“Brooklet, wherefore dost thou choose such a toilsome way for thyself? See yonder, where the flowers bloom and the moss makes a soft carpet! Turn aside from those cruel rocks, and linger where all is fresh and fair and sweet; and haste not to the haunts of men, where there are toil and trouble! Why wilt thou not rest and play here in this pleasant place?”
“Thou talkest foolishly, O mortal child! Not mine the choice. I have my appointed course and work set for me. I do but follow where the Master points the way. Amid rocks and melting snows I gather strength and volume for my journey; but I may not linger to disport myself in green valleys. I have a work to do for the Master, and He it is who bids me ever forward and onward. I am here to do His holy will.”
“Hadst thou laboured as I have in the heart of the city, thou wouldst not talk thus. Thou wouldst turn aside and do thine own pleasure. For sweet is freedom!”
“Nay,” murmured the brooklet, “sweet is service for Him. And blessed are they who serve the Master in His appointed way.”
Presently the child, being footsore and hungry, sought a place of shelter for the night, and finding himself in his wanderings at the door of a farmhouse, he craved food at the hands of the good folk there and a night’s lodging. These, taking pity on his loneliness, gave him bread to eat and milk to drink, and allowed him to make his bed amidst the fragrant hay in a loft above the cowshed.
That night, waking from the sleep of exhausted nature, he thought he heard the sound of voices beneath, and looking through a wide crack in the floor, saw that the cattle below were conversing with one another, nor did it surprise him, after all that had occurred to him that day, to find that he understood what they said to each other.
“Oh, how my bones do ache!” grumbled a young bullock, who had been working at the plough (as is the fashion in the country in which the child lived), “I have been yoked to the plough all day. And now I shall have but a few short hours’ rest before they take me forth again.”
“And we,” answered a pair of strong white oxen, who were greedily munching their fodder, having been that night brought into their stalls quite late, “we have been worse used than thou, brother; for we were up with the sun, and have been working till he set, dragging I know not how many loads of hay from the meadows to the yard. Truly our case is an evil one! And to-morrow will be like to-day. And after the hay comes the harvest, and nothing but work, work, work from morning till night. Ugh! Ugh!”