“O,” says the cooper, “mine is a hard lot, forever trotting round like a dog, driving away at this hoop.”
“Heigho,” sighs the blacksmith, “this is life with a vegeance, melting and frying one’s self over the fire.”
“O, that I were a carpenter,” ejaculates the shoemaker. “Here I am, day after day, working away, cooped up in this little seven-by-nine room.”
“I am sick of this out-door work,” exclaims the carpenter, “broiling and sweating under the sun—if I were only a tailor.”
“This is too bad,” cries the tailor, “to be compelled to sit perched up here plying my needle; would that mine were a more aetive life.”
“Were ever such a life as mine?” said the housemaid, “ever on the run to carry out the whims of missus.”
“The days are too long,” says the mistress; “how one is plagued with these servants.”
“Trade is shocking,” says the shopkeeper; “people won’t buy, and I can’t get my money in. I wish I were in a situation.”
“Happy fellow,” says the assistant; “here am I kept hard at it from morning to night, while master can go out whenever he pleases.”
“Was anything so perplexing?” says the merchant; “that bill due tomorrow, and not a penny in the bank to meet it; I wish I were out of this concern.
“O!” groans the lawyer, as he scratches his head over some perplexing case, “I would rather be stone-breaking than at this.”
“What! another ring at the bell,” says the doctor, as he turns out of his warm bed. “I wish I were sound asleep some twenty miles from here.”
And so it is, all through life; none content, nothing will satisfy but Christ. A real Christian never wished to be someting else.
ML 04/04/1943