Tárogató, 1950 (13. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1950-07-01 / 1-2. szám
TÁROGATÓ 13 HOW DIFFERENT There was a boy, once, who was sent from school into a lawyer’s office. He thought law was the driest subject under the sun, and he grumbled so much about it that the other clerks nicknamed him “Grumbling Geoffrey.” One day the lawyer, who was a friend of Geoffrey’s father, sent for the boy and gave him a bit of sound advice. He told him, among other things, that there were just two kinds of workers in the world — those who worked to live and those who lived to work. The first class worked just for bread and butter; the second loved their work and made it their hobby. And there was no question as to which class got pleasure out of their work. Well, Geoffrey was possessed of a good deal of common sense in spite of his grumblings. He had been trying the “work to live” plan and that had failed, so he thought he would try the other for a change. He began to ask questions about what he was doing, to take notice of the letters and deeds he had to copy, to dip into law-books. By and by the subject began to interest him, and he got more fascinated as time went on. If any legal question cropped up at home, he was always ready to discuss it and give his advice. One day a friend said to him, “It’s a dreary subject, law, isn’t it?” “Dreary,” said Geoffrey, “why it’s the most interesting subject in the world!” He had discovered what fun learning really is. You may do the same with school work. It is the boys and girls who are at the top of the class who are really enjoying school. DAVID’S WHALE By Isabel Briffett David took a firmer grip on the length of heavy net he held in his hands and pulled as hard as he could. The next thing he knew he was sprawled on the pebbly beach while a shout of laughter rose around him. It was good-natured laughter though — except for Phil’s. “When a fellow helps to land a net, he has to watch out for slippery stones under his feet,” Joe said. “Here you are, Dave, catch hold again ... coil away there, Phil.” Phil scowled. “Dave’s only in the way,” he grumbled, his freckled nose wrinkling in disgust; “the kind of a city slicker Gramp won’t find very useful on a rainy day.” David flushed to the roots of his hair. Gramp’s rainy day had come a month before when the rheumatism, which the old fisherman said had been chasing him for forty years, had caught up with him and put him in bed right in the height of the fishing season. “As mean a job as ever I heard of”, Gramp had exploded more than once that first day when David, who had come to spend part of his holidays in the harbour, had been taken up to see him, “but we’ll lick the enemy just the same, yes siree. Joe’s been my right-hand man for years and Phil has decided to pitch in and help him. ... Now that you’re come, the three of you ought to be worth at least one and a half of me.” “And I’ve just been making a nuisance of myself, that’s all,” David thought as he brushed the sand from his clothes and caught hold of the net again. “When I pick up a dipnet, it turns over in my hands. When I catch hold of an oar, its blade hits the water as if it were a shovel.” His shoulders dropped despondently. “This net’s going to be a toughie to get clean,” Phil muttered. He stopped coiling, took a deep breath, and looked out over the shimmering sea, “Say, what’s that out there?” he shouted. Joe and David glanced up just in time to see a dozen spouts of water rise high in the air. “Whales, boys, whales!” Joe shouted. The other fishermen on the beach took up the cry. It was not every day that whales came so far up the long seaarm, but, when they did, the men of the harbour always managed to get a few of the monsters and sell them for a fair price to the factory on an outside island.
