Lesson:

1. Now Hugh and the stranger had not gone much further, when they met a company of soldiers, gayly dressed, with feathers in their caps, and glittering muskets on their shoulders. In front marched the drummers and fifers, making such merry music that Hugh would gladly have followed them to the end of the world. If he were only a soldier, he said to himself, old Mr. Toil would never venture to look him in the face.


2. 'Quickstep! forward! march!' shouted a gruff voice.


3. Little Hugh started in great dismay; for this voice sounded precisely like that which he had heard every day in Mr. Toil's schoolroom. And turning his eyes to the captain of the company, what should he see but the very image of old Mr. Toil himself, in an officer's dress, to be sure, but looking as ugly and disagreeable as ever.


4. 'This is certainly old Mr. Toil,' said Hugh, in a trembling voice. 'Let us away, for fear he should make us enlist in his company.'


5. 'You are mistaken again, my little friend,' replied the stranger very composedly. 'This is only a brother of Mr. Toil's, who has served in the army all his life. You and I need not be afraid of him.'


6. 'Well, well,' said Hugh, 'if you please, sir, I don't want to see the soldiers any more.' So the child and the stranger resumed their journey; and, after awhile, they came to a house by the roadside, where a number of young men and rosy-cheeked girls, with smiles on their faces, were dancing to the sound of a fiddle.


7. 'Oh, let us stop here,' cried Hugh; 'Mr. Toil will never dare to show his face where there is a fiddler, and where people are dancing and making merry.'


8. But the words had scarcely died away on the little boy's tongue, when, happening to cast his eyes on the fiddler, whom should he behold again but the likeness of Mr. Toil, armed with a fiddle bow this time, and flourishing it with as much ease and dexterity as if he had been a fiddler all his life.


9. 'Oh, dear me!' whispered he, turning pale; 'it seems as if there were nobody but Mr. Toil in the world.'


10. 'This is not your old schoolmaster,' observed the stranger, 'but another brother of his, who has learned to be a fiddler. He is ashamed of his family, and generally calls himself Master Pleasure; but his real name is Toil, and those who know him best think him still more disagreeable than his brothers.'


11. 'Pray, let us go on,' said Hugh.


12. Well, thus the two went wandering along the highway and in shady lanes and through pleasant villages, and wherever they went, behold! there was the image of old Mr. Toil. If they entered a house, he sat in the parlor; if they peeped into the kitchen, he was there! He made himself at home in every cottage, and stole, under one disguise or another, into the most splendid mansions. Everywhere they stumbled on some of the old schoolmaster's innumerable brothers.


13. At length, little Hugh found himself completely worn out with running away from Mr. Toil. 'Take me back! take me back!' cried the poor fellow, bursting into tears. 'If there is nothing bat Toil all the world over, I may just as well go back to the schoolhouse.'


14. 'Yonder it is; there is the schoolhouse!' said the stranger; for though he and little Hugh had taken a great many steps, they had traveled in a circle instead of a straight line. 'Come, we will go back to the school together.'


15. There was something in his companion's voice that little Hugh now remembered; and it is strange that he had not remembered it sooner. Looking up into his face, behold! there again was the likeness of old Mr. Toil, so that the poor child had been in company with Toil all day, even while he had been doing his best to run away from him.


16. Little Hugh Idle, however, had learned a good lesson, and from that time forward was diligent at his task, because he now knew that diligence is not a whit more toilsome than sport or idleness. And when he became better acquainted with Mr. Toil, he began to think his ways were not so disagreeable, and that the old schoolmaster's smile of approbation made his face sometimes appear almost as pleasant as even that of Hugh's mother.





DEFINITIONS


1. Venture: To dare, to risk.


3. Dismay: Fright, terror.


3. Precisely: Exactly.


4. Enlist: To put one's name on a roll, to join.


5. Composedly: Calmly, quietly.


6. Resumed: Recommenced.


10. Observed: Remarked.


12. Innumerable: Not to be counted.


16. Approbation: The act of regarding with pleasure.





EXERCISES


1. To whose school was Hugh Idle sent?


2. Why did lie run away?


3. Relate the adventures of Hugh and the stranger.


4. What lesson is taught by this story?