TO READ BEFORE HE KNEW HIS LETTERS VII. SOME THINGS THAT CAME OF WILLIE'S GOING TO SCHOOL VIII. WILLIE DIGS AND FINDS WHAT HE DID NOT EXPECT IX. A MARVEL X. A NEW ALARUM XI. SOME OF THE SIGHTS WILLIE SAW XII. A NEW SCHEME XIII. WILLIE'S NEST IN THE RUINS XIV. WILLIE'S GRANDMOTHER XV. HYDRAULICS XVI. HECTOR HINTS AT A DISCOVERY XVII. HOW WILLIE WENT ON XVIII. WILLIE'S TALK WITH HIS GRANDMOTHER XIX. A TALK WITH MR SHEPHERD XX. HOW WILLIE DID HIS BEST TO MAKE A BIRD OF AGNES XXI. HOW AGNES LIKED BEING A BIRD XXII. WILLIE'S PLANS BUD XXIII. WILLIE'S PLANS BLOSSOM XXIV. WILLIE'S PLANS BEAR FRUIT

ILLUSTRATIONS

BY ARTHUR HUGHES

WILLIE'S HORSE-SHOEING FORGE (FRONTISPIECE) MRS WILSON'S STORIES WILLIE WITH THE BABY WILLIE TAKEN TO SEE A WATER-WHEEL WILLIE TOLD HIS FATHER ALL ABOUT IT "THAT'S WILLIE AGAIN" WILLIE MAKES A BIRD OF AGNES WILLIE'S DREAM

Summary:

Gutta Percha Willie, the Working Genius for all reading ages. We and Willie discover the value of learning to be useful with our hands to do that which is good and before us.

Reading Level: for all reading ages.

THE HISTORY OF GUTTA-PERCHA WILLIE.

CHAPTER I.

WHO HE WAS AND WHERE HE WAS.

When he had been at school for about three weeks, the boys called him Six-fingered Jack; but his real name was Willie, for his father and mother gave it him—not William, but Willie, after a brother of his father, who died young, and had always been called Willie. His name in full was Willie Macmichael. It was generally pronounced Macmickle, which was, by a learned anthropologist, for certain reasons about to appear in this history, supposed to have been the original form of the name, dignified in the course of time into Macmichael. It was his own father, however, who gave him the name of Gutta-Percha Willie, the reason of which will also show itself by and by.

Mr Macmichael was a country doctor, living in a small village in a thinly-peopled country; the first result of which was that he had very hard work, for he had often to ride many miles to see a patient, and that not unfrequently in the middle of the night; and the second that, for this hard work, he had very little pay, for a thinly-peopled country is generally a poor country, and those who live in it are poor also, and cannot spend much even upon their health. But the doctor not only preferred a country life, although he would have been glad to have richer patients, and within less distances of each other, but he would say to any one who expressed surprise that, with his reputation, he should remain where he was—"What's to become of my little flock if I go away, for there are very few doctors of my experience who would feel inclined to come and undertake my work. I know every man, woman, and child in the whole country-side, and that makes all the difference." You see, therefore, that he was a good kind-hearted man, and loved his work, for the sake of those whom he helped by it, better than the money he received for it.

Their home was necessarily a very humble one—a neat little cottage in the village of Priory Leas—almost the one pretty spot thereabout. It lay in a valley in the midst of hills, which did not look high, because they rose with a gentle slope, and had no bold elevations or grand-shaped peaks. But they rose to a good height notwithstanding, and the weather on the top of them in the wintertime was often bitter and fierce—bitter with keen frost, and fierce with as wild winds as ever blew. Of both frost and wind the village at their feet had its share too, but of course they were not so bad down below, for the hills were a shelter from the wind, and it is always colder the farther you go up and away from the heart of this warm ball of rock and earth upon which we live. When Willie's father was riding across the great moorland of those desolate hills, and the people in the village would be saying to each other how bitterly cold it was, he would be thinking how snug and warm it was down there, and how nice it would be to turn a certain corner on the road back, and slip at once out of the freezing wind that had it all its own way up among the withered gorse and heather of the wide expanse where he pursued his dreary journey.

For his part, Willie cared very little what the weather was, but took it as it came. In the hot summer, he would lie in the long grass and get cool; in the cold winter, he would scamper about and get warm. When his hands were as cold as icicles, his cheeks would be red as apples. When his mother took his hands in hers, and chafed them, full of pity for their suffering, as she thought it, Willie first knew that they were cold by the sweet warmth of the kind hands that chafed them: he had not thought of it before. Climbing amongst the ruins of the Priory, or playing with Farmer Thomson's boys and girls about the ricks in his yard, in the thin clear saffron twilight which came so early after noon, when, to some people, every breath seemed full of needle-points, so sharp was the cold, he was as comfortable and happy as if he had been a creature of the winter only, and found himself quite at home in it.

For there were ruins, and pretty large ruins too, which they called the Priory. It was not often that monks chose such a poor country to settle in, but I suppose they had their reasons. And I dare say they were not monks at all, but begging friars, who founded it when they wanted to reprove the luxury and greed of the monks; and perhaps by the time they had grown as bad themselves, the place was nearly finished, and they could not well move it. They had, however, as I have indicated, chosen the one pretty spot, around which, for a short distance on every side, the land was tolerably good, and grew excellent oats if poor wheat, while the gardens were equal to apples and a few pears, besides abundance of gooseberries, currants, and strawberries.

The ruins of the Priory lay behind Mr Macmichael's cottage—indeed, in the very garden—of which, along with the house, he had purchased the fen—that is, the place was his own, so long as he paid a small sum—not more than fifteen shillings a year, I think—to his superior.