MR. Peters, a somewhat eccentric old merchant, put up a notice in a window of his store that there was a “Boy Wanted,” and the card remained there a great while before he found the boy he was after. John Simmons and Charlie Jones, and one or two besides, were taken for a few days, but none of them stood trial.
Mr. Peters had a peculiar way of trying them. There was a huge long box in the attic, full of old nails and screws, and miscellaneous bits of rusty hardware, and when a new boy came, the old gentlemen presently found occasion to send him up there to set the box to rights, and he judged the quality of the boy by the way he managed the work. All pottered over it more or less, but soon gave it up in disgust, and reported that there was nothing in the box worth saving.
At last Crawford Mills was hired. He knew none of the other boys, and so did his errands in blissful ignorance of the “long box” until the second morning of his stay, when in a leisure hour he was sent to put it in order. The morning passed, lunch-time came, and still Crawford had not appeared from the attic. At last Mr. Peters called him.
“About through?”
“No, sir; there is ever so much more to do.”
“All right, it is lunch-time now; you may go back to it after lunch.”
After lunch back he went. All the afternoon he was not heard from, but just as Mr. Peters was deciding to call him again, he appeared.
“I’ve done my best, sir,” he said, “and down at the very bottom of the box I found this.” “This” was a five-dollar gold piece, which Crawford handed to Mr. Peters.
“That’s a queer place for gold,” said Mr. Peters; “its good you found it. Well, sir, I suppose you will be on hand tomorrow morning?” This he said putting the gold piece into his pocketbook.
After Crawford had said good-night and gone, Mr. Peters took the lantern, and went slowly up the attic stairs. There was the long deep box in which the rubbish of twenty-five years had gathered.
Crawford had evidently been to the bottom of it; he had fitted in pieces of shingle to make compartments, and in the different tills he had placed the articles, with bits of shingle laid on top, labeled thus: “Good screws,” “Pretty good nails,” “Picture nails,” “Small keys some-what bent,” “Picture books,” “Pieces of iron, whose use I don’t know,” and so on through the long box.
The box was in perfect order at last, and very little that could be called useful was to be found within it. But Mr. Peters, as he read the labels, laughed and said, “If we are not both mistaken, I have found a boy, and he has found a fortune.”
Sure enough, the sign disappeared from the window, and was seen no more. Crawford became errand boy to the well-known firm of Peters & Co. He spent his evenings in his little room, and Mr. Peters gave him a motto which he hung at the foot of his bed,
All this happened a long time ago. Crawford Mills is an errand boy no more, but the firm is now “Peters, Mills, & Co.”
May all of our friends who know the Lord Jesus as their Saviour, ask Him for grace, strength and guidance to do their work, whether at home, school, or at business, in a way pleasing to Him. The Christian should do his or her work in the very best way.
ML 03/13/1927