"Do you understand astronomy, Hector?"
"No. It's not my business, you see, Willie."
"But you've just been telling me so much about the moon, and the way she keeps turning her face always to us--in the politest manner, as you said!"
"I got it all out of Mr. Dick's book. I don't understand it. I don't know why she does so. I know a few things that are not my business, just as you know a little about shoemaking, that not being your business; but I don't understand them for all that."
"Whose business is astronomy then?"
"Well," answered Hector, a little puzzled, "I don't see how it can well be anybody's business but God's, for I'm sure no one else can lay a hand to it."
"And what's your business, Hector?" asked Willie, in a half-absent mood....
"What is my business, Willie? Why, to keep people out of the dirt, of course."
"How?" asked Willie again.
"By making and mending their shoes. Mr. Dick, now, when he goes out to look at the stars through his telescope, might get his death of cold if his shoemaker did not know his business. Of the general business, it's a part God keeps to Himself to see that the stars go all right, and that the sun rises and sets at the proper times. For the time's not the same any two mornings running, you see, and he might make a mistake if he wasn't looked after, and that would be serious. But I told you I don't understand about astronomy, because it's not my business. I'm set to keep folk's feet off the cold and wet earth, and stones and broken glass; for however much a man may be an astronomer and look up at the sky, he must touch the earth with some part of him, and generally does so with his feet."
"And God sets you to do it, Hector?"
"Yes. It's the way He looks after people's feet. He's got to look after everything you know, or everything would go wrong. So He gives me the leather and the tools and the hands--and I must say the head, for it wants no little head to make a good shoe to measure--and it is as if He said to me--`There! You make shoes, while I keep the stars right.' Isn't a fine thing to have a hand in the general business?"
And Hector looked up with shining eyes in the face of the little boy, while he pulled at his rosen-ends as if he would make the boot strong enough to keep out evil spirits.
"I think it's a fine thing to have to make nice new shoes," said Willie; "but I don't think I should like to mend them when they are soppy and muddy and out of shape."
"If you would take your share in the general business, you mustn't be particular. It won't do to be above your business, as they say: for my part, I would say below your business. There's those boots in the corner now. They belong to your papa. And they come next. Don't you think it's an honour to keep the feet of such a good man dry and warm as he goes about from morning to night comforting people? Don't you think it's an honour to mend boots for him, even if they should be dirty?"
"Oh, yes--for papa!" said Willie, as if his papa must be an exception to any rule.
"Well," resumed Hector, "look at these great lace-boots. I shall have to fill the soles of them full of hobnails presently. They belong to the best ploughman in the parish--John Turnbull. Don't you think it's an honour to mend boots for a man who makes the best bed for the corn to die in?"
"I thought it was to grow in," said Willie.
"All the same," returned Hector. "When it dies, it grows--and not till then, as you will read in the New Testament. Isn't it an honour, I say, to mend boots for John Turnbull?"
"Oh, yes--for John Turnbull! I know John," said Willie, as if it made any difference to his merit whether Willie knew him or not!
"And there," Hector went on, "lies a pair of slippers that want patching. They belong to William Webster, the weaver, round the corner. They're very much down at the heel too. But isn't it an hounour to patch or set up slippers for a man who keeps his neighbors in fine linen all the days of their lives?"
"Yes, yes. I know William. It must be nice to do anything for William Webster."
"Suppose you didn't know him, would that make any difference?"
"No," said Willie, after thinking a little. "Other people would know him if I didn't."
"Yes, and if nobody knew him, God would know him; and anybody God has thought worth making, it's an honour to do anything for. Believe me, Willie, to have to keep people's feet dry and warm is a very important appointment."