The Little Mason

The little mason came today.

He was entirely dressed in the cast-off clothes of his father, which were still white with lime and plaster.

My father was even more anxious than I that he should come. How much pleasure he gives us!

We went to play with bits of wood:

the little mason possesed an extrordinary skill at making tower and bridges, which seemed to stand as though by miracle.

Between one tower and another he told me about his family:

they live in a garret; his father goes to the evening school to learen to ead, and his mother is a washerwoman.

And they must love him, of course, for he was cald like a poor boy, but he was well protected from the cold, with neatly mended clothes.

At four o'clock we ate some bread and cheese, as we sat on the safa; 

and when we rose, I do not know why, but my father did not wish me to brush off the back, which the little mason had spotted with plaster from his clothes.

My father restrained my hand.

While we were playing, the little mason lost a button from his clothes, and my mother sewed it on.

He grew quite red, and began to watch her sew in perfect amazement.

After the little mason had left, my father told mt the follwing:

Do you kniw, my son, why I did not wish you to wiple off the sofa?

Because to wipe it while your companion was looking on would have been almost the same as giveing a reproof to him for having soiled it.

And this was not well, in the first place, because he did not do it intentionally.

and in the next, because he did it with the clothes of his father, who had covered them with plaster while at work.

and what is contracted while at work is not dirt, it is dust, lime, varnish, whatever you like, but it is not dirt.

Labor does not engender dirt. Never say of a laborer coming from his work, He is filthy.

You should say, He has on his clothes the signs, the traces, of his toil.

Remember this. And you must love the little mason, first, because he is your classmate, and next, because his is the son of a workingman.