The cook, on her return to the farm-house, found the linen
burnt that she had hung up before the fire to dry; and the milkmaid,
having forgotten in her haste to tie up the cattle in the cow-house, one
of the loose cows had broken the leg of a colt that happened to be kept
in the same shed. The linen burnt and the gardener's work lost were
worth full five pounds, and the colt worth nearly double that money: so
that here was a loss in a few minutes of a large sum, purely for want of
a little latch which might have been supplied for a few halfpence. Life
is full of illustrations of a similar kind. When small things are
habitually neglected, ruin is not far off. It is the hand of the
diligent that maketh rich; and the diligent man or woman is attentive to
small things as well as great. The things may appear very little and
insignificant, yet attention to them is as necessary as to matters of
greater moment.
Take, for instance, the humblest of coins--a penny. What is the use of
that little piece of copper--a solitary penny? What can it buy? Of what
use is it? It is half the price of a glass of beer. It is the price of a
box of matches. It is only fit for giving to a beggar. And yet how much
of human happiness depends upon the spending of the penny well.
A man may work hard, and earn high wages; but if he allows the pennies,
which are the result of hard work, to slip out of his fingers--some
going to the beershop, some this way, and some that,--he will find that
his life of hard work is little raised above a life of animal drudgery.
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