Little Daffydowndilly, and other stories. Nathaniel Hawthorne

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      “Oh dear me!” whispered he, turning pale, “It seems as if there was nobody but Mr. Toil in the world. Who could have thought of his playing on a fiddle!”

      “This is not your old schoolmaster,” observed the stranger, “but another brother of his, who was bred in France, where he learned the profession of a fiddler. He is ashamed of his family, and generally calls himself Monsieur le Plaisir; but his real name is Toil, and those who have known him best think him still more disagreeable than his brothers.”

      ​ “Pray let us go a little farther,” said Daffydowndilly. “I don’t like the looks of this fiddler at all.”

      Well, thus the stranger and little Daffydowndilly went wandering along the highway, and in shady lanes, and through pleasant villages; and whithersoever they went, behold! there was the image of old Mr. Toil. He stood like a scarecrow in the cornfields. 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 there was sure to be somebody wearing the likeness of Mr. Toil, and who, as the stranger affirmed, was one of the old schoolmaster’s innumerable brethren.

      Little Daffydowndilly was almost tired to death, when he perceived some people reclining lazily in a shady place, by the side of the road. The poor child entreated his companion that they might sit down there, and take some repose.

      “Old Mr. Toil will never come here,” said he; “for he hates to see people taking their ease.”

      But, even while he spoke, Daffydowndilly’s eyes fell upon a person who seemed the laziest, and heaviest, and most torpid of all those lazy and heavy and torpid people who had lain down to sleep in the shade. Who should it be, again, but the very image of Mr. Toil!

      “There is a large family of these Toils,” remarked the stranger. “This is another of the old schoolmaster’s brothers, who was bred in Italy, where he acquired very idle habits, and goes by the name of Signor Far Niente. He pretends to lead an easy life, but is really the most miserable fellow in the family.”

      ​ “Oh take me back! take me back !” cried poor little Daffydowndilly, bursting into tears. “If there is nothing but Toil all the world over, I may just as well go back to the school-house!”

      “Yonder it is, there is the school-house!” said the stranger; for though he and little Daffydowndilly had taken a great many steps, they had travelled in a circle instead of a straight line. “Come; we will go back to school together.”

      There was something in his companion’s voice that little Daffydowndilly 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 was doing his best to run away from him. Some people, to whom I have told little Daffydowndilly’s story, are of opinion that old Mr. Toil was a magician, and possessed the power of multiplying himself into as many shapes as he saw fit.

      Be this as it may, little Daffydowndilly had learned a good lesson, and from that time forward was diligent at his task, because he 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 that his ways were not so very disagreeable, and that the old schoolmaster’s smile of approbation made his face almost as pleasant as even that of Daffydowndilly’s mother.

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